Water Management

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. Read more

Popularity: 1% [?]

Local Foods

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. Read more

Popularity: 3% [?]

Solar Sunrise

Increasing national government focus on energy security and climate change drives the uptake of large-scale solar as the leading renewable supply

The combined pressures of rising global energy demand, increasing concern about climate change, greater focus on the advance of ‘peak oil’ and heightened awareness of the challenges around energy security are driving many countries to look for alternative energy sources. While long term prospects rest on technological breakthroughs and the wider adoption of nuclear energy that decrease the use of fossil fuels, as highlighted in section 1, the next decade is still very much where oil, gas and coal are the major sources of energy. With India and China growing fast, and so requiring greater energy to fuel this growth, with the US still very much “addicted to oil” and with governments yet to agree a global way forward, the energy world in 2020 will, according to International Energy Agency projections, still be over 70% fossil fuel based. Read more

Popularity: 3% [?]

Intelligent Buildings

Increasingly smart, better connected, self-monitoring homes and offices provide safer, more secure, low energy consumption buildings able to self-manage heating, lighting, security and air-flow

One of the much discussed, but yet to be realised, dreams for architects, engineers and progressive developers in the idea of the zero-waste, zero-energy building: One which, in use, has zero net energy consumption and zero carbon emissions. As, operation accounts for 85% of the total whole-life energy consumption and buildings account for the majority of global CO2 emissions, this would be a big step forward. Alongside the design of an office, home or factory, and the materials used in its construction, a pivotal enabling issue in this aspiration is the idea of having intelligent buildings – ones which adopt low and high tech methods to ensure optimum management of resource. With major advances taking place across the ICT field, increased integration of control systems and, in some markets, regulations for the roll-out of smart meter systems, all the ingredients for the high tech option are coming into place. With several countries such as South Korea taking the lead, smart homes that control energy, ventilation, communication services and so on are starting to be built. By 2020, many see that the  majority of new buildings being constructed around the world, and many that are being refurbished, will be increasingly intelligent and so provide a big push towards the zero energy building that so many are aiming for. Read more

Popularity: 4% [?]

Dense Cities

As urban migration increases, efficient, densely populated cities are the blueprints for more sustainable places to live rather than distributed options like Houston and Mexico City

Historian Tristram Hunt commented early on via the Future Agenda programme blog that “we are currently living through one of the great eras of urbanisation with the great megalopolises of China, Africa, India and South America assuming the cultural and economic dominance which Berlin, Rome, Moscow and London used to enjoy in the 19th and 20th centuries.” He sees that “after a decade of unprecedented urbanisation and industrialisation, China’s cities now resemble the nightmare metropolises of mid-19th century Britain. Accounts of the pollution, ill-health, and overcrowding in Nanjing or Chengdu eerily recall the worst excesses of 1840s Manchester or Glasgow.” But at the same time, the same cities will offer the opportunity to meet the challenges of rapid urbanisation as “many of them also provide the seeds for solving our climate crisis. For the world’s developed cities are coming under increasing pressure from their informed, engaged citizenry to mitigate their environmental impact. And they also contain the technical and innovative capacity to address the problem. So, Berlin has managed to cuts its carbon emissions by 15% and Toronto by some 40% over the last fifteen years. In London, Ken Livingstone successfully developed a pioneering climate change strategy which led to a 19% drop in C02 emissions from traffic inside the congestion charge zone.” Read more

Popularity: 4% [?]

Alternative Proteins

To cope with the increase and shift in global diet from rice to meat, alternative sources of protein arrive with a shift to lab-growth manufactured meats and high protein vegetable combinations

One of the common challenges with rising economic growth is that of increased resource consumption. As highlighted in the first section of this book, as GDP per capita increases so does food consumption: Once people have more money available, one of the first things they do is to seek to improve their diet. Whether this involves an incremental shift to higher quality or more tasty foods or a more fundamental shift from say a rice based diet to one with more meat, the well recognised global impact of increased wealth is a higher calorie and ideally higher protein lifestyle. Just as individuals climb what is seen as the energy ladder, so they also climb the calorie and protein ladders. The more money you have, the more or better foods you eat and this is a pretty well linear relationship until you get to a point where enough is enough. Wrap all this together with an increasing population and steadily rising economic growth worldwide and we face a significantly growing world protein demand. The big issue here is that complete protein commodities are becoming increasingly scarce and alternative sources will be required. Read more

Popularity: 2% [?]

The Wrong Business Models?

Several recent sessions looking at key resources (energy, food, waste, water etc) and well as more technical topics (connectivity, data etc) have highlighted that one of the fundamental problems we have with our future challenges is that we are trying to look at the potential solutions through the lens of today’s business models. At a time when old financial investment models have been put under the spotlight, it is worth questioning how many sectors are using the wrong business model for the future. Read more

Popularity: 15% [?]

Africa’s Foreign Land Resource Challenge

Adding to the increasing focus on key future resource shortages, this article  in today’s Observer highlights how more African land is being acquired and leased by multiple external companies for the future. Adding to the previously covered reversal of South Korean Daewoo’s deal with Madagascar for 1.2m hectares (half the country’s arable land), John Vidal lists some of the main deals already in place including a contract between China and the Democratic Republic of Congo to grow 2.8m hectares of palm oil for biofuels and additional 3.9m hectares acquired by European biofuel companies. Right now, an extra 17.5m hectares of land are needed to hit the EU target to have 10% of fuel from biofuels by 2015. Much of this is likely to be outside the EU. Read more

Popularity: 17% [?]

Water Footprints

One of the key changes likely to occur over the next decade is the widespread introduction of water foot-printing – either as a standalone item or folded into a wider eco-footprint. It is noteworthy how quickly this is entering the mainstream: The concept was only conceived in 2002 but by 2007 serious global momentum was building. With support from a broad community from business, academia, research institutes, consultants, governments and NGOs, the Water Footprint Network was formed in 2008 and has since become the focal point for much of the ongoing development in methodologies and education around the principles of water footprints, embedded water and virtual water.

  Read more

Popularity: 9% [?]

World Bank and McKinsey on Future of Water

The World Bank and McKinsey have just published a new report on the future water challenges. Charting Our Water Future reviews the key drivers of change and advocates a more integrated economic approach to water management and a potential transformation of the water sector. Key comments include:

“By 2030, projected population and economic growth will lead to global water demand 40% in excess of current supply if no or inadequate 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.” Read more

Popularity: 6% [?]

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