Advanced water purification, irrigation and low-cost desalination technologies will be used in water stressed regions to help communities better manage the rising supply / demand imbalance

As highlighted in the key resource constraints chapter in section 1, water is the resource over which many governments, corporations and communities have greatest concern for the future: As populations increase and move to urban areas and as consumption rises in line with economic growth, water stress will be the main challenge for many parts of the world.

At a basic level, many parts of Africa and Asia will suffer increased physical water stress as the available water per person fall below the UN minimum target of 50 litres per day. In many areas, sanitation, itself a Millennium Development goal, is increasingly seen as difficult to achieve. Today around 2.5 billion people lack access to safe sanitation and the aim of halving this figure by 2015 is being missed by a considerable margin. In some parts of sub-Saharan Africa achieving it by 2050 is now considered to be an ambitious target.

From the US to Chile, South East England to Kenya and the greater parts of the Middle East and South East Asia, water scarcity is forecast to have severe impact over the next decade. Indeed economic water stress is expected to impact up to half of the global population by 2020. In many areas it is not that there is not enough water over an annual cycle but that it comes in peaks and troughs: “The wrong water at the wrong time in the wrong place” is increasingly occurring as, in one season, flooding encourages us to get rid of excess water as quickly as possible and, in another, drought leads us to try and catch every drop.

According to a recent World Bank / McKinsey report, “by 2030, projected population and economic growth will lead to global water demand 40% in excess of current supply if no adequate action is taken in the coming years. This would leave one-third of the world’s population with access to only half the water it needs.”

As governments develop national water strategies and both cooperate and compete to secure water supplies, companies will come under increasing pressure to make more effective use of water in their production processes. Some will follow the lead taken by the likes of SAB Miller, P&G and Dow in significantly reducing water consumption and the principle of water footprints will gain fast traction as media and government seek to raise public awareness of the water challenge.

With all this momentum building up around water use, the impetus for improved water management will increase internationally. While major technological breakthroughs such as low-cost desalination will be sought and be a major area of investment, over the next decade the utopia of transforming sea water into fresh water available for all will be a way off: Desalination will remain a rich country luxury for the likes of Israel, the UAE, Singapore and Saudi Arabia. In addition, ‘desal water’ is too clean and so, in many countries, minerals need to be added back in to meet public health requirements.

Some see that “the water problem is not one of water scarcity but more of system management.” So, in the next 10 years, more pragmatic short term solutions to help communities better manage the rising supply / demand imbalance will be implemented in such areas as water purification and irrigation. While the concept of a water grid, able to shift resources around regions and between buildings to balance supply and demand is increasingly discussed, in many areas the next ten years will be more about driving consumption behaviour change. At the same time, the politics of water will continue to be a hot-topic. “There are vested interests in the supply and management of water and the associated impact and influence of large scale infrastructure. Most water infrastructures are managed both locally and regionally but are usually seen from a centralized perspective.”

Agriculture accounts for most of our water consumption and, with developments in biotechnology, by 2020 new crops from the likes of Monsanto will be introduced that are more efficient in their water use as will new ways to grow them.

Some say that the problem is one of consumer understanding and behaviour,“water is not valued enough for many to care about it.” It is currently seen as having little value in many regions where supply is not yet constrained. It is too cheap for people to care and so we pay little attention to it. Governments around the world should regulate so that everyone has a water meter and so we can build a wider public understanding of usage. In general the privatisation of utilities such as water does not seem to have been effective and some companies are now proactively giving back the responsibility of running the infrastructure to non-profit public bodies and local authorities. Governance on catchment areas is key here. The UK system is the only one where the actual water supply has been privatised but it operates under government controls – and so suffers from an inability to create value for the management companies.

The need to have an infrastructure that provides us all with water is the driving issue and we need to question whether large companies and organisations should be in control of this or if this is a local community focus.  There was general agreement in the varied events that it really comes down to how you set up the institutions to achieve the aims and overcome the challenges at a local level.  In urban environments water scarcity in addition to forcing us to us to reconsider certain lifestyles could, at the same time, open up opportunities for innovation in areas such as water capture, treatment, conservation and efficiency. Changes in behavior will require measuring our water consumption before we can manage it and solutions such as smart metering will find their way into our homes.

Community-driven mechanisms are particularly important in developing countries to ensure equity and effectiveness.  One suggestion was to work more closely with women as, in the main, in many regions it is they who fetch and carry water and therefore control access.  There is also much to be gained from the making the most of existing resources by reducing wastage, increasing water reuse, desalination and groundwater recharge. Simple but highly effective things like rain harvesting make a huge difference and in the future buildings will be better designed to cope with this need

The Economist is optimistic about the future and argues that change will happen where it is needed most.  “It will be in areas of high political, economic and social need that the key technological change in water will occur.” This is why Singapore is such a focus for water and its investment in low cost desalination may be pivotal in the next decade. “Both from government and companies such as Hyflux, many see that Singapore is a hub of water technology development.”  Others are not quite so hopefull.

What everyone can agree on is that the issue is critical and that the right for all to have access to clean water is a priority. Managing our supplies over the next decade to enable this to happen has to therefore be a primary focus.

As greater growth, congestion and regulation impact the world’s cities, more informed choices drive shifts towards more efficient, more sustainable transport options.

Although all cities are in many ways different in terms of layout, structure and hence specific transport options available, many share similar issues and challenges around sustaining growth without gridlock. With increasing recognition not just of the efficiency and emotional problems from congestion, but also of the environmental implications, many leading mayors and supporting administrations have been taking steps to encourage citizens to make alternative choices. In many developed world cities primary challenges include encouraging people to change their existing habits and behaviours, while in the developing world it is often a case of encouraging people to make different choices around mobility that others have made in the past. With car ownership rising steadily in many nations this is no easy task. The challenge of future urban transport was examined in a number of different workshops within the Future Agenda programme – in Bangalore, Brussels, Cape Town, Delhi, London, Melbourne, Shanghai and Singapore. Across all these discussions it is clear that “it is not simply about stopping people using cars but is about improving the efficiency of car usage and providing viable alternatives;” nor is it just about “encouraging people to travel less by better co-locating home, work and leisure” or “developing wider eco-literacy.” It is about all of these and more: Urban transport is a complex issue driven by multiple different drivers on top of the geographic and cultural differences present.

There will be an additional 300m drivers added to the world over the next decade, most of them in cities in the developing world. According to a recent Shell / TRL study, “today in London car journeys account for 40% of journeys and cycling 2%. In Shanghai, car journeys account for 5% with cycling accounting for 33% of journeys.” In comparison to many US cities, London is a relatively good example of sustainable developed world urban transportation, albeit not as good as places like Munich, Amsterdam and Vienna. At the same time Shanghai today is by no means ahead of the curve: In many ways, London and Shanghai can be considered as typical, average examples of developed and developing world urban mobility. The key challenge is that as London in 2020 seeks to be more like Shanghai in 2010, can we stop Shanghai becoming more like London. As was mentioned in a Singapore event; “In Asian cities, the car is more than just about transportation. It is a status symbol. Especially in India and China, even though people don’t need a car, they aspire for it.” In a world where access to personal transportation is a cultural ambition, a status symbol and, in many places, a major advance, many of the discussions in the Future Agenda programme looked at how this conundrum can be accommodated.

