Connecting the dots

PPllaanneett22002255 SScceennaarriioo BBrriieeff
Accelerated Learning for a Globally Sustainable
Lifestyle -- Connecting the Dots
FRAMEWORK PAPER
Steven Lovink
jslovink@planet2025.net
February 2006,
updated 08/06

Accelerated Learning for a Globally Sustainable Lifestyle -- Connecting the Dots
Foreword
This is a background paper designed to initiate a series of strategic explorations as part of an
international participative process geared to examining the next frontier of practical formal
(K1-12, University), non-formal (on-the-job training & education), and informal (TV, radio,
phones, games, recreation, edutainment, etc.) accelerated learning solutions that are to
prepare humanity for a successful transition to a globally sustainable lifestyle.
An initial group of 60 participants from around the globe participated in online preparatory
strategic explorations conducted in early 2006. The preliminary outputs1
are being integrated
in a series of four to six regional face to face one-day pre-conferences to be held in 2006 and
2007. They will seek to aggregate the collective wisdom from experts in business,
government, civil society, academia and youth around core thematic tracks. The pre-
conference results will serve as input for inspiring plenary sessions and results-oriented
roundtable events during a 2-3 day international conference expected to be held in The
Hague, the Netherlands in the Fall ‘07 or Spring ‘08.
Future scenarios of the world serve as overall framework for this collaborative process, its
program, objectives and outputs. Pre-conference and conference activities will be facilitated by
renowned futurist Joel Barker and his team, using the I-Wheel® and Strategic Matrix®. A key
objective of the process is to establish an international issue network of practitioners of
accelerated learning solutions to provide input and advice to decision and policymakers on a
regular basis.
The Planet2025 Learning Initiative is being organized within the context of the UN Decade of
Education for Sustainable Development upon the initiative of the Planet2025 Network in
cooperation with a select team of value-added co-organizers, sponsors, and partners. The
initiative is gathering international professionals from the financial community, the corporate
sector, government, civil society, academia and youth.
1
See: Planet2025 I-Wheel Report: Preliminary Findings March and April Sessions ►online viewer ► PDF
download (May and June Sessions forthcoming)
Page i

Acknowledgements
Learning speeds up when we build on prior knowledge. This Planet2025 Scenario Brief is no
exception. Rather then reinventing the wheel, it has sought to summarize, reflect on, and link
to wisdom and foresight contained in the excellent work of many experts in the field. I cannot
but recommend everyone to go to the source documents to capture the full richness they
alone can offer. The modest contribution of this brief may be that the subject matter is cast in
a novel and thought-provoking context that will hopefully accelerate learning once again. The
participatory process of the Planet2025 Learning Conference provides a first opportunity for
this to happen.
My special thanks go to Paul Epstein (Climate Change Futures), Jerome Glenn (Millennium
Project), Paul Raskin (Great Transition Initiative), Walter Reid (Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment), Mathis Wackernagel (Global Footprint Network), for their valuable comments,
suggestions and/or support, as well as Joel Barker and his colleagues Greg Kaiser and Bill
Palladino (Strategic Explorations Institute) for their feedback, particularly in structuring the
suggested first order implications, and also conference planning committee members: Rietje
van Dam Mieras, Frits Hesselink, Douwe-Jan Joustra, Gottfried Leibbrandt, Atem
Ramsundersingh, Roel van Raaij, Konrad von Ritter for their guidance and support. Finally, the
Shell Scenarios to 2025 and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s work
on Pathways to 2050 proofed to be essential building blocks to build visions of the year 2025.
The collective feedback and input greatly improved a document which by necessity had to be
brief, and thus a challenge. Responsibility for any mistakes, omissions, or discrepancies in the
final product, albeit unintended, is mine.
February 2006, Washington DC
Steven Lovink*
______________
* Steven Lovink is a founder and president of the Planet2025 Network, a non profit organization with a
mission to mobilize new and additional sources of sustained financing for long term investment in the
globe's life-supporting ecosystems through education, outreach, stimulating cooperation and dedicated
program activities; he chairs the planning committee of the Planet2025 Learning Conference.
Page ii

