Trends Identified
Resources (un)limited?
The world’s natural-resource equation is changing as technology boosts resource productivity, new bottlenecks emerge, and fresh questions arise about “resources (un)limited?”.
2017
The global forces inspiring a new narrative of progress
McKinsey
Resourceful planet
Absolute population growth, economic development and more middle-class consumers will drive increasing global demand for natural resources — both renewable and non-renewable. While the world’s supply of non-renewable resources is technically finite, new technologies continue to impact the future supply picture by allowing access to formerly hard-to-reach and valuable oil, gas and strategic mineral reserves. The application of new technologies, as well as the shifting supply environment, will drive business model adaptation and innovation in multiple sectors — as well as impact the geopolitical balance of power. At the same time, natural resources must be more effectively managed, particularly from an environmental impact perspective. Growing concern over environmental degradation, securing strategic resources and the fate of our food and water supply are indicative of the fact that protecting and restoring the planet is a critical future imperative. Governments, societies and businesses must work in tandem to develop more sustainable approaches to the task of achieving economic growth while leveraging natural resource inputs.
2015
Megatrends 2015 -Making sense of a world in motion
EY
Resource-based services for distributed and parallel computing (metacomputing)
Resource-based services for distributed and parallel computing (metacomputing) allow the use of supercomputers to significantly increase the effectiveness of scientific research, as well as to increase the competitiveness of products across numerous sectors of the economy. Key directions in the development of metacomputing include grid-algorithms and software for distributed solutions to complex computing tasks; and algorithms and software to develop, verify and test large programmes. With the growth in demand for metacomputing services standard mechanisms will be developed for internal regulation of this services market and quality metrics will be created for these services which will make it possible to form business models for interaction between providers and consumers of the services. In the field of material production, thanks to e-science metacomputing services there will be a fall in the entry threshold for start-up companies onto knowledge-intensive product markets (microelectronics, pharmaceuticals, new material design, bioengineering). The development of this product group requires entirely new methods to solve the problems of energy consumption, component times between failures and the parallelism of the further movement towards increasing the real performance of metacomputing hardware platforms.
2016
Russia 2030: science and technology foresight
Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
Resource scarcity and climate change
Demand for energy and water is forecast to increase by as much as 50% and 40% respectively by 2030. New types of jobs in alternative energy, new engineering processes, product design and waste management and re‐use will need to be created to deal with these needs. Traditional energy industries, and the millions of people employed by them, will see a rapid restructuring.
2017
Workforce of the future The competing forces shaping 2030
PWC
Resource Scarcity
As the world’s population continues to grow, there is increased demand for and pressure to conserve natural resources that have huge implications for poverty, inequality, demographics, and public health.
2017
Beyond the Noise- The Megatrends of Tomorrow’s World
Deloitte
Resource Price Volatility
Market volatility is causing unexpected shifts in the prices of futures and commodities, affecting investment decisions (e.g., the rise in US oil production and key issues around pipelines raises questions about the future volatility of energy markets).
2017
Beyond the Noise- The Megatrends of Tomorrow’s World
Deloitte
Resource Nationalism
Resource nationalism is state control or dominance of particular resources, especially energy, and the use of this power to achieve national political objectives. In 1978, international companies controlled production from 70% of oil and gas reserves; at present they control only 20% with national or state-dominated oil companies controlling access to 75% of proven conventional reserves.
2010
Global strategic trends - out to 2040
UK, Ministry of Defence
Resource gamification
Example of Organizationsactive in the area: Joulebug (US), Waterpebble (UK).
2018
Table of disruptive technologies
Imperial College London
Resilience to global disruptions and regional risks
CEOs report that they are less likely this year to focus on changing approaches to risk management than on other areas of priority, from strategies for talent to organisational structure. Significant defensive steps have already been taken: balance sheets have improved and cash reserves have been built. Enterprise risk is now more frequently discussed in boardrooms.
2012
15th Annual global CEO Survey
PWC
Reshape: The post-crisis environment
Worst fears fail to materialise on regulations… yetRegulation is a perennial concern for CEOs. This year,how business leaders view regulatory issues has to be understood through the lens of ‘what might have been’at the start of 2009, when the uncertainty which hung over the financial system and by extension, the global economy,was so great. At that time, drastic measures to contain the crisis and preserve national economies were a realistic prospect. Massive bailouts ensued and with them,expectations of radical regulation to prevent another crisis.The alarmist scenarios of trade barriers and regulatory rewrites largely failed to materialise. Yet there remains asense that more regulatory change is inevitable. CEOs see little encouraging news on compliance costs. Regulatory burdens on corporations were not addressed during the downturn. In fact, in this year’s survey, more CEOs citeda lack of progress on cutting red tape than a year ago,67% to 57%. Only 2% of CEOs based in the US said the government has reduced regulations (see figure 2.1).Some governments are listening, at least when it comes to taxes. Our annual measure of the comparative ease of paying taxes in 183 countries found that 45 economies had reduced the tax burden on SMEs, or made it easier for them to pay taxes, in the year through 1 June 2009.4Yet, few CEOs believe that trend will continue.
2010
13th Annual global CEO Survey
PWC