Any global blueprint solution has to consider the range of already defined constraints such as city design. For example, with the benefits of its high density, Hong Kong can spend around 5% of its GDP on its transport systems with people typically spending between 30 and 60 minutes a day on public transport whereas in Houston where, 15% of its GDP, so three times as much pro rata, is spent, daily transportation times in cars is up to 3hrs for each person. As Europe and the US focus more on regeneration for city planning, Asia is creating brand new cities and extending existing ones: But “in several Asian cities urbanisation is happening at a rate which is much faster that what transportation can cope with.”Urban design is clearly both a constraint and an enabler of more effective urban transport. In Singapore, an often quoted example, one important realisation early on was that “urban transport planning has to be integrated with the urbanisation policy to create efficient and sustainable cities.”

Given that the majority agree that “cities should be focused on people, not cars,” one much debated answer is clearly regulation against the car: While congestion charging, road pricing and lane prioritisation for multi passenger vehicles has become increasing popular in many cities, others have tried alternative approaches: Reducing the number of car parking spaces is taking place in London and Beijing, but if this happened in India, a place where labour is still cheaper than land, according to one workshop comment “the result would be more cars on the road as people’s chauffeurs merely drive around while their employers attend a meeting or go shopping.” In a world of such variety, legislating against cars has severe limitations, even though more people are recognising the issues and “the negative health aspects of cars in cities.”

In terms of alternatives, many in Europe advocate walking and cycling and so over the next decade we can expect ever more dedicated cycle lanes within and around cities. However, in Delhi many of the pavements are in a dangerous condition, while in many US cities they are non-existent. Cycling maybe an attractive option in places like Amsterdam, Bogotá and San Francisco, but in 40C of heat and high humidity persuading people that it is a progressive option for transport can be an uphill challenge. What many agree upon is the role of an integrated public transport system that fits the purpose. But, whereas in such places as Copenhagen, Shanghai, Bangkok and Melbourne this may mean buses, trams and trains, in other places there may already be better answers: Tut-tuts are perfectly suited to India just as Rickshaws are to Vietnam and Indonesia. Several people in workshops argued that with perfectly flexible, efficient solutions in place the need for monorails and metros could be questioned. Although many cities are investing in high profile urban transit systems, there is the last mile challenge for those not directly on the network.

Looking forward, it is evidently clear that “the solutions must be different for different countries.” In Asia a common aspiration is to create a multi-level approach where underground transit systems move people around the cities quickly, cars are put up in the air on flyovers and the ground is for people. In many of the new cities being built, and some of the existing ones that are being upgraded, this option has many supporters and will de facto become the future: The new cities of 2020 have already been designed and so have the transport options. However, elsewhere many see that a more sustainable urban transport future can only be achieved if more informed choices are made by governments and organisations as well as individuals.

Recognising that “in most OECD countries transport usually accounts for over 25% of total GHG emissions” is increasingly influencing planning policy for regeneration as much as new-build. As such pedestrianisation and cycle routes, for example, are both on the increase. However, while “policy makers believe that car users are able to reduce their car use, many are unwilling to do so.” As it seeks to break the viscous circle of transport growth and decouple the linkage between it and economic growth, mobility management has to therefore consider structural and attitudinal change. In terms of influencing personal behaviour, the recent Shell / TRL analysis highlighted the impact that smarter choices can have: From better travel plans, changing access to vehicle through car clubs and car sharing schemes and increased awareness of alternatives to the car, a reduction in car use in the UK of up to 20% was forecast. Whether or not they start with transit system plans or shifts to cycling, all discussions on future urban transport ended up highlighting the need to reduce car use. In the developed and the developing worlds, in new and old cities, the big push that is evidently building momentum is to use multiple means to constrain movement by car and reward alternatives. By 2020, although globally we will clearly have more drivers in the world, the hope of the planners is that the overall miles travelled by car will be stable and that the increase in numbers will be offset by a reduction in distance.

As the Millennials take over, the differentiation between the real and virtual disappears as who you are ceases to be defined by a singular identity and we each manage a multiple “cocktail identity” portfolio

As the world becomes increasingly “always on” and “always connected” a growing number of us manage our lives by developing “multiple identities” which are variously used across our work and social lives.   It is quite common today for one individual to have several emails – one for work and another for homes and other means of contact tied into one or more social networks, not to mention a couple of phone numbers and several profiles on social networking sights. Looking forward, as more forms of who we are and what groups we may belong to become prominent we can expect things to get even more complex. While some see a single universal persona existing across multiple platforms and social interactions, others see a far more fragmented approach being taken.  Whatever the case, the growing challenge is in understanding which or who is the real you.

As Professor Mike Hardy of the British Council highlighted in his initial view on the Future of Identity: “the ‘dealing-with-multiple-identities’ challenge is likely to become more complex and more significant. As our world becomes smaller through migration and mobility, both virtual and real, it may be that people and groups will express themselves more insistently through multiple rather than single identity lenses. So it will be the particular ingredients of the ‘cocktail identity’ (the combination of personas and their consequences) which will be the more significant. How will we protect and respect apparently contradictory and multiple identities? Will it be through identity personas that we define or will it be from an integrated set of values?”

In one workshop the comment was made that “Facebook and similar social networks are providing consumers with the ability for mass on-line customisation of identity and that is becoming the norm.” In another this was brought to life by a 14 year old girl who had 27 Face-book profiles and that this is typical in her peer group: One was the profile that her parents and teachers could see and the one that in four years time would be visible to the universities she hoped to attend; another was specifically for interacting with her school friends and yet another was how she kept her relations back in Pakistan updated. While these three all provided different takes on the same person and were clearly designed to share different aspects of her life to target audiences, her other 24 profiles were all made up. Essentially these are social experiments where she is pretending to be a 16yr old in San Francisco, a 20yr old in Paris or just someone else she has dreamt up who lives in her street. The girl in question is quite clear which is the real and which is make believe, but to the outside world how can anyone see who she actually is. If a company wanted to market products to her, then which of her multiple identities would they focus on. As she and similar people go to university and enter the workplace, will they have more or less identities? Will managing so many fake identities become too exhausting? Will they all merge into one cocktail or will they be kept separate as multiple parallel faces to the world?