Table of Contents
Planet2025 Scenario Brief
Foreword ...............................................................................................................i
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................ ii
Summary of Key Points........................................................................................... 1
Towards a Globally Sustainable Lifestyle................................................................ 3
Accelerated Learning for Sustainability: Why? ............................................................3
Life-long Learning for Life........................................................................................4
Images of 2025 ...................................................................................................... 5
Demographic Trends ..............................................................................................5
Life in the Big City..................................................................................................5
Fewer Degrees of Separation ...................................................................................6
Global Economic Trends ..........................................................................................6
Future Ethical Issues ..............................................................................................7
Everything is Connected ......................................................................................... 8
Managing Our Ecological Footprint............................................................................8
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment ...........................................................................9
Health, Ecological and Economic Dimensions............................................................ 12
World Development and Energy Dynamics ............................................................14
Shell Scenarios to 2025 ........................................................................................ 14
Pathways to reducing CO2 emissions....................................................................... 15
TechnEcologies & Tech-time ..................................................................................16
Five Regions of the Future..................................................................................... 16
History of the Future ............................................................................................ 18
A Great Transition?................................................................................................19
World Lines: Pathways, Pivots and the Global Future................................................. 19
Competency Wedges as Insurance for Life............................................................... 21
Investments as Insurance for Life........................................................................... 22
Exploring the Implications ..................................................................................... 23
End Notes ..............................................................................................................25
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PPllaanneett22002255 SScceennaarriioo BBrriieeff
SUMMARY OF KEY POINTS
1. Humanity’s quest for sustainability may be attained through the adoption
of a globally sustainable lifestyle which exemplifies living well within the
reality of one planet.
2. Accelerated lifelong learning solutions – formal (K1-12, university), non
formal (on-the-job training & education), and informal (TV, radio, phones,
games, recreation, edutainment, etc.), will be at the core of humanity’s
ability to achieve a globally sustainable lifestyle.
3. Demographic and urbanization trends to 2025 will present the global
community with huge provisioning challenges to provide secure and
equitable access to food, water, housing and other basic human needs.
4. By 2025, most of the world population will be able to interact anytime,
anywhere with anyone via the internet or an nth
generation computer or
smart phone efficiently powered by the sun and providing multimedia
messaging services, including just-in-time learning content.
5. World economic power will shift from a uni-polar world largely influenced
by the US to a bi-polar, or even multi-polar, world by 2025; global GDP
will be $ 100+ trillion by many projections. Emerging economies will
represent a larger portion of World GDP than the mature economies.
6. Debates over emerging ethical issues through 2025 will benefit from being
informed by timely discussions and dialogue by the public and decision
makers.
7. Humanity’s Ecological Footprint will reach the equivalent of 1.65 planets
and an accumulated ecological debt of 15 planets by 2025, unless a
common target based framework is adopted on the basis of precaution,
equity, efficiency and choice to manage multiple associated risks to
economic, environmental and human security.
8. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment reports that the future condition of
life-supporting ecosystem services could be worse or better than those
present, depending on policy choices. Policy changes required are large
and presently not under way.
9. Climate change will affect the health of humans as well as ecosystems and
species on which we depend; these health impacts will have substantial
economic consequences. Insurance solutions will be at the center of these
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developments, both absorbing risk, and, through its pricing and policies,
helping business and society to adapt to and reduce risks.
10. World development scenarios to 2025 will be affected by the interplay and
trade-offs of a globalized world driven by markets, community, and state
coercion and regulation; examples of three possible future worlds are: (i)
low trust globalization, (ii) open doors, and (iii) flags, each yielding
average growth to 2025 of 3.1%, 3.8% and 2.6%, respectively.
11. To avert the worst climate scenarios, pathways to reducing CO2 emissions
of the global economy are required to show real signs of positive change
by 2025 and a steady decline of emissions afterwards, on the basis of
shifts in energy production and use.
12. TecnEcologies are complex ecosystems of technologies and offer a brand
new way to look at the interplay between technology, business and daily
life; we have entered an era when technological evolution is only limited
by the amount of intellectual effort that can be given in a given challenge.
13. Technology has been a major shaping force through the ages and so it will
be in the 21st
Century. Its deliberate and conscious development needs to
ensure that technological prowess is used to address the major challenge
of our times, i.e.support a successful transition to a sustainable future.
14. The prospects of shaping a globally sustainable lifestyle are further
enabled through the emergence of a movement of aware and engaged
world citizens. This may crystallize at a historical tipping point where
present global threats are driving a planetary consciousness pulled forward
by a positive vision of the future in combination with optimism of will.
15. Innovative learning solutions in strategic areas such as water, energy,
health, agriculture and biodiversity across human, social, organizational,
technological and cross-cultural domains can function as competency
wedges which accelerate learning and hence humanity’s capacity to cope
with impending change, in short -- they help insure life.
16. The transition to a globally sustainable lifestyle is to be seeded by an
alignment of incentives for individuals, businesses, schools, religious
organizations, communities, municipalities, nations and international
bodies that will catalyze large scale investments in the materialization of a
globally integrated business ecosystem of commerce and trade focused on
the design, development, and delivery of products and services which
internalize the emergent reality of one people, one planet and one future.
17. Within the context of images of 2025, exploring the strategic implications
of an emerging global consensus to significantly reduce the global
ecological footprint by 2025 by means of innovative learning solutions at
the global, regional, organizational and individual level is valuable,
because it will be connecting the dots to priorities and actions which
facilitate societal transformation through life-long learning for life.
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Towards a Globally Sustainable Lifestyle
Accelerated Learning for Sustainability: Why?
What could be meant by globally sustainable lifestyle? First, we can envision it to be firmly
embedded within the regenerative capacity of healthy and resilient life-supporting ecosystems
that provide water, food, fiber and fuel, regulate climate, water supply and health, support
primary production and soil formation, and endow existence with cultural spiritual, aesthetic,
recreational and educational capital. Second, we can imagine it to emanate ripples to the outer
edges of the atmosphere and back to the core of a system-of-the-whole represented by an
interface composed of three interdependent spheres: values and principles, community, and
the marketplace, where each sphere interacts with its own distinct but interconnected domains
and sub-domains. Third, we can picture values and principles to be driven by sustainability
criteria, equity considerations, the precautionary principle, efficiency concerns, and freedom of
choice, which in turn would interact with community, a body of mutually dependent
stakeholders that has internalized a global sustainable lifestyle into its organization and
governance, as well as a marketplace where regenerative investments capitalize on
technological prowess, consumption, production and trade in pursuit of a bottom line which
considers people, profit and planet. Finally, we can visualize this complexity of interactions to
take place and be mutually interdependent at the global, regional and local level. Stated
differently and briefly, a global sustainable lifestyle exemplifies living well within the reality of
one planet; it recognizes global citizens are but one people, on one planet, with one future.
Figure 1: Envision the Future
2025
Humanity is currently far removed from a globally sustainable lifestyle, but will have little
choice but to adapt, or rather transform, to a lifestyle that is. During that turbulent period of
transition, much has to be learned and unlearned to achieve it and under pressure of time.
These changes will come with risks, but also tremendous opportunities and rewards, especially
for those with singular purpose, energy and resolve to see it through.
2005
Values +
Principles
Values +
Principles
Efficiency
Religious
Private Sector
Civil Society
NonProfits
Equity
ChoicePrecaution
Sustainability
Investment
Technology
Consumption Government
Market Place Community
Globally Sustainable
Lifestyle
Production
Trade
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Life-long Learning for Life
In Collapse: How Societies choose to Fail or Succeed1
, we can learn that the success of
humanity’s quest for sustainability will most likely hinge on its ability to acquire the necessary
wisdom and foresight fast enough to manage change and avoid possible collapse of human
civilization and life as we know it. Meeting the sustainability challenge necessitates building
the required capacity for rapidly emerging 21st
Century human, social, organizational,
technological and cross-cultural competencies. It is these competencies that need to
strengthen humanity’s collective ability to cope with impending change; importantly, they
must enable a successful transition to a sustainable future.
The mission at hand is thus no less then to accelerate learning processes of people,
organizations, nations and the global community at large in pursuit of a globally sustainable
lifestyle. The successful implementation of innovative lifelong learning solutions – formal (K1-
12, university), non formal (on-the-job training & education), and in particular informal (TV,
radio, phones, games, recreation, edutainment, etc.)2
, will be at the core this endeavor.
Life-long Learning for Life
New & Innovative
Time
Speed
FORMAL
IN -
FORMAL
NON -
FORMAL
GLOBALLY
SUSTAINABLE
LIFESTYLE
Competencies
• Human
• Social
• Organizational
• Technological
• Cross-cultural
Competency Curve
Figure 2: Accelerated Learning for a Globally Sustainable Lifestyle
The images of various futures seen from different yet often complimentary perspectives are
summarized in the pages that follow. The emphasis is on the year 2025. This is for example
when kids now 12-18 years will be 32-38, and the median age of the world population is 32.8
years. This important youth group represents the new generation of leaders that will be
assuming leadership positions in government, the private sector, NGOs, educational
institutions, and elsewhere. Sustainability – for good reasons and bad, will be at the center of
much of their careers. The year 2025 also provides us with 20 years to set a successful
transition to a sustainable future in motion.
Indeed, the future is now, but are we ready? Are we doing relevant things to prepare new
generations of global citizens everywhere for the challenges ahead? Are we creating rewarding
opportunities along the way? Are we investing enough in accelerated learning for a sustainable
future? If some or all of the answers are negative, what more should be done or in stead?
Envision the future, explore its strategic implications and the creation of appropriate solutions
can follow.
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Images of 2025
Demographic Trends
How many people will there be in 2025, and in which nations and regions will they live?3
• The United Nations Population Division, in its medium variant, projects a growth of the
world population from 6.4 billion in 2025 to 7.9 billion in 2025, and increase of 27% or
1.5 billion people. This represents an average growth rate of .77% which compares to
1,76% during the second half of the 20th
Century. Most people will be living in
developing countries; their share grows from 81% in 2005 to 84% in 2025.
• The most populous regions in 2025 will be: Asia (4.728 billion), Africa (1.344 billion),
Europe (707 million), Latin-America & the Caribbean (696 million), North America
(338 million), and Oceania (40 million).
• The five most populous countries in 2025 will be China (1.441B), India (1.395 million),
USA (350 million), Indonesia (264 million), and Pakistan (229 million); this represents
almost have of the world’s population in 2025.
• Europe’s population will have declined by 2.8% to 707 million in 2025, while Africa’s
would have grown 48% from 905 million in 2005 to 1.344 billion people in 2025,
representing 17% of the world’s total.
• If you like space, one should consider Oceania, with less than 5 inhabitants per km2
,
compared to 18 in North America, 34 in Latin America & the Caribbean, 31 in Europe
and 44 in Africa and 144 in Asia.
• Migration flows are expected to stay steady through 2025 with 2 million migrating
every year from developing to developing countries; 1.3 million will have North
America as their destination, 650,000 Europe and 90,000 Australia and New Zealand4
.
• The world will need to cope with some 50 million environmental refugees by 2010 and
perhaps 100s of millions beyond as a result of problems such as sea level rise,
expanding deserts and catastrophic weather-induced flooding5
.
• The median age of a world citizen will be 32.8 in 2025, up from 28.1 in 2005. In 2025
the median age of the population in developing countries will be 30.8 year, about
twelve years younger then the population in developed countries.
Life in the Big City
Our planet is in the midst of a transition to an urban world.
• The world’s urban population will grow from 3.2 billion in 2005 to 4.6 billion people in
2025, when 58% of the world population will be living in urban areas.
• Almost all population growth expected for the world in the next 20 years will be
concentrated in the urban areas. The smaller urban settlements (with fewer than
500,000 residents) of the less developed regions will absorb most of this growth.
• Mega-cities will dominate the landscape in some countries. In 1950, there were only
two cities in the world with more than 10 million in habitants: New York and Tokyo. By
2005, there were at least 20 such cities with Tokyo (35M), Mexico City (20M), New
York (20), Sao Paulo, (19) and Mumbay in the top 5. In 2025, less than 5% of the
world population will be living in mega-cities
• Urbanization in 2025 will come with huge provisioning challenges to provide equitable
access to food, water, housing and other basic human needs at a point in time when
nature’s ability to provide them will be severely impaired.6
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Fewer Degrees of Separation
A shrinking digital divide is taking shape7
.
• Worldwide over 1 billion people are now connected to the internet; this represents
15.7% of the world population. From 2000 to 2005 internet connectivity grew by
182%. Two-third of world could be connected by 2025 if connectivity would continue
grow at an average of 9 % per year henceforth.
• Internet usage as a percentage of world population is highest in North America (22%),
Europe (29%) and Asia (36%). Penetration is highest in North America (68%) followed
by Oceania/Australia (53%), Europe (36%) and Latin America/Caribbean (14%)
• Internet growth between 2000 and 2005 has been fastest in the Middle East (454%)
followed by Africa (404%), Latin America/Caribbean (337%) and Asia (219%).
Mobile phone are becoming ubiquitous8
• Nearly one quarter of the world's population now uses a mobile phone. The number of
subscribers nearly doubled since 2000 to over 1.5 billion users.
• Mobile phones are now generating more money than traditional fixed line services as a
result of surging demand in developing countries such as China, India and Russia.
• In China alone there are now 310 million mobile phone users, more that the entire
population of the United States. The world population would be fully connected with
mobile phones by 2025, assuming a continued average growth rate of 8.5%
henceforth.
By 2025, mostly anybody may be able to interact anytime, anywhere with anyone via the
internet or an nth
generation computer or smart phone efficiently powered by the sun and
providing multimedia messaging services, including just-in-time e-learning.
Global Economic Trends
The world economy will shift from a uni-polar world influenced by the US to a bi-polar, or even
multi-polar, world by 2025, when first China and later India have firmly established
themselves as drivers of world economic growth9
. Europe’s economic power diminishes as a
share of world GDP, remains larger than that of India, but will remain influential, especially in
the context of a strong continued trans-Atlantic commerce and investment relationship, which
will be unrivalled for at least two more decades to come10
.
The following basic trends will substantially shape international relations through 202511
:
• World GDP will have more than doubled from $ 47 trillion in 2002 to $ 112 trillion in
2025 at an assumed average growth rate of 3.8 percent (a relatively favorable
scenario). The share of world GDP of emerging markets (51.6%) will have overtaken
that of matured markets (40%); transitional markets (8.3%) capture the remainder.
• China’s share of the world economy in 2025 will the world’s largest (19.2%) followed
by the United States (18%), India (9.6%), Japan (4.3%), Russia (3.7%), Brazil
(2.8%) and Mexico (2.1%).
• A regional perspective puts emerging Asia in the lead (40%), followed by North
America (21.5%), Western Europe (13.3%), the transitional economies (8.3%),
Central and South America (5.1%), the Middle East (3.4%), Africa (3.1%).
• In 2025, income per capita in the United States will be $ 57,977 compared to $
15,058 in China (25% of the US), $ 7,747 in India (13% of US), $21,157 in Western
Europe (36% of US), $ 14,075 in Brazil and $ 2.629 in Africa.
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• A key challenge for economic powers will be to sustain growth and economic security
in the face of the growing claims on the globe’s deteriorating natural resource base,
environmental change (including possible non-linear change) and associated human
insecurity.
World GDP 2002-2025
in USD billions
0
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
50,000
60,000
70,000
Em
erging
M
ature
C
hina
U
SA
Europe
India
Japan
R
ussia
Brazil
2025 2002
Future Ethical Issues
The Millennium Project’s State of the Future 200512
notes that contemporary debates over
ethics might have been better informed had the public and decision makers begun discussing
these topics 30 years ago. The project’s international assessment rated the following issues to
emerge as the most significant between now and 2010:
• What is the ethical way to intervene in the affairs of a country that is significantly
endangering its or other people?
• Should religions give up the claim of certainty and/or superiority to reduce religion-
related conflicts?
• Do we have the right to clone ourselves?
• Do parents have a right to create genetically altered “designer babies”?
• Should national sovereignty and cultural differences be allowed to prevent
international intervention designed to stop widespread violence perpetrated by men
against women?
Issues rated to emerge as the most significant between 2010 and 2025 were:
• Do we have a right to alter our genetic germ line so that future generations cannot
inherit the potential for genetically related diseases or disabilities?
• To what degree should the rights and interests of future generations prevail in
decisions of this generation?
• Would the advent of global ethical norms unduly constrain the differences among
groups or the evolution of values?
• Should a person be subjected to psychological, social, or cultural mechanisms for
having the propensity to commit a crime?
• Do the demands of collective intelligence outweigh those associated with individual
identity?
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Everything is Connected
Managing Our Ecological Footprint
Ecological Footprint accounts provide a way of documenting the extent to which human
economies stay within or exceed the regenerative capacity of the planet. Such biophysical
resource accounting is possible because resources and waste flows can be tracked. The
Ecological Footprint measures how much productive land and sea area a population (an
individual, a city, a country, or all of humanity) requires for the resources it consumes and for
the absorption of its waste, given prevailing technology. Measured in “global hectares”-- bio-
productive hectares with world average capacity to produce biomass-- it is calculated based on
official government data and reflects annual changes in resource efficiency and technology13
.
The Ecological Footprint is increasingly adopted by NGOs, the business community and
governments as a very effective indicator for communicating sustainability to society at
large14
.
Figure 3: Consider where we are going ….
If we track the development of the global Ecological Footprint since 1960, we find humanity
was consuming 120% of the planet’s renewable resources in the year 2000 – the equivalent of
1.2 planets. That number has now grown to 123% in 2004 and will have grown to 165% (the
equivalent 1.65 planets) by 2025 unless we develop a globally sustainable lifestyle. The CO2
portion or Carbon Footprint typically represents about 50% of the total Ecological Footprint.
Between 2000 and 2025, cumulative ecological debt, with its inherent risks and costs to
environmental, economic, and human security will have grown from 2.7 to 15 planets under a
business as usual scenario. This is unlikely to be sustainable. Since it is equally unlikely that a
significant number of humans will be able to live in outer space by 2025 or even beyond that
time frame, humanity will have to learn how to live well within the reality of one planet. It
would be prudent to accomplish this sooner rather then later.
The framework for transitioning to a globally sustainable lifestyle is relatively straightforward,
including how principles of precaution, equity, efficiency and choice can be internalized in the
process. 15 16
Using Ecological Footprint metrics, shrink and share scenarios (S&S) can make
alternative development paths visible which are consistent with the reality of one planet.
Shrinkage occurs when nations, organizations and individuals reduce their Ecological
Footprints so that consumption, production, investment, and trade activities do not exceed the
Page 8

