Conference moderator Prof Greg Clark closed the recent 2024 ULI Europe Conference in Milan with reflections on the key topics that were discussed.

1. Geopolitics is the new weather. José Manuel Barroso, the former President of the European Commission, reminded us that European coordination and co-investment are now essential if we are to promote our values and way of life in an increasingly volatile and uncertain world. We need to act together with conviction not just on trade, economy, and labour markets, but also on climate, defence, technology, energy, food, and water.

2. Macroeconomics must address this new complexity. Janet Henry, global chief economist, HSBC, observed that we simultaneously have ‘green shoots’ of growth and ‘dark clouds’ of doubt. This means simple propositions on rate cuts and public debt are much harder to assess, with consequences for ‘wrong calls’ higher than ever, as geopolitics and almost 60 elections in one year create a challenging climate for policy.

3. Our brilliant panel observed that ‘ESG’ has been an important catalyst to raise agendas and shape business and investment paths. But ‘ESG’ has become ‘weaponised’ by confusion and opposition. What is now needed is clarity and focus on 3 things, decarbonisation, housing attainability, and resilience. Climate is a risk shared by all in the real estate ecosystem, but not all real estate investors and operators are sharing the responsibility. We need clear rules, standards, and metrics that enable the responsibility to be held in common.

4. Our occupiers observed that the future is not the past. New and intense dynamics in locational decisions, corporate structures, occupier behaviours, talent strategies, technology optimisation, and hybrid working, mean that partnership, intense collaboration, and co-creation between occupiers and operators are now essential, and can include cost and risk sharing. Hybrid working has not altered productivity in the short run, it appears, but it may be eroding innovation capacity. The pace of change will be faster than previously assumed.5. Our executive leadership panel confirmed that all crises are opportunities, but only the best leaders are able to embrace them. By understanding crisis, finding its roots, and thinking differently, we can remake value through recommitting, repositioning, repurposing, or retrofitting. But we need to see the opportunities the crisis creates, and to take our partners and people with us. That is leadership.

6. The Mayor of Milan, Guiseppe Sala, gave us a brilliant articulation of the power of the city. The 4th largest urban economy in Europe, and the only one in the top 5 that is not a capital city, Milan is a city of design, knowledge, commerce, technology, and innovation. It combines the Italian model of agile entrepreneurship with the corporate depth of Italian industry, augmented by cosmopolitanism, expanding city infrastructures and services, and a huge talent pool. Milan is open for partnerships and is supporting a new cycle of co-investment.

7. The state of constant reinvention revealed by Kjetil Traedal Thorsen, cofounder, Snøhetta, reminded us that nature responds to the combination of local materials, ancient crafts, and new technologies. In designing buildings and places that use natural resources and crafts at new scales, we reach back into our inherited indigeneity to reshape our cities according to their latent DNA. This produces places that are both authentic and frugal, they please the human spirit and protect the planet.

8. Federica Brignone, world champion skier, shared her inspiring story of how a world champion emerges within a humble and talented person, who is willing to work hard. She reminded us that water is what fuels human life: rivers, lakes, oceans, snow, ice, hail, and rain are the life force that made human evolution possible. She is on a one-woman mission to reconnect us with the value of water, and our need to protect and conserve it.

9. I concluded the conference with a reminder that ULI was founded in the 1930s in the depths of the great depression, when many people in the USA began to doubt the wisdom of urbanisation, and to seek a return to a more simple and rural way of life.

10. ULI’s founders proposed that only the combinations and concentrations of sectors, land uses, technologies, experiences, collaborations, and interactions that can be fostered in cities can serve the longer-term needs of humankind. They established ULI to promote that cause. What ignited our ancestors should inspire us today. It is by making and remaking our cities, that the real needs of people and the planet are best served.

See you next year!

The 2025 ULI Europe Conference will take place 16-19 June in London.

All photography: Karla Gowlett/ULI