If this is not complicated enough then we also have an underpinning shift occurring in some areas as a consequence of rising migration: As Mike Hardy also suggested “as the Diaspora space grows it provides a link between identity, history and now. ….. diasporas also cross social, conceptual, and psychological borders. …..Identity in a diaspora space or location develops as an ongoing process that can change with situations and experiences.” As people move from one country to another they retain their homeland identity but also merge it with their new home – and so become Italian-American or London-Irish.  Sometimes this shift happens quickly both not always. One comment from the programme pointed out that “identity across borders is the true need.” Another highlighted this well in that “in France we have a broad influx of North African migrants that gradually assume a Moroccan-French, Tunisian-French or similar identity. But this typically takes 3 or 4 generations to develop. Yes, we may become Parisian more quickly than that, but at a fundamental level, I see that national identity is something we hold on for as long as possible. Children may be comfortable with being foremost Parisian, but they will still talk more about their Grandparent’s heritage 2 or 3 generations after moving to France.” Going forward the diaspora mix will increase and with it the associate influence on our self-identity.

We also have to consider the impact of increasingly global common interest groups with which people align their priorities. Whether cause-related (e.g. Greenpeace), sports fan based (eg Boston Red Sox) or lifestyle driven (e.g. relgious, organic food or gay), the growth of the internet has enabled people all over the world to connect and become a community. Many of the connections between the new tribes and clans are increasingly cross-border in nature and influence and so are adding another dimension to the growing identity smorgasbord that we can assemble.

Looking at the decade ahead, people have had alternative views of how this could all play out. At one extreme some see that we will have the option to inhabit a world where multiple faces to external communities are presented as a coherent mix: In the “youniverse” everything that can be, is centred around the individual. Networks, information, identities and relationships are all presented and seen solely through the lens of personal proximity and influence. As was suggested in an LA workshop, “developments such as Facebook Connect and Opengraft will aggregate your ‘likes’ and make your identity more portable.” At the other end of the spectrum, some see further fragmentation of identity on the horizon to a point where we manage our relationships, interests and hence our multiple identities in isolation of each other. The coherence is less visible to others, and even to ourselves, but, at heart, still represents an amalgam of who we are.

Cocktail identities are here today and highly likely to increase in the future in both nature and scope. Alongside the identities we create and manage whether in the real world or on-line, additional layers based on what others think and say about who we are, what we think and what we do will increasingly be publically available: Professional and amateur critiques on top of and around the real you.

And so we are left with a question. Will we continue to be happy with this cocktail of information about who we are?  Or would it be easier and make us happier to simply consolidate each of our multitude identities back into one place and so re-discover the real “me”?

Increasing economic competition between cities over-rides regional and national priorities as city mayors lead bolder initiatives to place their cities at the front of the global stage

In the Judge Dredd comic book series, Mega-City One is a huge fictional city state covering much of the Eastern United States linking an urban corridor stretching from Atlanta to Quebec. With a population of over 400m it is one of around 30 mega-cities which dominate the world and outside which, in Cursed Earth, there is no law. It’s true that this is an extreme view of life in the 22^nd Century, but some would say that the growth and importance of mega-cities is very much a 21^st Century issue.

Today many see that cities rather than nations are taking the big steps forward, introducing new approaches, adopting new strategies and generating more growth for the world. After a couple of centuries where nations drove the agenda, some see that we are witnessing a rebirth of Roman, Mediaeval and even 19^th Century times as cities exert influence, become magnets for innovation and the centre of attention. By 2020 it is clear that the new mega-cities will not only be the beacons for the future but that they will also both cooperate and compete with one another.

City states of the past have been the centres of power, of culture and of trade. From the ancient Greek cities of Athens and Sparta and Corinth, the Sumerian cities of Babylon and Ur and Rome at the heart of the Roman Empire through to central Asian cities such as Samarkand and Bukhara and the city states of Italy, city states have had a central role in history. Largely independent countries with a focus on the common interest of the urban centre, city states have been run in the interests of their citizens rather than the wider regions within which they may sit. Cities such as Venice, Florence and Genoa defined their era and, in the 19^th Century, sovereign city states in Germany and Switzerland including Geneva, Frankfurt, Bremen, Lubeck and Basel adopted a similar ambition. Although today we only have a few sovereign city states left, namely Singapore, The Vatican and Monaco, we do have a number of urban areas that have a high degree of autonomy and essentially function as city states within the nations they belong to: Canberra, Vienna, Brussels, Geneva, Hamburg, Moscow, Brasilia and Buenos Aires all come to mind. In addition we have cities such as Washington DC, Mexico City, Islamabad, Delhi and Kuala Lumpur that are federally administered as well as places like Hong Kong and Macau which operate as autonomous cities in China. Although arguably not yet as directly as influential as the city states of the past, many see some of these and other notable additions will become the natural drivers of change in the future.

In 1993, an article in Foreign Affairs, The Rise of the Region State, suggested that “the nation state has become a dysfunctional unit for understanding and managing the flows of economic activity that dominate today’s borderless world. Policymakers, politicians and corporate managers would benefit from looking at “region states”–the globe’s natural economic zones–whether they happen to fall within or across traditional political boundaries. With their efficient scales of consumption, infrastructure and professional services, region states make ideal entryways into the global economy. If allowed to pursue their own economic interests without jealous government interference, the prosperity of these areas will eventually spill over.”

Sixteen years later, Parag Khanna, Director of the Global Governance Initiative at the New America Foundation, wrote an article for Foreign Policy entitled “The Next Big Thing: Neomedievalism” in which he proposed that “as countries stumble to right the wrongs of the corporate masters of the universe, they are driving us right back to a future that looks like nothing more than a new Middle Ages, that centuries-long period of amorphous conflict from the fifth to the 15th century when city-states mattered as much as countries…. Today, just 40 city-regions account for two thirds of the world economy and 90 percent of its innovation. The mighty Hanseatic League, a constellation of well-armed North and Baltic Sea trading hubs in the late Middle Ages, will be reborn as cities such as Hamburg and Dubai form commercial alliances and operate “free zones” across Africa like the ones Dubai Ports World is building. Add in sovereign wealth funds and private military contractors, and you have the agile geopolitical units of a neomedieval world.”

In his seminal book, City of Quartz, Mike Davis saw that in the future Los Angeles will have become a concentration of competing smaller city states, By contrast Paul Saffo has commented that “our world is moving from one of nation-states to one of city-states. Rather than the future being one of the US versus China, it is going to be Silicon Valley vs Beijing or Chicago vs. Paris. Each dominant city will define its region. With the “flattening” of the world, Chicago is no longer vying with US cities like New York for influence, commerce and jobs, but other major cities in the world.” The MIT 19.20.21 programme is just one of several research studies underway that are looking at future urban environments: Predicting that there will be 19 cities with over 20 million populations in the 21st century this sees that “the rise of supercities is the defining megatrend of the 21^st century.”