regenerative capacity of the globe’s life-supporting ecosystems. Sharing means the reductions
are allocated in an equitable manner. This could apply to and be calculated for regions,
nations, organizations and/or individuals.
Figure 3: Manage your Footprint Figure 4 to eliminate Eco-Debt & RiskFigure 4: Shrink & Share your Footprint …. Figure 5: To eliminate Ecological Debt and Risk
The S&S approach requires making decisions about: (i) a sustainable size of humanity’s global
Footprint and (ii) the number of years to reach this target (Fig 4). Different development
paths result in lifestyle solutions with corresponding levels of ecological debt and associated
risks (Fig 5). Smart incentives (for example via an insurance premium, fee, tax and/or cap
and trade system) can be employed to provide the necessary financial impulses for steering
humanity towards sustainability and to mobilize financial resources for (re)investment in
natural capital, including by means of various learning interventions. Interestingly, while we
have the basic knowledge and toolkit to steer humanity towards sustainability17
, we remain
far less ingenious about inspiring people, organizations and nations to apply them in practice.
Lack of political will remains a major bottleneck for change to occur.
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
A synthesis of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) tells us that the future condition
of life-supporting ecosystem services could be worse or better than those present, depending
on policy choices. But, the policy changes required are large and presently not under way.
The MEA explored four plausible scenarios of life on Earth in the year 2050. Their goal is to
present a range of potential consequences associated with various courses of action so that
informed decisions can be made regarding inevitable trade-offs.
• Global Orchestration – depicts a globally connected society that focuses on global
trade and economic liberalization and takes a reactive approach to ecosystem
problems but that also takes strong steps to reduce poverty and inequality and to
invest in public goods, such as infrastructure and education. Economic growth is the
highest of the four scenarios. Population is the lowest of the scenarios in 2050.
• Order from Strength – represents a regionalized and fragmented world that is
concerned with security and protection, emphasizes primarily regional markets, pays
little attention to public goods, and takes a reactive approach to ecosystem problems.
Page 9

