Title:
Author: Future Agenda | https://www.futureagenda.org
Permalink:
https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/page/5/
New perspectives on the future are gained from multiple expert discussions around the world. Our ten year foresights offer rich, insightful views on some of the most important changes shifts – and challenges - that lie ahead.
Globalisation of trade and travel, with geopolitical shifts from North to South and from West to East, have delivered many benefits for some – but are causing clashes of cultures and a perspective of political retrenchment for others. Through globalization, the world has opened for many. Whether travelling, trading or just taking an interest, the world today really is your oyster, not least because of the window of opportunities that the Internet provides and enables. However, nativism, protectionism, isolationist thinking and its ilk is featuring in many more ways than in political rhetoric. Even in the seemingly innocuous area of…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/rise-of-nimby/
The push towards global standards, protocols and greater transparency is a focus for many nations driving proactive regulation, but others choose to opt-out of international agreements and go their own way. Technology has created a new type of geopolitical interaction. As data whizzes across borders, creating workable rules for business out of varying national standards is tricky. It’s also important. Differences in privacy laws act as an unintended trade barrier and restrict innovation. There’s a need to establish global standards that each country can sign up to and use as a basis going ahead. But the task is complex. Garnering…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/privacy-regulation/
There are increasing high levels of man-made pollution in many of the world’s seas and little actually disappears. By 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the world’s oceans. We live on a blue planet; the world’s oceans cover three quarters of the Earth. They contain 97% of the Earth’s water and are currently absorbing around a third of the CO2 being produced by our activities and so helping in part by acting a buffer for some of the impacts of climate change. (30 to 40% of the carbon dioxide from human activity released into the atmosphere dissolves into oceans,…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/plastic-oceans/
New forms of flatter, project-based, collaborative, virtual, informal organisations dominate – enabled by technology and a global mobile workforce. As such the nature of work and the role of the organisation blurs. While there are many different types of organisation both for profit and not-for-profit, virtually all are defined by five common features: they are composed of individuals and groups of individuals; they are oriented towards achieving collective goals; they consist of different functions; the functions needs to be coordinated; they exist independently of individual members who may come and go. Organisations exist because groups of people working together can…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/organisation-3-0/
Seamless, integrated and shared last-mile delivery replaces inefficient competition and duplication of goods distribution. Greater efficiency in moving things is as important as in moving people and so a major focus for innovation. In the complex world of logistics, vast improvements have already been made in the efficiency of moving goods around the world. The speed at which packages are sorted, loaded and transported has increased substantially over recent years. The main efficiency challenge is in the last mile – from distribution centre to final destination, be that a home, an office, a car or an individual. This, costing typically…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/optimising-last-mile-delivery/
The shift from centralised production to decentralised manufacturing drives many to take a ‘smaller and distributed’ approach: Global supply chains are replaced by more regional, consumer-orientated supply webs and networks. In the past companies have sought to manage their own supply chains to optimize control and effectiveness of delivery to production facilities and then on to distributors and retailers. With many organisations now seeking to take advantage of on-line efficiency opportunities while hedging supplier options, leaders see a shift not only to a multiple web of connections but also to one increasingly shared by competitors and collaborators alike. Key to…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/open-supply-webs/
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 400 million it is one of around thirty mega-cities that 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 22nd century, but some would say that the growth and importance of mega-cities is very much a 21st-century issue. Today, many see that cities rather than nations are taking the…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/migration-magnets/
Active gathering and interpretation of data related to threats to human and animal health delivers faster early warning and situational awareness. In an era of increased globalization, public health and surveillance are playing an increased role in bio-security. Protecting us from the outbreak of disease has become an increasingly hot topic in healthcare circles and is a focus for major investment. As part of global and national health security systems, public health surveillance is widely used for such activities as detecting new cases; estimating impact; modelling the spread of diseases; evaluating prevention and control measures; and strategic prevention planning. To…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/bio-surveillance/
People living off-grid, by inequality or choice, can exacerbate societal division or improve privacy, health and wellbeing. Either way, doing so provides fertile ground for innovation. The world and humanity are unquestionably more connected than ever before. The Industrial and Technological revolutions have transformed our ability to both travel and communicate. From cars and planes, to email, mobile telephony and social media, the world has become smaller. According to Internet.org 90% of the world’s population lives within range of a mobile signal and 3 billion people in 2015 are connected to the Internet. It’s worth noting that this impressive statistic…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/off-grid/
In the Anthropocene, humankind is presiding over the Earth’s sixth major extinction. But as biodiversity declines, nature becomes increasingly valued and valuable. We live in the Anthropocene, the proposed epoch that begins when human activities started to have a significant global impact on Earth‘s geology and ecosystems. We also live in what many scientists are calling the Earth’s sixth mass extinction event, a period defined as a loss of 75% of species. Recent studies suggest that the rate of extinction for species in the 20th Century was up to 100 times higher than it would have been without man’s impact. According to analysis for Nature a…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/natures-capital/
As the public voice becomes easier to access and harder to suppress, leaders seek to engage to create, develop, secure and maintain legitimacy for their initiatives and policies – so further reducing their hierarchical power. Every since homo sapiens first appeared some 200,000 years ago, communication and engagement styles have continued to evolve. When we lived in small groups, one to one communication and gossip was enough. The agricultural and industrial revolutions enabled larger groups to form – from organisations to cities and countries. Leaders, and those in, or wanting, to keep power, needed to be able to speak to,…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/mass-engagement/
Economic, physical and political shortages of key resources increase and drive increasing tension between and within countries. As we exceed the Earth’s natural thresholds, food and water receive as much focus as oil and gas People are concerned about the environmental impact of our continuing to consume more resources than the earth can naturally replenish. We currently consume the equivalent of 1.6 planets a year, meaning ‘overshoot day’ – the day each year when demand outstrips natural supply – is coming earlier and earlier. Many worry about us physically running out of important materials but others however are more sanguine,…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/key-resource-constraints/
