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Sustainable Futures

Athena @ Shaping Tomorrow 20 June 2019


With the increased chatter and focus surrounding sustainability, brands have an opportunity to develop innovative sustainable products. Read to discover what our robot, Athena, has found on Sustainable Futures and act accordingly, or click any link to read the evidence she found in 956 reports, articles and PowerPoints from the web and social media.
What is changing?

If you are new to foresight, we recommend you view this slide presentation first to get the best out of this report.

Quick Summary

The summary visuals below are completely machine produced, showing our robot's global analysis of:

Driving Forces



What is changing?

Causes

Who and what are causing these changes?

Potential solutions

What are others doing to seize opportunities and minimize risks?

You can determine your options and run collaborative, digital  workshops on these findings at /optionsanalysis/admin?projectid=7493919

Please contact us if you need assistance.

More analysis

The analysis below draws from our robot's below visualizations of on sustainable futures and draws from different vantage points to tell the story of what's emerging, just like a GPS system.

Cloud: The key debates on how to reach global sustainability revolve primarily around the future of energy, food, water, infrastructure, transport, cities and population growth while maintain economies. But the Cloud also shows the myriad of other topics that need addressing to optimize Sustainability both by reducing resource use and increasing new technological and policy opportunities.

Systems map: The systems map shows that it is the United Nations leading the charge through its Sustainable Development Goals with future energy needs being the foremost topic to solve.
Radar chart: On a topic basis, achieving a sustainable world will only be achieved with focused, determined and constant investment around the world particularly in the construction of smart cities, increasing use of robots and the Internet and consumer re-education about resource use and the consequences of current demand behavior.

Graph-It: By 2025, we can expect to see pressures building on the supply of food and drink to an ever-increasing world population that is increasingly moving to cities. Technological advancement and huge increases in investment will be required to satisfy everyone's needs.

Spline chart: In the past three years the two presented Trend Wave charts shows rising debate about the sustainability of the planet with the peak of current conversation and action likely to be around 2029 in the medium term.
The debate is rising rapidly with the various protest efforts led by youth. Global school strikes led by Swedish 16-year-old Greta Thunberg to the Green New Deal, led by the youth-based Sunrise Movement and 29-year-old Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, young people across the globe are making it clear they will not accept inaction.

Sentiment: Sentiment towards achieving a sustainable world is extraordinarily positive compared to other topics we have analysed over the years.
The few negative sentiments reflect fears about Donald Trump's approach to sustainability and the slow speed at which change is happening globally. The most positive comments are reserved for the change to renewable energy, emissions reductions and moves towards circular economies.

Pie Charts: Achieving sustainability is likely to take the rest of this century but it's a prize worth having in terms of the billions and trillions of dollars that experts attach to delivering a sustainable, future world.
However, most initiatives are still at early stage (61%) with almost all the remainder still evolving or gaining traction. Much more needs to be done for the world to live sustainably by the estimated tipping point of 2036.
Heat map: The Heat Map shows the current weak efforts of sectors to drive positive social responsibility in their countries and regions. Businesses the world over could be doing a lot more to create positive change and in so doing retain their influence and power for the common good. This report gives clues as to where sectors have started their journey.

Emergent Drivers: The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals have provided seventeen beacons on where the future focus of sustainability should be by 2030.

Some like Good Health and Well-Being, Industry Innovation and Infrastructure Decent Work and Growth and Clean Energy will likely be achieved in the set timescale. But others such as Reduced Inequalities will take a lot longer.

Cities: As cities become the magnet for most people to move to so they will need to take responsibility for achieving maximum sustainability.

Right now, most efforts to improve are in the Northern Hemisphere with Australia being the standout example in the South.

Leader board: The Leader board also shows the paucity of global leaders pushing for global sustainability and perhaps surprisingly little mention of the EU Commission which usually tops these lists.

The days when Paul Hawken wrote The Ecology of Commerce and Natural Capitalism, Amory and Hunter Lovins who created the framework for thinking about corporate sustainability and John Elkington of People, Profit and Planet fame seem passed. Others are taking up the cudgels within business but again it's the youth who seem to be creating mass movements to force change than individual pioneers.

SWOT: As with the sentiment analysis above, the SWOT chart shows tremendous opportunities and few risks of adopting a sustainable strategy. Time to jump in if you haven't already done so or risk being left behind!

Visuals
For more detailed explanation of the graphics below please click here. All outlooks based on 2025 unless otherwise stated.

Cloud
The key debates on how to reach global sustainability revolve primarily around the future of energy, food, water, infrastructure, transport, cities and population growth while maintain economies. But the Cloud also shows the myriad of other topics that need addressing to optimize Sustainability both by reducing resource use and increasing new technological and policy opportunities.

System map
The systems map shows that it is the United Nations leading the charge through its Sustainable Development Goals with future energy needs being the foremost topic to solve.

Radar chart
On a topic basis, achieving a sustainable world will only be achieved with focused, determined and constant investment around the world particularly in the construction of smart cities, increasing use of robots and the Internet and consumer re-education about resource use and the consequences of current demand behavior.