Economic growth rates are the lowest in this scenario (particularly low in developing
countries). Population growth in 2050 is the highest in this scenario.
• Adapting Mosaic – here, regional watershed-scale ecosystems are the focus of political
and economic activity. Local institutions are strengthened and local ecosystem
management strategies are common; societies take a strongly proactive approach to
the management of ecosystems. Economic growth rates are somewhat low initially but
increase with time, and the population in 2050 is nearly as high as in Order from
Strength.
• TechnoGarden – explores a globally connected world relying strongly on
environmentally sound technology, using highly managed, and often engineered
ecosystems to deliver ecosystem services and takes a proactive approach to the
management of ecosystems in an effort to avoid problems. Economic growth is
relatively high and accelerates, while population in 2050 is in the mid-range of the
scenarios.
Figure 6: Ecosystems Services Degraded or Enhanced by 2050 in Four MEA Scenarios
Importantly, the foregoing scenarios are based on drivers that affect the capacity of
ecosystems to sustain life.
• A driver is any natural or human-induced factor that directly or indirectly causes a
change in ecosystems.
• An understanding of the dynamics and links between biodiversity, ecosystem services,
human well-being and direct and indirect drivers of change offers multiple
opportunities for strategic interventions.
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This is depicted in Figure 7 below.
Figure 7: Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services, Human Well-being and Drivers of Change
Promising Interventions
The MEA reports the most promising and effective options for interventions that improve the
condition of ecosystem services and human well-being. They are:
1. investments in environmentally sound technology,
2. market and economic incentives for ecosystem services,
3. proactive and adaptive management of ecosystems,
4. investments in public goods (such as education and health), and
Page 11

