Society 5.0 contains intersecting financial, ecological, and political crises---extinction.

Along with 4IR comes Society 5.0 in which people’s lives are made more comfortable and sustainable by continuously creating new value adds and services in age old industries [7]. In his book “Society 5.0: We and I”, Dr Miguel Goede describes the emergence of the new era of connectedness as well as the difference between the previous era’s mindset of “I” and the new developing mindset of “we” that characterises Society 5.0. Describing “we” and “I” as mindsets he states that:

“We” cares and “I” does not. “We” gives but “I” takes. “We” is abundance. “I” is scarcity. “We” pays taxes and “I” tries to evade taxes. “We” loves, and “I” loves only himself. “We” is open and “I” is closed. “We” are family. “I” is alone. “We” is sustainable and “I” is not” [8 p. 9].

He describes the present as a time of volatility, complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity, a time of global crises including an economic or financial crisis, a climate crisis accompanied by plastic soup in the ocean and large-scale extinction of species, social inequality and the associated polarization of societies fuelled by social media and fake news, food scarcity, and the looming disappearance of jobs due to AIs robotics, blockchain, etc. A rather dire outlook at best. Yet the mindset of Society 5.0 might provide for a less pessimistic outcome. This view is shared by other social scientists and holds that the online society brings about an era of growing complexity of the social system, extension of networks, increased digitisation but also increased connectedness. These features of Society 5.0 demonstrate the onset of the era of digital society [9]. Millennials form the largest part of this society as described in more detail towards the end of the paper.

The exponential rate at which new technology is adopted by society is illustrated by the Citi GPS reports co-produced by Citi and the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford “in order to explore some of the most pressing global challenges of the 21st century” [10]. As can be seen from Figure 1 below, re-created from the Oxford report and updated with later information, the rate is indeed exponential. Pokémon GO was released in 2016 and reached 50 million users 1,610 times faster than it took the telephone to reach the same number of users. Now fifth generation connectivity (5G) has materialised (Figure 2 below) with a more obvious exponential impact on the speed at which new technologies reach industries.

The rate of change is disruptive as it rapidly alters most industries, challenges the status quo and leaves behind old methods and those still firmly attached thereto [11]. The built environment and real estate are no exception together with their related disciplines such as property development, finance, management, and investment.

Customers, tenants, landlords, retailers, construction companies, property developers, project- and development managers, valuers, conveyancers, land- and quantity surveyors, engineers, architects, investors, fund managers, etc. are all affected. Once the paradigm shifts, past success is no indication of future success (as illustrated by the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on the industry). Young tech-savvy millennials from fringe industries are encroaching on the traditional domain of our industry. Mobile is the new norm and already in 2018, consumers had downloaded no less than 194 billion mobile apps to their connected devices [12]. This amounts to more than 25 apps per person, had everyone on earth participated, illustrating not only the rapid shift to mobile but also the rate at which new technology in general, and apps in particular are being adapted.