During the Future Agenda programme, the increasingly significant role of a group of elite cities was mentioned at a number of events. From trade to migration to innovation, the leadership of emerging mega-cities was rarely questioned. In some areas, we can already see examples of where cities are leading the way for change; for example the introduction of congestion zones in London and fat taxes in New York, cities are doing things that national governments will not. In the absence of agreement on climate change between the world’s nations in Copenhagen in 2009, a number of the worlds leading cities are taking action: The C40 cities see that they have a central role to play in tackling climate change and “by fostering a sense of shared purpose, the C40 network offers cities an effective forum in which to work together, share information and demonstrate leadership.” The mayors, chief ministers and governors of these cities believe that, with their Climate Change Action Plans they can collectively do something that nations seem to be unable to do.

Multinational businesses increasingly differentiate global urban markets from national ones and create specific products and services targeted on the common needs of rising mega-city populations. In terms of market focus, companies can see more in common between Shanghai, Mumbai and New York that they can between New York and Idaho. Mega cities are already highly attractive markets in their own right and, as they grow, their influence will spread. As Neal Peirce of McKinsey has put it, “national economies essentially are constellations of regional economies, each with a major city at the core.” In an event in Singapore it was highlighted that “forty-five years ago, Singapore was not urbanized and there were slums around the city centre. However, being a city-state put Singapore in a rather unique position to tackle this challenge. The government from the very beginning took a great interest in how the city should urbanise – what policy frameworks should be adopted. Thus Singapore’s urbanisation happened in a very planned manner.”

The phenomenon of the so-called “endless city” has been explored in a number of areas including the Urban Age project led by the LSE. According to UN-Habitat, “larger combinations of urban area will be one of the most significant developments in the way people live and economies grow in the next 50 years.” The world’s mega-cities are merging to form vast ‘mega-regions’ which may stretch hundreds of kilometres across countries and be home to more than 100 million people. The world’s first mega-city, comprised of Hong Kong, Shenhzen and Guangzhou, and is already home to about 120 million people. Other mega-regions have formed in Japan and Brazil and are developing in India, West Africa and elsewhere. The top 25 cities in the world account for more than half of the world’s wealth and the five largest cities in India and China now account for 50% of those countries’ wealth. Nagoya-Osaka-Kyoto-Kobe in Japan is expected to have a population of 60m by 2015 and will be the effective powerhouse of Japan while a similar effect at an even larger scale is occurring in fast-growing “urban corridors” such as that between Mumbai and Delhi.

By 2020 we can expect that, alongside a few select intergovernmental programmes and more regional economic partnerships, the catalysts for major change in the world will increasingly come from the 40 or so mega-cities that drive the global economy, are home to many of its population and set the future agenda. Whether this will be a return to the role of city states of the past or a version of the Judge Dredd future is, of course, open for question.

Trusting in the exchange of our digital credentials allows us to participate confidently in open, transparent global transactions to gain access to what we want without the hassle

Proving what is real in an increasingly complex world is seen as a significant emerging challenge by many organisations. Although individual companies and even sectors have their own solutions to the problem of verifying what is the authentic, there isn’t a simple answer to this, nor is there likely to be. While this is a major challenge in the physical world with the counterfeiting of everything from aircraft parts and pharmaceuticals to clothes and DVDs all on the rise, in the virtual world the problem is even greater. In the varied discussions around this topic during the programme a number of alternative perspectives were shared and, a significant proportion of these aligned around the crux of the issue: “In a world where it’s ever easier to make copies, the significance of authenticity is increasing, and gaining ever-greater moral value.”

As Diane Coyle highlighted in her initial view on the Future of Authenticity we are looking to verify a number of different things – from things to information and from an experience to our identity: In terms of things, “fakes are proliferating in the online world. ‘Fake’ music, films and software are sold to the benefit of customers but not of copyright holders.” The challenge here is that the fake is just as good as the legitimate original and valuing a fake is not new: As Wendy Schultz commented “the arts have a long traditional of valuing copies: Chinese painters traditionally learnt their craft by copying acknowledged masters, with the result that acknowledged masterpieces of Chinese Art can themselves be copies.” Likewise we can today look at the popularity remixes in the music industry and fan-fiction where high quality literature can be created from sub-standard TV scriptwriting.

In terms of information, “the internet amplifies the questions of veracity and reliability which have always affected the mass media.” Hence, as one commentator added, “more people trust Wikipedia than CNN” – even though the latter is the professional news organisation. In one workshop there was much discussion of how the Obama election campaign had used technology to create a seemingly authentic experience: “The idea was that people could ‘get inside’ the campaign and make a difference. The impression of being part of the network was certainly there even though the reality was probably different.”  Technology, and especially the Internet, was used to give people the sense of being closer to the heart of things than would have been otherwise possible, but at the same time it probably also exaggerated their perceived involvement.

A lot of attention focused around how to authenticate identity – particularly online. The big unmet challenge, it was largely agreed, is simply proving who you are in order to access information, purchase a product or a service or even gain entry to a building with excess process and complexity. “Many of us now have multiple, real and virtual identities, and so can provide various sources of information that, pulled together, can give a rich picture of who we are, the question is who can and should have access to it.”

As one workshop participant put it “authentication involves technological measures of verification… For example biometric systems and digital right management are two existing systems of authentication but, to date and in spite of huge investment, digital rights management has been a complete failure.” Many existing attempts to create systems that work in the virtual space, and cannot be by-passed, have gained support but have not yet developed momentum to bring about global change.

As John Carr pointed out, in some areas regulation makes identifying people a bigger challenge than it perhaps ought to be. “For example in the UK mobile phones are not sold to people under 18 and so are designed, positioned and bought by parents and given to their children. However in restricting access to specific content such as gambling sites and porn, a mobile operator in theory knows whether or not one of its customers is under the age of 18. Some companies have already said that they intend to achieve greater levels of granularity for the sub-18s so that young phone users could soon be stratified as sub-12s, 12-15, 16-17 etc.” By comparing text patterns, phone usage and download behaviour, the differences between a 12 year old girl and a 15 year old boy are clear and steps could be taken to protect them from inappropriate content without having to know their name and address.

However the big problem is global authenticty: Having a system that works in certain national or regional boundaries or within certain sectors but not others is not the answer. Discussions with banks and data companies consistently highlighted the growing need for ‘global secure identities’ that could be trusted and used everywhere. While government level authentication of identity via passport, biometric, iris scan or ID card is considered to be largely in hand for the next decade, the more open issue is that of proving who you are, and so for instance how credit worthy you maybe for a transaction. This is not just about proving that you are you when at home using your home PC but doing it when you buy something from France over the mobile internet while you are in India,. This second level of authentication of identity is relatively easy to achieve once you have the right data – the problem is that the existing data that retailers, utilities and airlines need is currently spread across many other firms: Collectively sharing this so that, as a customer, you don’t need to keep on providing name, address, date of birth, PIN number and password each time you want something is the core challenge and hence also an opportunity.