5. actions that reduce poverty and economic disparities.
Health, Ecological and Economic Dimensions
Climate change will affect the health of humans as well as ecosystems and species on which
we depend, and these health impacts will have economic consequences. The Climate Change
Futures (CCF) study18
is comprised of three primary elements: trends, case studies and
scenarios, which detail and analyze current climate change related consequences for human
health, ecological systems and the global economy. Through two scenarios, the CCF report
examines possible impacts of climate change that may impose severe strains on the financial
sector.
Figure 8: The Frequency of Weather-Related Disasters
Indeed, climate is the context for life on earth. Global climate change and the ripples of that
change will affect every aspect of life, from municipal budgets for snowplowing to the spread
of disease – everything is connected.
Key points listed in the CCF study
1. Warming favors the spread of disease.
2. Extreme weather events create conditions conducive to disease outbreaks.
3. Climate change and infectious diseases threaten wildlife, livestock, agriculture,
Page 12

forests and marine life, which provide us with essential resources and constitute our
life-support systems.
4. Climate instability and the spread of diseases are not good for business.
5. The impacts of climate change could increase incrementally over decades.
6. Some impacts of warming and greater weather volatility could occur suddenly and
become widespread.
7. Coastal human communities, coral reefs and forests are particularly vulnerable to
warming and disease, especially as the return time between extremes shortens.
8. A more positive scenario is that climate reaches a new equilibrium, allowing a
measure of adaptation and the opportunity to rapidly reduce the global
environmental influence of human activities, namely fossil fuel combustion and
deforestation.
9. A well-funded, well-insured program to develop and distribute a diverse suite of
means to generate energy cleanly, efficiently and safely offers enormous business
opportunities and may present the most secure means of stabilizing the climate.
10. Solutions to the emerging energy crisis must be thoroughly scrutinized as to their life
cycle impacts on health and safety, environmental integrity and the international
economy.
The insurance industry will be at the center of these developments, both absorbing risk and,
through its pricing and recommendations, helping business and society to adapt to and reduce
these new risks. With over three trillion dollars in annual revenues, insurance is the world’s
largest industry, representing 8 % of global GDP – it would be the third largest country if
revenues were compared with national GDPs. But, even large companies and countries are not
insulated from climate change risks and need to seize the manifold opportunities that can be
derived from a clean energy transition.
Figure 9: Global Weather-Related Losses from "Great Events": 1950-2004
Page 13

The CCF study recommends stakeholders at all levels of society achieve this through
heightened awareness about the risks and opportunities posed by climate change followed by
actions that have the effect of lowering the carbon footprint. A combination of (i) focused
lending and investment, (ii) targeted insurance coverage, and (iii) sufficient economic
incentives from governments and international financial institutions needs to jump-start
“infant” industries and sustain an economically productive, clean energy transition.
World Development and Energy Dynamics
Shell Scenarios to 202519
The new Shell scenario approach highlights the vulnerabilities and trade-offs of a globalized
world. Three key drivers of world development are identified: (i) market incentives
(efficiency), (ii) the force of community (social cohesion and justice), and (iii) coercion and
regulation by the state (security). Based on the interplay and trade-offs between these
drivers, the report identifies three possible future worlds (the 'Trilemma Triangle').
• Low Trust Globalization -- more globalization and market liberalization but also more
coercive states and regulators; trust problem not resolved
• Open Doors -- heightened globalization and more cohesive civil societies crisis of trust
and security has been resolved; use of the precautionary principle, use of more soft
power, and;
• Flags -- states rally around the flag, trust fragmented, national societies split into
diverse groups; efficiency and the market take a backseat to security and solidarity,
more protectionism.
Figure 10: Coherent, Contrasted Business Environments (Shell 2005)
Page 14

