February 23, 2021
CBRE acquires 35 percent stake in flexible office provider Industrious
CBRE Group has announced the acquisition of a 35 percent interest in Industrious, a provider of flexible office space, which will also see CBRE’s existing flexible workplace firm Hana absorbed into Industrious. CBRE is now Industrious’ largest shareholder. In addition, CBRE is expected to acquire an additional 5 percent of Industrious in the coming weeks, which would result in a 40 percent total stake. The investment significantly increases CBRE’s participation in the flexible workplace sector and positions the company to meet rising demand from occupiers for agile space solutions — a trend that is being accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic. (more…)
Two and a half million Brits are expected to be unemployed this year after the fall out of the pandemic. A concern for many has been how disabled people will fare with the aftermath. The unemployment rate for people with disabilities is more than twice those who are able bodied. 
Opening its doors in late 2020, The Inverurie Community Campus in Aberdeenshire is a new £55m facility. One of the largest school constructions in Scotland, its 360 rooms accommodate 1,600 pupils and provides amenities such as a youth café, a community centre, and a swimming pool for students and the wider community. 
Microsoft has announced Microsoft Viva, which it claims is the first employee experience platform to bring tools for employee engagement, learning, wellbeing and knowledge discovery, directly into people’s workflow. Viva is designed to help employees ‘learn, grow and thrive’ in the new era of working life, and is designed to work alongside existing solutions such as Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams. 
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Smart Building Certification, the organisation behind the smart accreditation, awarded its first platinum building. The founders of Smart Building Certification handed the first official platinum certification over to Coen van Oostrom, Founder and CEO of EDGE. 
Mace has announced that it has achieved its ambition to be a net zero carbon business in 2020. Following the statement in January 2020 that the company had committed to the ambitious target, the executive board has confirmed that after driving down its carbon emissions as far as possible across its developments and operations it has offset the remaining emissions. 
Workspace Show is an exciting addition to the global design events calendar, launching on 21 January this year, with the inaugural edition taking place from 4-5 November 2021 at London’s Business Design Centre, at the heart of the UK’s commercial interiors community. With a theme of ‘re-designing tomorrow’s commercial interiors together’ the show aims to unite architects, designers, developers, contractors, facilities managers, procurement managers and more in one place to explore and share the latest industry thinking from product launches to a comprehensive talks program to networking opportunities aplenty. 
Data from thousands of employees across the country has been aggregated in a new report, detailing the mental wellbeing of the workforce over the course of the year. The research from 
A new workplace heating solution that delivers targeted, gentle heat to desk-based workers is enabling building managers to reduce ambient temperatures by 2-3 degrees Celsius. The LAVA DESK 2.0 under-desk heater, manufactured from high-quality components in Austria by Etherma – and available exclusively in the UK from 