As Diane Coyle predicted “technological solutions will be commonplace in the next few years.” While some view that there is a role for the financial services players such as VISA, PayPal or Experian or a similar organisation to become the host of shared personal data to validate virtual authenticity, others see that right now the likely collator will be a company with a broader and established reach – namely Google. Looking at the impact the company has had in the past decade and the data that it already has on the majority of internet users, some see that a ‘Google Identity’ service or similar that allows us as customer to consolidate all our personal data in one place for sharing with whoever needs access to it to validate who we are could well be commonly used by 2020.

Whatever organisation makes this happen, many see that in the course of the next decade the business models that make an efficiency global centralised source of (non-government level) personal data open and accessible with the right permissions will have major impact. A service that reveals only the relevant information needed to prove who you are, where you live or how old you are to the organisation that needs to know. Clearly there are big issues around privacy and trust that may make this a bit of a stretch but the over-riding benefit of one central information point for all may well overcome this.

The acceptance of being tracked by your mobile is accelerated with the adoption of ticket-less transport systems, increased surveillance and financially successful location-based services

Anyone who has used an iPhone will be aware that location services are now embedded in most smart-phones. By the start of 2010 there were over 6000 location-based iPhone apps, with 600 new ones being released every month. Equally those who may have used Google Latitude will be aware of how easy it is to see where your friends are real time on the basis of their phone location. For many the ability to be positioned by your mobile phone location may seem a new development but it has actually been used for quite some time

From a security perspective, if needed and with cooperation of the mobile networks, the security forces in many countries have been able to locate suspects to within a meter or so by triangulating signals from a mobile to communications masts and this has been a key asset in the police toolbox for over 20 years now. More specific location of people has been possible in recent years, even when a phone is switched off. As long as there is a battery in the phone, it can be remotely turned on, located and turned off in milliseconds and this too has now become an additional security issue. Especially with products like the iPhone where the battery is integrated into the product and cannot be removed, this essentially provides 24/7 tracking potential of phones which is now also being exploited in the commercial world. Services such as Loopt, Venti Coffee and Njection are using this information to respectively broadcast your whereabouts, find the nearest Starbucks and notify you of speed traps.

Moving forward as phones are used to enable ticket-less travel through charging the owner when the phone rather than the person gets on and off public transport networks, the use of the location of a personal mobile device as a reliable surrogate for the individual is stimulating new applications in healthcare, financial payments and social networking to name just a few. However it is not all just about your mobile!

In the US the On-Star in-car communication system has been around for several years now and provides drivers with an back up whereby emergency services can be called and locate a vehicle in case of a breakdown or accident. As this technology has become more widely adopted, the ability to use it to track vehicles has also evolved. Car hire companies have for some time had the capability actively track where you drive and make sure that you don’t cross state and national borders without prior agreement – or if you do then they charge you for the privilege. Although there was a privacy backlash initially, today there is widespread acceptance of this capability. The EU is also mandating the incorporation of this type of technology into every new car from 2012 and so soon the whole vehicle fleet, and hence its drivers, will be able to be tracked. Not only does this allow for better emergency assistance but also acts as a catalyst for the introduction of pervasive road pricing and the like – without the need for toll booths.

Moving on and away from device enabled tracking, many of us are already being clocked in and out of transport systems and many public and corporate buildings. In the UK the OysterCard on the London Transport system is increasingly linked to an individual credit card holder and so can tell the system where you enter and exit the tube and get on and off buses. Similar systems in Hong Kong and Melbourne provide the functionality and as non-contact payment is adopted more widely, so this tracking of us in and out as well as within transport networks will increase.

While passes are common for many corporate employees and visitors, the introduction of biometric entry systems – whether based on fingerprints, voice recognition or iris scans which are a common feature at many airports – are adding an extra layer of traceability. While the security benefits are clear, major issues around privacy are bubbling under the surface.

In addition the ubiquity of security cameras in many urban centres and transport networks also allows for the monitoring of people and their movement via facial recognition software. In London, the most monitored city in the world, with over 7500 CCTV cameras the average person is photographed over 300 times a day. After being refined again in the first instance by the security services for national security and counter terrorism surveillance, this is now going main-stream in the commercial world. Although the subject of some concerns about privacy, after trailing in Picassa, Google’s Goggle project is bringing facial recognition to a wider audience to search for something on the internet by simply taking a picture of it on a mobile phone.

Privacy campaigners have cautioned that adding facial recognition to Goggles allows users to track strangers through a photograph, making it into an ideal tool for stalkers and identity fraudsters. But as other companies, such as Israeli start-up Face.com, are also developing face-recognition tools, a global roll out is not far away. Although a privacy invasion backlash is possible in some areas, most see that with more customer focused applications coming on-line every day providing new information to all, consumer resistance will be marginal.

Looking to 2020 we can therefore see a world where, whether we want it or not, and whether we seek to avoid it or not, we are no longer just monitored by border control when we leave and enter countries but are constantly tracked for both security and commercial applications. Pervasive people tracking will fast become the norm in most regions.

The increasing fragmentation of society and looser connection between religion and the state in some regions sees more of us turning to God to help define who we are

There has always been a desire to counterbalance choice and individual responsibility with a sense of moral certainty.  This goes some way to explain the growing trend toward faith.  As John Micklethwait and Adrain Woolridge point out in their book, “God is Back”, “In a world of ever greater competition displacement and opportunity, faith has become a useful attribute for prosperous people.  But religion also fulfils a role lower down in society providing support for those who have lost out in global capitalism or feel bewildered by it.”  This probably explains why, across the globe, belief in god is on the increase.

Looking at a recent Pew Global Attitudes survey, it is clear that a general belief in religion is widespread and expanding.  The US is one of the most religious nations in the Western world with 92% of Americans believing in the existence of a god or a universal spirit -70 % are certain of God’s existence, in Pakistan 95% believe religion is very important and even, in China, a state historically tied to secularism, religion plays an important role with 31% of the population regarding it as “very” or “somewhat” important in their lives and only 11% stating that it is not at all important. Europe alone is wrapped in secularism with only 21% of Europeans saying religion is very important to them; this number would be even lower if the migrant population is taken out of the equation; in London 44% of the people going to church are African or Afro Carribean. Christianity is on the move and 60% of practising Christians now live in the developing world – in 1900 80% lived in Europe.

Faith is a powerful generator of social capital and there is a marked correlation between religion, health and happiness.  Pew shows that Americans who attend religious services once or more a week are happier (43% very happy) than those who do not. This trend has been fairly steady since Pew started the survey in the ‘70s and is more robust than the link between happiness and wealth.  Attending religious services weekly rather than not at all has the same effect on happiness as moving from the bottom quartile to the top quartile of the income distribution and, as Micklethwait and Woolridge point out, is a lot easier to do. For the first time in history, more of us are choosing our religion rather than sticking with the one we were born into.