These three scenarios provide possible average growth rates for each. The "Open Doors"
economy would have the highest growth (3.8%), "Low Trust Globalization” would lead to 3.1%
growth and "Flags" would be seriously lower (2.6%).
With respect to the energy and carbon industry, the Shell Scenarios to 2025 notes climate
change has become a significant risk on the balance sheets of companies. Carbon emissions, a
key driver of climate change, can be reduced through qualitatively different changes.
Key options are to:
• impose efficiency gains, to reduce demand growth,
• use cleaner alternatives, or
• add tailpipe solutions such as sequestration, which solve the problem after the event,
quite often at high cost.
Different combinations of such policies can be expected to prevail in different regions, with the
US more inclined to rely on technology-based solutions and the EU favoring a precautionary
approach, through taxes and standards.
Pathways to reducing CO2 emissions
A recent report20
by World Business Council for Sustainable Development provides a detailed
overview of potential pathways to reducing CO2 emissions. By 2025 real signs of change must
be apparent. Limiting atmospheric concentration to around 550-ppm – a level expected to
avoid the worst calamities, while still allowing carbon emissions to increase in the medium
term requires a global downturn in emissions soon after 2025, followed by a continuous
decline. Even though energy demand is expected to have at least doubled from current levels,
emissions must approximate today’s levels by 2050.
Figure 11: Emissions Scenarios and Energy Flows through the Economy (WBCSD 2005)
Page 15

The report notes that: a 550-ppm emissions trajectory is an ambitious undertaking in a rapidly
developing world. It requires large-scale deployment of a wide range of technologies with high
investment and complex choices, completely transforming energy production and use. Issues
around energy security and affordability will also play a key role in this transformation process
By 2050, the world must generate a dollar of GDP with only half the energy used in 2002,
equivalent to an economic efficiency improvement of 1.5% per year, a rate of change 20%
higher than that achieved in the last 30 years.
Major shifts in energy production and use are required to succeed. Five mega trends are key
factors to success:
• Power generation – Emissions management moves upstream as electricity is
increasingly the final energy carrier, displacing direct burning of fossil fuels in end use;
• Industry and Manufacturing – Industry, together with power generation, has been the
first major sector to respond to the challenges posed by climate change and to be
impacted by climate change legislation. Further challenges will arise in developing
countries with increasing energy demands.
• Mobility – As the desire for transport and travel increases, especially in developing
countries, new technologies and behavioral changes are needed to achieve significant
emissions reductions.
• Buildings – Buildings give rise, directly and indirectly, to as much as 40% of CO2
emissions. New energy-efficient building designs and materials, coupled with
renewable heating and electricity, are increasingly attractive, while appliances have to
meet ever more stringent efficiency standards
• Consumer Choices – Society tends to think little of the CO2 implications of everyday
choices. Yet such choices are a key element in moving to a sustainable energy future.
TechnEcologies & Tech-time
Five Regions of the Future
Technological innovations will play a crucial role in resolving the tension between the challenge
of reducing humanity’s Ecological Footprint to a sustainable level and the timeframe within
which this needs to be accomplished. Technology creates the future while destroying the past.
Replacing the concept of “High Technology” with “TechnEcology” and working with tech-time,
Five Regions of the Future21
offers a brand-new way to look at the interplay between
technology, business and daily life.
• TechnEcology can be defined as a complex ecosystem of technologies. The individual
elements are made up of tools and techniques invented by humans to increase the
variety of technologies and the complexity of interaction. Like biological ecologies,
TechnEcologies have the capacity to solve wide arrays of problems and to utilize
excess energy and resources to grow into larger, more sophisticated and more
complex systems. The nutrient base on which TecnEcologies grow is a set of values
and beliefs that direct and constrain the choice of physical resources to be used in
developing the technological elements within the larger system -- the nutrient base is
thus metaphysical and not physical.
• Tech-time is the time it takes to give birth to the next generation of technology.
Dramatic acceleration of an idea was slow in ancient and medieval times but speeded
up following the Industrial Revolution, the advent of organized research, and, more
recently, the wide use of computer simulation technology and a vast pool of networked
Page 16

scientists and entrepreneurs across the globe – we have entered an era when
technological evolution is only limited by the amount of intellectual effort that can be
invested in a given challenge.
TechEcologies and tech-time have been emerging together. Clear identification and
understanding of TechnEcologies and their speed of evolution is essential for their conscious
development and decisions about how this should proceed. Since the world’s development has
always been substantially shaped by the design and applications of technologies, we cannot be
clear about our direction unless we understand the geography of TechnEcologies to map our
future.
Almost all technologies can be placed into one of five TechnEcology regions once they are
characterized with the answers to four value questions which reveal their dominant (not sole)
purpose or function: (i) what is the region’s attitude toward material wealth, (ii) what is the
region’s view of science and technology, (iii) how does the region view its relationship with
nature, and; (iv) what is the region’s view of work and leisure?
NT LMT
LOT
HT
SUPER
TechnEcology (ST)
• Bigger, better, more is beautiful!
• Superabundance just around corner
• Science & technology given money and
time can solve all problems
• It is time to move beyond nature
• Given the choice, humans will always
choose leisure over work
(H. Kahn, B. Fuller, J. Simon, G. O’Neill, E Joseph,
B. Lomborg)
LIMITS
TechnEcology (LMT)
• Be careful with what you have got
• Scarcity just around corner
• Science & technology Faustian
Bargain
• Mother Nature Knows Best
• Hard work to ensure survival
• Efficiency is beautiful!
(R. Carson, P. Erlich, G. Hardin, D&D Meadows,
D. Quinn, S. Pimm, A. Lovins)
NATURE
TechnEcology (NT)
• Nature is beautiful; be one with it
• Human needs fulfilled using Nature’s systems
• Mother Nature has already solved all our
problems
• Nature is our equal partner for the benefit of all
living things
• Our work is to learn to live well with Nature
(Watson & Crick, Lovelock & Margulis, M. Rothshild,
McDonoough & Braungart, J Benyus)
LOCAL
TechnEcology (LOT)
• Small and local is Beautiful
• There is a sufficient amount of resources in
the world for everyone
• Science & technology OK if properly scaled
• Humans are the shepherds of nature
• Humans need to work to become fully
human
(EF Schumacher, Lester Brown, Hazel Henderson,
David Morris, Donella Meadows)
HUMAN
TechnEcology (HT)
• We are beautiful
• Real human needs are not material needs
• Science is only now learning how to measure human
technology
• God or Mother Nature or evolution, depending on one’s view
has endowed us with extraordinary capabilities
• Our true work is to know ourselves
(E. Green, T. Bourchard, F. Halberg, R. Thornhill, J. Thompson M.
Seligman, W.E. Deming, P. Drucker)
ST
Universal
Technology
(UT)
Figure 12: Five Regions of the Future
Page 17