Graph-It
By 2025, we can expect to see pressures building on the supply of food and drink to an ever-increasing world population that is increasingly moving to cities. Technological advancement and huge increases in investment will be required to satisfy everyone's needs.

Spline
In the past three years the two presented Trend Wave charts shows rising debate about the sustainability of the planet with the peak of current conversation and action likely to be around 2029 in the medium term.

The debate is rising rapidly with the various protest efforts led by youth. Global school strikes led by Swedish 16-year-old Greta Thunberg to the Green New Deal, led by the youth-based Sunrise Movement and 29-year-old Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, young people across the globe are making it clear they will not accept inaction.

Trend Wave - Today

Trend Wave – 3 years ago

Sentiment

Sentiment towards achieving a sustainable world is extraordinarily positive compared to other topics we have analysed over the years.

The few negative sentiments reflect fears about Donald Trump's approach to sustainability and the slow speed at which change is happening globally. The most positive comments are reserved for the change to renewable energy, emissions reductions and moves towards circular economies.

Pie Charts

Achieving sustainability is likely to take the rest of this century but it's a prize worth having in terms of the billions and trillions of dollars that experts attach to delivering a sustainable, future world.


However, most initiatives are still at early stage (61%) with almost all the remainder still evolving or gaining traction. Much more needs to be done for the world to live sustainably by the estimated tipping point of 2036.

Heat map

The Heat Map shows the current weak efforts of sectors to drive positive social responsibility in their countries and regions. Businesses the world over could be doing a lot more to create positive change and in so doing retain their influence and power for the common good. This report gives clues as to where sectors have started their journey.

Emergent drivers

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals have provided seventeen beacons on where the future focus of sustainability should be by 2030.



Some like Good Health and Well-Being, Industry Innovation and Infrastructure Decent Work and Growth and Clean Energy will likely be achieved in the set timescale. But others such as Reduced Inequalities will take a lot longer.

Cities

As cities become the magnet for most people to move to so they will need to take responsibility for achieving maximum sustainability.

Right now, most efforts to improve are in the Northern Hemisphere with Australia being the standout example in the South.

Leader board

The Leader board also shows the paucity of global leaders pushing for global sustainability and perhaps surprisingly little mention of the EU Commission which usually tops these lists.



The days when Paul Hawken wrote The Ecology of Commerce and Natural Capitalism, Amory and Hunter Lovins who created the framework for thinking about corporate sustainability and John Elkington of People, Profit and Planet fame seem passed. Others are taking up the cudgels within business but again it's the youth who seem to be creating mass movements to force change than individual pioneers.

SWOT

As with the sentiment analysis above, the SWOT chart shows tremendous opportunities and few risks of adopting a sustainable strategy. Time to jump in if you haven't already done so or risk being left behind

Questions

Evidence

Search term: 'unsustain* OR unsuit* OR untenable OR unendurable OR unfeasible OR fleeting OR implausible OR upset* OR deplet* OR unworkable” Use this search term to explore our database for more knowledge and wisdom and latest data and information on the topic.

Implications

goal

scenario

development

growth

target

fuel

product

material

policy

solution

system

market

Custom Services
We can produce equivalent reports to this one on any topic for just £1,000 (Plus VAT in Europe). Market rates are usually at least five to ten times this price. Or, you can subscribe to our service and make these yourself at will and use the forecasts in private, collaborative workshops to develop your strategic responses in hours rather than the weeks and months of traditional foresight projects using these methods below:

Options | Gapfinder | Causal Layered Analysis | Scenarios | Three Horizons

Do contact us to see how we can help you track emerging uncertainty issues and developments as they are announced or reported.

Sources
Athena used the sources as the top ones to create this report and determined which embedded forecasts are included in this Trend Alert. She found 956 forecasts in seconds on 20th June 2019 to allow us to publish this report in less than two hours. She can turn these into PowerPoint slides and Audio files in thirty minutes too as you wish, or we can prepare a full customized and professionally written brief for you to order covering all these forecasts.

Athena
Athena does show duplicates to aid your understanding of themes as well as contradictory forecasts. She may also show near-duplicates. You can speed read past the duplicates and near-duplicates if you wish, though the latter may show additional information. You can use the contradictory, and likely uncertain forecasts she finds to imagine different scenarios. The future is unpredictable, but we can examine the possibilities and choose our preferable future from the choices she presents. 
Athena is apolitical. She will report forecasts from different viewpoints however distasteful that might be to our own values. Wearing rose-colored glasses is not her purpose; reporting potential futures is. So, we recommend you check her veracity before responding to her extracted forecasts.

Just like humans, Athena can be fallible. Do recognize that you and your associates are biased too. But whereas you tire, make mistakes and only recognize what interests you, she does not. She might miss or misinterpret as you do, but with far less frequency and she'll take uncomfortable truths and alternative ideas in her stride. But, please let us know if you feel her bias can be reduced. We want to do our best for you. And, as with any research, you should check and triangulate her findings for yourself.

Keep up to date

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Global goals | Social changes | Sector prospects | G20 watch | Key Organizations
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