Christianity and Islam are the two global religions and in the 20th century Islam has done much better than Christianity in the popularity stakes. The Muslim population has grown from 200 million in 1900 to 1.5 billion today. In comparison Christianity has declined in the centre (there are more Catholics in the Philippines than there are in Italy) whilst Islam is resurgent across the Arab world and some Christian scholars predict that Islam will overtake Christianity as the world’s biggest religion by 2050.  Muslim countries are also profoundly Muslim in a way that Christian countries are not – 99 % of Indonesians and 98% of Egyptians say religion plays an important role in their daily lives.

That is not to say that the global spread of American style Evangelical Christianity has been slow.  Indeed Pentecostal denominations, including charismatics, are the world’s fastest growing religious movements comprising a quarter of the world’s Christian population compared with just 6% 30 years ago.  According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, about 17m Africans described themselves as born-again Christians in 1970. Today the figure has soared to more than 400m, or over a third of Africa’s population.  Going forward many see this increasing in number and influence: They are now having a noticeable effect on public-policy debates such as abortion, homosexuality and the rights of Muslims to convert to Christianity.

There are numerous reasons for the rise in spiritual belief.  From a practical perspective religion can act as an informal club.  Signs of religious commitment are generally speaking hard to fake so provide a reliable signal to others, this produces trust and so makes business easier to transact.  This is having impact in surprising places.  In a recent paper Professor of International Business Economics at Beijng University, Zhao Xiao argues that China’s economy is benefitting from the spread of Christianity saying that “from the perspective of human society the most successful model is church + market economy. That is to say the happy combination of a market economy that discourages idleness together with a strong faith (ethics) that discourages dishonesty and injury”.   Xiao’s assertion is that Christianity is a sign of higher ideas and progress and that spiritual wealth and material wealth go together. Certainly the growth in the Christian fellowship is noticeable. According to the latest surveys done by China Partner and East China Normal University in Shanghai, there are now 39 – 41 million Protestants in China – a rise from 14 million in 1997. It should also be noted that China is not only open to Christian philosophies; it actually has as many Muslims as Saudi Arabia and nearly twice as many as the entire EU. By 2050 China could be the world’s biggest Muslim as well as the biggest Christian population .

There seems to be an inverse relationship between the generosity of the welfare state and the success of religion.  As the state takes on more responsibility for health, education and so on, the need for religious based charities declines.  This may be an additional reason why religion is enjoying growth in many developing countries which are too needy to afford Europe’s welfare provision or are philosophically disinclined towards a state welfare model – China and South Korea in particular.  Of course religious philanthropy is not exclusive to the Christian faith – the Taliban also use social welfare as way of engaging with the local population for example by funding and stocking hospitals. This philanthropic approach however may also shed light on why more wealthy countries with a strong welfare state are generally more secular – take France for example.

Religion provides an anchor for the millions of migrants who are leaving their traditional villages for the new megacities. Large numbers of young men, who come to the towns looking for work, have few traditional structures to keep them under control. Religion can offer a sense of identity and purpose. This is particularly important for the Muslim population in Europe which looks set to continue its growth trajectory given the number of Europeans of working age will decline by a projected 7%, the number of retired people will rise by 50% over the next 10 years or so leaving Europe little choice but to import workers from the Muslim societies on its southern borders where birth rates are high and job opportunities are limited.  The problems associated with this are multiple as many immigrants have to pick up the low skilled or short term jobs that Europeans don’t want any more.  Understandably this can lead to a sense of marginalisation and isolation.  Small wonder the hope and security of a religious faith is attractive.

Widening differences in wealth generation between and within urban and rural communities extends the gap between rich and poor, and the have and have-nots – but they need each other

According to the UN, in recent years the gap between richer and poorer households has widened in most areas of the world despite strong economic growth that has created millions of jobs. This has applied not only in the gaps between some rich countries and some poor ones, but also within many nations: The rich / poor gap in the US has increased just as it has in Brazil. This has been driven by a number of factors, many of which are increasing rather than decreasing going forward. Urbanisation is perhaps the most significant issue. The ways in which governments use taxation and spending on social activities to redistribute wealth show little sign of changing; nor do the effects of access to education as a catalyst for greater differentiation of opportunity. Over the next decade, many experts across the world see that the gap between the haves and the have-nots will grow, even though there will be ever more inter-dependency, in some areas, between wealth-generation across the social spectrum.

Experts, such as economist Noriko Hama, see that the big economic issue for the world in the 21st century will be the huge gap between rich and poor. “About 16% of humanity in the richer countries are better off than at any time in history. However, more than 1.3 billion people are living on a dollar a day or less.” Looking back over the past decade or so, OECD research shows that “the richest countries have certainly got richer and some of the poorer countries have done relatively badly, but the rapid growth in incomes in China and India has dragged millions upon millions out of poverty.” The gap between rich and poor is getting bigger in the world’s richest countries – and particularly the United States – as top earners’ incomes soar while others’ stagnate. The income of the richest 10 percent of people is, on average across OECD countries, nearly nine times that of the poorest 10 percent. In the US that gap is even greater – about 16 times – and, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, this has more than tripled in the past three decades. According to a recent UN report “US cities like New York, Chicago and Washington are less equal than places like Brazzaville in Congo-Brazzaville, Managua in Nicaragua and Davao City in the Philippines.”

In a 20-year study, the OECD said wealthy households are not only widening the gap with the poor, but in countries such as the U.S., Canada, Italy, Norway and Germany they are also leaving middle-income earners further behind. Earnings of full-time workers have become more, not less, unequal in developed economies over the past decade as high earners have become more so. Research by Professor John Hills at the LSE suggests that in the UK increasing inequality after 2004 has meant that, by 2008, it had reached its highest level in the years since figures began in 1961. The LSE report also found that the educational divisions of early childhood widened as children grew older. By 16, half of all boys receiving free school meals have results in the bottom quarter in England. Once at work, the divisions grow further, with ethnicity and gender dramatically coming into play. Within four years of graduation, boys who went to private schools are earning 8 per cent more than their peers. In many countries in older age there are very large differences in wealth. In the UK one in ten households aged 55 to 64 has houses, pension rights and other money worth less than £28,000. The richest 10 per cent have more than £1.3 million.

We Mumbai we were told that “the widening gap between India’s rich and poor is an undisputed fact” and, in the process of overall growth, redistribution of wealth has become a secondary issue for many. But it is in Latin America where the greatest gaps are to be found, and they are increasing. UN-Habitat research shows that over the region 20% of the wealthiest hold nearly 60% of the resources but the total income for the poorest 20% is only 3.5% of GDP: In Brazil, the most extreme nation, the richest 10% of the population has over 50% of all income while the bottom 10% has less than 1%.