Universal Technology (UT) is the equivalent of the Swiss Army knife – almost anyone can find
a dominant use for it. Such technologies have broad market appeal, as each of the regions
have a use for the technology, but for a different purpose.
The Internet is an example of a Universal Technology, as can be understood by examining how
each region might use it:
• Super Tech region – to access a superabundance of information
• Limits Tech region – to substitute for physical travel
• Local Tech region – to exchange information and ideas between localities
• Nature Tech region – for research and analysis of genomes
• Human Tech region – for long-distance relationship building
Additional examples of of a number of Universal Technologies are: Aerogal, Thermal
Depolymerization, Computers, Chronobiology, Stereolithographic (3D) Manufacturing,
Hydrogen Fuel, Holography, Lab on a Chip, Nanotubes, Space Satellites, Computer
Simulations, E-Book.
History of the Future
TecnEcology regions represent a way of life. As such and within the context of humanity’s
quest for sustainability, it is important to explore the implications of these alternative regions
and to have public discussion, discourse and debate about what these lifestyle choices mean
for current and future generations. Exploring our future will not only reduce the potential
negative unintended consequences, but also offers the opportunity to shape a future with
benefits for all. We should take note of a number of lessons of the past that will write the
history of the future:
1. Unintended consequences: When the car was first introduced, little thought was given to its
implications. Since, a large technological ecosystem developed around cars and oil into a global
supply chain influencing geopolitics, the creation of alliances, the development of products, services
and technologies, and the military power to protect them. Once large enough, the combination of
autos and oil became a predator in the larger technological ecosystem, eliminating potential
competition or alternatives. At the beginning of the auto-oil era few would have predicted CO2
emissions would one day trigger the beginning of the end of oil era.
2. Exclusionary Principle: Do substantially equally beneficial technologies have equal chances of
commercial success? Research into the adoption of new technologies demonstrates that time and
again big swings occur as a result of a small and often haphazard change which leads to a virtuous
spiral for the winning technology fueled by entrepreneurship which is in turn backed by growing
investment capital flows seeking to capitalize on success. Often the winner takes most, if not all,
leaving small niche markets for competing technologies.
3. Innovation at the Verge: Will we end up with one predominant TechnEcology? Research on innovation
in living systems has demonstrated that radical innovations often happen on the verge or edge where
two or more ecosystems meet and are under stress. It is at this point where these systems are
challenged and in response adapt, mutate or transform to the new situation. It invites combining
elements from different systems into new ones for dealing with the world. Multiple TechnEcologies will
create multiple verges for continuous innovation – a system which has worked in Nature for billions of
years.
4. The Power and Challenge of Technology: Technology has been a major shaping force through the
ages and so it will be in the 21st
Century. Its conscious development needs to ensure that these
powerful tools are used to address the major challenge of our times – a successful transition to a
sustainable future.
Page 18

A Great Transition?
World Lines: Pathways, Pivots and the Global Future
In World Lines22
, global visions of society in the 21st
Century (see box) focus on the
alternative trajectories for an emerging global system that entwines humanity and the
biosphere in a common fate. Here, our world is a “subject” as well as an “object” within a
tangled web of plausible futures resulting from the interplay of natural law, crisis, contingency,
and human behavior. History is the story of how that complexity collapsed into the single
strand called the past, while the future remains an unfinished book of possibilities – good, bad
and ugly.
Global Visions23
Fundamentally different forms of global society can crystallize out of the turbulence of transition. In
the face of such deep uncertainty, the future cannot be predicted. Instead, multiple scenarios for the
twenty-first century must be considered. To organize the possibilities, consider three broad channels
radiating into the future, each representing an alternative class of visions. These three streams –
Conventional Worlds, Barbarization, and Great Transitions – are shown in Figure 1 along with two
variations for each.
Conventional Worlds are evolutionary scenarios that arise gradually from the dominant forces of
globalization – economic interdependence grows, dominant values spread, and developing regions
converge toward rich-country patterns of production and consumption. In the Market Forces variation,
powerful global actors advance the priority of economic growth through such neo-liberal policies as
free trade, privatization, deregulation,
and the modernization and integration of
developing regions into the market nexus.
The Policy Reform scenario adds
comprehensive governmental initiatives
to harmonize economic growth with a
broad set of social and environmental
goals. The strategic blueprint for Policy
Reform was adopted at the 1992 Earth
Summit (UNCED, 1992), given concrete
expression through international
initiatives such as those to cut poverty by
half (MDG, 2000) and to stabilize the global climate at safe levels (UNFCCC, 1997).
Current Trends
and Policies
Conventional Worlds
Barbarization
Great Transitions
Market Forces
Eco-communalism
Policy Reform
New Paradigm
Fortress World
Breakdown
Figure 1. Taxonomy of the Future
Current Trends
and Policies
Conventional Worlds
Barbarization
Great Transitions
Market Forces
Eco-communalism
Policy Reform
New Paradigm
Fortress World
Breakdown
Figure 1. Taxonomy of the Future
Conventional Worlds visions face an immense challenge. They must reverse destabilizing global trends
– social polarization, environmental degradation, and economic instability – even as they advance the
consumerist values, economic growth, and cultural homogenization that drive such trends. How will
the imperative of sustainability be reconciled with the conventional development paradigm? Relying
on market adaptations is a risky gamble, yet building effective mechanisms for global governance is
difficult in a conventional world context. If unattended crises should deepen, global development
could veer toward a Barbarization scenario. Such a tragic retreat from civilized norms might take the
form of an authoritarian Fortress World, with elites in protected enclaves and an impoverished
majority outside, or Breakdown, in which conflict spirals out of control, waves of disorder spread, and
institutions collapse.
By contrast, Great Transitions are transformative scenarios in which a new suite of values ascend –
human solidarity, quality-of-life, and respect for nature – that revise the very meaning of
development and the goal of the “good life”. In this vision, solidarity is the foundation for a more
egalitarian social contract, poverty eradication, and democratic political engagement at all levels.
Human fulfillment in all its dimensions is the measure of development, displacing consumerism and
the false metric of GDP. An ecological sensibility that understands humanity as part of a wider
community of life is the basis for true sustainability and the healing of the earth.
Page 19