Increasing urbanisation, escalating migration and associated rise of more unplanned slum districts in high-growth cities is leading to rising numbers of urban poor in both the developed and developing world. As Professor Ricky Burdett highlighted in his initial view of the Future of Cities, “migration and in-migration has also created an urban underclass which is often allocated to specific areas of the city. Paris is a perfect example. The physical infrastructure, with the beauty and qualities that we all admire, has frozen. This means that all its growth (with increasing immigration from 1945 and onward) has created ghettoization.” Ismail Serageldin, Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina,  added that “the nature of the economic activity in cities seems to be leading to a greater degree of urban poverty as in-migration and the move to the knowledge society favour the educated and the nimble and drive the gap between the rich and the poor wider. Ghettoization is a by-product of the income gap as much as it is the result of ossification of the city physical structure. Are redistributive policies sufficient? Are they politically acceptable at the level that would be required to have an impact on the problem?” In Latin America for one, urbanization has certainly played a major role. According to the UN “…in smaller cities and certainly in rural areas of Latin America population is even poorer and living conditions more miserable”. But it is not just in cities where the rich –poor gap in increasingly evident: In Brazil over half the rural population is in poverty; in Mexico, 40.1% and in Peru, 69.3%. As urbanisation increases, those left behind are getting relatively poorer. Although “most of the wealth in rural areas already comes from people in urban areas sending money back” this is not balancing the situation. In India, agriculture in itself produces around 20% per cent of the GDP but more than 60 per cent of the population are involved in this sector.

Looking forward, the rich / poor challenge looks set to be even greater. As the UN have highlighted “the more unequal that cities become, the higher the risk that economic disparities will result in social and political tension. The likelihood of urban unrest in unequal cities is high.” Today, the countries of the OECD account for around 60% of global wealth. However within 20 years, forecasts predict this share to be only 30%: The OECD countries will be richer than they are today, but their share of global wealth will have fallen. At the same time, average living standards in the big five developing economies are forecast to rise. This means that, by 2020, China, India, Brazil, Indonesia and Russia will between them account for 30% of global GDP. Within these fast growing nations, ever greater urbanisation is creating more unplanned ghettos and exacerbating the rich / poor divide. India is trying to rebalance this by, for example, giving slum dwellers money and land on the edges of cities like Mumbai, only to see people sell the land and move back into the city where the promise of wealth is greater.

China is acutely conscious of the potential political instability that could result from greater imbalance and has recently announced several policies that seek to change the underlying dynamic. Concerned that overall GDP growth below 8% could lead to internal conflict , Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao recently announced that China must reverse its widening income gap between rich and poor and that the benefits of a growing economy should be distributed more fairly.  In a speech at the start of China’s annual parliamentary session he said “We will not only make the ‘pie’ of social wealth bigger by developing the economy, but also distribute it well.” As part of this initiative, China is aiming to reform the household registration system that classifies people as either city or rural dwellers. This controversial system means many migrant workers – farmers who travel to towns and cities to find better-paid work – are unable to get proper services. In addition, four major cities and provinces are increasing their minimum monthly wage to more than 1,000 Yuan to help restructure income distributions to ensure a more equitable distribution.

In developed economies the challenges also look too daunting and further polarisation of rich and poor is on the cards. Again according to the OECD, over the past two decades “developed countries governments have been taxing more and spending more to offset the trend towards inequality.” But while “the redistributive effect of government expenditures dampened the rise in poverty in the ‘90s they amplified it in the decade that followed, as benefits became less targeted on the poor.” Governments often try to rebalance wealth distribution, but in past years few have been successful.

Looking forward as public spending in many developed economies is cut back to help reduce public debt, many see that things, particularly urban divides, are going to get worse and that ten years from now the rich – poor gap will be much wider. There are some positive moves such as the reversal of the digital divide between those connected to the internet and those not due to the roll out of mobile connectivity around the world, but overall most experts we spoke to feel that 2020 will be a world where the rich will have got richer and the poor will have become relatively poorer.

The escalating economic and social costs of supporting ageing beyond natural lifecycles leads to wider acceptance of assisted suicide for those who have had enough

Given the certainty of imbalanced population growth and the increasingly ageing population, some claim that there are people born today who, if they wish, could live for over 200 years. With the current record at 120 and a host of people already living past 115 , there is little doubt that, with technology advancing as quickly as it is, physically adding another 80 years or so is looking possible. Whether or not mental capacity can be sustained for that long may be a greater challenge, but the world will certainly get used to more and more centenarians; in the UK alone there are over 9000 of them today.

While this may be all well and good at an individual level, many see that from a societal perspective the ageing population is presenting us with a major financial burden. Given  pensions are not really designed for people to live much beyond 75, increasing dependency ratios in many nations and escalating healthcare costs across the board, some people have been asking the rather difficult questions around whether we can continue to cope with this level of mass long term ageing.

An increasing number of healthcare professionals see that life-sustaining treatment is frequently not cost-effective. In the US acute hospital care accounts for over half (55%) of the spending for Medicare beneficiaries in the last two years of life. In many other countries the high costs of surgery, intensive care and life-extending drugs used  towards the end of  a patient’s life  adds up to nearly 80% of total healthcare costs. A recent study in Brazil confirmed that over 70% of total  healthcare costs occur in the last twelve months before death. And a story on Bloomberg a couple of years ago highlighted the case of one US resident whose healthcare costs  totalled $618,616, almost two- thirds of it for the final 24 months, and according to his wife “much of it for treatments that no one can say for sure helped extend his life.”

Given such predictable trends, a growing question being raised in governments and medical policy groups is whether we should continue to  putting in all this effort and resources, in many cases only to delay the inevitable by a few months. In a US future of health workshop, the question was asked “When will the US adopt the Do Not Resuscitate policy used by the National Health Service in the UK?”: A DNR order on a patient’s file means that a doctor is not required to resuscitate a patient if their heart stops and is designed to prevent unnecessary suffering. This is used when a patient is in hospital and the benefits of treatment are seen to be outweighed by the burdens of future quality of life.   Some regard this  as a form of passive euthanasia. At the workshop it was argued that if the US were to adopt the same policy, the savings to the healthcare budget would be enormous and unnecessary suffering of patients who had little hope of long term recovery would be avoided. However, this is just one step and others are proposing even more significant changes.

Over the past few years, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill have become prominent medical and social issues. There are legal and ethical constraints on euthanasia in many countries, but not in all: Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia are legal in, for example, Colombia, Belgium and the Netherlands: In 1990, 9% of all deaths in the Netherlands were as a result of physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia. However, in most countries, despite a number of legal challenges, assisted-suicide for the terminally ill remains illegal – albeit rarely prosecuted. Recent attention has specifically been focused on the growing popularity of clinics such as those run by Dignitas and EXIT in Switzerland; Since its foundation in 1998, Dignitas has assisted around 1000 people to die, 60% of them from Germany and 10% from the UK.

In markets such as the US where the healthcare system is largely focused on keeping people alive for as long as possible, assisted suicide and DNR are highly controversial topics. Even with increasingly public moves, such as that of the author Terry Pratchet who has called for tribunals to give sufferers from incurable diseases the right to medical help to end their lives, wider acceptance of euthanasia is still in the minority. But it is growing.

In ten years, many think that more and more people will start to see that life doesn’t need to go on for ever, especially since the option to live for longer in reasonable comfort is really only a luxury for wealthier nations where the healthcare systems, insurance policies and private wealth enable increased levels of support. The argument is that systemic euthanasia should be introduced. Moreover, this should not be limited just to those who have a proven terminal illness but should be an option available to all.

With the economic burdens evident and the trends clear, the rational side of the case is increasingly accepted, but in many influential circles the ethical, emotional and political perspectives are also shifting. Some see that opening the door for euthanasia beyond those with terminal illness is a slippery slope leading to a point where individuals who would not otherwise consider it may be pressurised into   asking for assisted suicide by interested parties, others see that the option to proactively check out of life when enough is enough is a sign of a more balanced society. No doubt the debate will continue, and pick up pace as more countries make assisted suicide legal, and, for those that don’t, the numbers travelling across borders for the service may well increase.

Increased transparency on resource availability, food security, land use and eco-literacy accelerate the shift towards mass consumption of locally grown and processed foods

After nearly a century of interest in global foods sourced from different countries, in some regions there has been a steadily growing middle class focus on returning to locally produced foods: The organic movement, seasonal produce and “locavores” have all come on to the food industry radar in many developed world countries over the past few years.  Across the globe, in the varied workshops and conversations undertaken over the past twelve months, we can see an alignment of multiple drivers of change around food from GM crops and improved irrigation through to concerns about national food security and an increase in urban farming. Together these are leading many of us towards a global solution to food supply that is increasingly focused on the local. Although the approaches differ from region to region and state to state, a world in 2020 where more people are better fed through more intelligent use of resources is, it appears, on the horizon.

Starting with the areas where there is not enough food to feed the population we can currently see several issues all combining in recent years to make things worse – from imbalanced population growth to water management and the impact of global trading on the price of commodities. However as one workshop participant highlighted “there is no such thing as a world food shortage, it is a supply and distribution problem and we therefore need to be better at managing this.” Alongside better management of supply chains, more intelligent transportation of excess foods in some markets to areas of need, people point to key technological advances being made by some of the world’s agribusinesses. For example, Monsanto and BASF have working on drought tolerant corn with modified genes. These and similar developments by other companies use new technologies to “deliver yield improvements compared under water-stressed conditions” and over the next decade are destined to play a major role in Africa, India and parts of Asia as well as parts of the US and Europe as water stress increases. They can be grown locally, close to the population and so reduce dependency on long distance aid and trade. As Jim Kirkwood highlighted in the initial perspective on the Future of Food “we need to significantly increase global research investment in biotechnology, genetics, food science and nutrition to reach the technical breakthroughs required for a second agricultural green revolution that will enable us to feed the world.”

For countries with enough food today, a rising future concern is that of food security and being able to guarantee adequate supply to feed growing populations in resource constrained times. Especially as diets change and more of us consume more meat, the knock on impact on other foods as well as on water and land mean that in many parts of the world their will be issues around land use. Add in the possibility of ‘peak fish’ and ‘peak grain’ to go along with ‘peak oil’ and the continued impact of the growth in bio-fuels over the next few years and even countries that are currently over-supplied with food have issues about the future. Whether it is food vs. fuel competition for land or simply more people consuming more, constraints on food supply are imminent. The World Summit on Food Security, organised by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome in 2009 highlighted that “global food security situation has worsened and continues to represent a serious threat.” At a country level, in India in 2008 the Ministry of Agriculture has published a National Food Security Mission which included a plan to “increase the production of rice by 10 million tons, wheat by 8 million tons and pulses by 2 million tons by the end of the Eleventh Plan in 2012.” In 2010 the UK announced a national food strategy calling for UK farming ‘revolution’ with Hilary Benn, Environment Secretary saying that “we need to produce more food. We need to do it sustainably. And we need to make sure what we eat safeguards our health.” Across the world, countries are taking the food security issue very seriously and so more locally produced food is a key component.

Adding on to this we have the opportunity for more efficient farming. While organic food and the like is all well and good in the garden and up-market delis, some people see that it cannot be a role model for feeding the mass population. Large scale farming to feed the world’s millions requires more refined crops and this implicitly means wider acceptance of GMO. Several workshop participants saw that by 2020 GM crops will be accepted globally and that regulatory bodies such as the EU will have significantly loosened its restrictions on these.

Another commonly agreed view is that we will see a rise in the number and size of urban farms. Both from a desire to keep some food production and processing as close to the market as possible and from the opportunity to make better use of our urban green spaces and roofs, many see urban faming taking off. At one level this will be encouraged by city planners and mayors keen to ensure local food security. According to Arup’s Foresight team “half of Shanghai’s pork and poultry, 60% of its vegetables and 90% of its milk and eggs come from the city and its outskirts.” Elsewhere in Asia, 80% of Hanoi’s fresh vegetables comes from farms within and around the city. In the developing world, local food supply has been a key concern for years and will continue to be front of mind going forward. In Europe and the US however, there has been a shift to importing foods from half way round the world – lamb from New Zealand, asparagus from Kenya, kiwi fruits from Chile and so on. With food security becoming a bigger issue, we can expect to see more urban farming occurring in the west. In cities where there are brown-field sites, people are already starting to use land for farming rather than housing. Detroit is the lead example here: “The amount of vacant and abandoned land in Detroit would roughly add up to the size of the city of San Francisco” and so, with urban land cheaper than arable land, John Hantz and colleagues are leading programmes to grow fruits and vegetables for local consumption. Elsewhere, where land is more valuable, there are plans for making more use of flat roofs for agriculture and introducing vertical urban farms. From New York and London to Mexico City, highly efficient multi-story vertical farms incorporating hydroponics and aeroponics are destined to become a common feature. One team in the RCA project conducted as part of the Future Agenda programme focused their attention on how innovative, sustainable building systems in unplanned ghettos of fast growing cities could be used to provide vertical walls for growing crops for both home consumption and sale. Around the world, people and governments are starting to shift urban farming up a gear to a point where it will make a significant impact on parts of the food system.

Lastly we also have the increasing impact of the environmental and sustainable viewpoints. While workshop participants felt that 2020 is too soon for such developments as personal eco-footprints to take hold and drive consumer choice, several did feel that wider eco-literacy over the next decade will help people to explore alternative food options more intelligently. This will not just be simply about choosing not to eat products from certain locations as a consequence of ‘food-miles’ because the CO2 impacts of flying goods vs. growing them in greenhouses are sometimes marginal. Rather it will be consumers choosing to consume more local, seasonal food; retailers choosing to steer choice by labelling and product selection and so ‘nudge’ their customers towards locally supplied and processed products; and more of us generally becoming aware of the overall environmental footprints of certain foods – in terms of water, waste and energy. By itself, the ecological view will take a long time to really shift the mainstream, but, taken in conjunction with the other developments in food security, national food strategies, technology and commercial choices for food manufacturers and retailers, many see a world in 2020 where local foods will again become the global norm.