One Great Transition variation is Eco-communalism, a highly localist vision favored by some
environmental subcultures. But the plausibility and stability of radically detached communities in the
planetary phase are problematic. Rather, the Great Transition vision is identified here with the New
Sustainability Paradigm, which sees in globalization, not only a threat, but also an opportunity for
forging new categories of consciousness – global citizenship, humanity-as-whole, and the earth. The
new paradigm would change the character of global civilization rather than retreat into localism. It
validates global solidarity, cultural cross-fertilization and economic connectedness, while seeking a
humanistic and ecological transition. Finally, the Great Transition is a pluralistic vision that, within a
shared commitment to global citizenship, celebrates diverse regional forms of development and
multiple pathways to modernity24
.
The development path that global society takes through the different possible futures will
depend, to a large extent, on the ways human agents exercise their capacity to understand,
imagine, choose, and act. While the world will be more connected, it will not necessarily be
more peaceful, just, or sustainable. For this to happen, a new global culture of global
citizenship needs to emerge that internalizes planetary connectedness, human solidarity,
human fulfillment and ecological sustainability – the vision of a Great Transition. The
conditions for seizing a “Global Moment” realizing this positive outcome may be upon us.
The development path that global society takes through the different possible futures will
depend, to a large extent, on the ways human agents exercise their capacity to understand,
imagine, choose, and act. While the world will be more connected, it will not necessarily be
more peaceful, just, or sustainable. For this to happen, a new global culture of global
citizenship needs to emerge that internalizes planetary connectedness, human solidarity,
human fulfillment and ecological sustainability – the vision of a Great Transition. The
conditions for seizing a “Global Moment” realizing this positive outcome may be upon us.
The current planetary phase of civilization strongly suggests a macro-transition is underway
linking the world’s people, cultures, and environments in a single connected and complex
human-ecological system (HES) of co-evolving human behaviors (political, economic, and
social institutions, and technology) and ideas (values, knowledge, ideology, spirituality, arts
and culture) with the environment (life-supporting ecosystems); they interact at the global,
regional and local level with one common destiny. Structural reorganization in complex
systems in nature happens by means of adaptation or transformation following tolerable or
destabilizing stress. Similarly, our global system may be subject to socio-ecological shocks
(such climate disruption, pandemics, end of oil, financial collapse, big terrorism event) that
may push the global system into transformative reorganization. During such a transition
phase, small perturbations can have large effects on the character of the structural shift. It is
at this moment that people as active agents within the HES can shape the future, before new
perhaps less desirable structures consolidate.
The current planetary phase of civilization strongly suggests a macro-transition is underway
linking the world’s people, cultures, and environments in a single connected and complex
human-ecological system (HES) of co-evolving human behaviors (political, economic, and
social institutions, and technology) and ideas (values, knowledge, ideology, spirituality, arts
and culture) with the environment (life-supporting ecosystems); they interact at the global,
regional and local level with one common destiny. Structural reorganization in complex
systems in nature happens by means of adaptation or transformation following tolerable or
destabilizing stress. Similarly, our global system may be subject to socio-ecological shocks
(such climate disruption, pandemics, end of oil, financial collapse, big terrorism event) that
may push the global system into transformative reorganization. During such a transition
phase, small perturbations can have large effects on the character of the structural shift. It is
at this moment that people as active agents within the HES can shape the future, before new
perhaps less desirable structures consolidate.
Figure 12: Plausible Futures – Strong Global Citizen Movement
Page 20

World Lines’ exploration and analysis of various plausible futures demonstrates that two
pivotal unknowns will shape global trajectories:
1. the form of future systemic crises (timing, magnitude, and character)
2. the capacity of natural and human systems to cope with crises
The level and quality of awareness, mobilization and political maturity of the world’s citizens,
broadly referred to as a “global citizen’s movement” (GCM) is considered to be key to shaping
the future. The degree of development of a GCM correlates with the prospects for a transition
to a stable and desirable future for it would (i) buy time by strengthening the political base for
implementing corrective policies that would delay the onset and severity of global crises, and
(ii) be a key strategic factor influencing the form of post-crisis recovery, adaptation, and
evolution through the cultivation of new values, culture and politics. While individuals will be
animated by different emphases, the energy of a new movement will have to flow from unity
of thought, feeling and action. World Lines: Pathways, Pivots and the Global Future echoes the
conclusion of Five Regions of the Future in that it recommends conscious global evolution,
enabling humanity to be sculptor and sculpture of positive change.
Strategies in three key arenas are proposed to crystallize a GCM capable of bending the global
trajectory:
• Understanding -- “Science-of-the-whole”, which is systemic, synthetic, prospective,
dynamic and normative, as knowledge platform and scientific legitimacy for the GCM.
• Vision -- Belief in the feasibility of a desirable global future as a precondition for
inspiring and galvanizing the necessary collective action to achieve it.
• Action – Informed by systems-based thinking and safe in the knowledge that at
transitional moments, small actions can have big impacts.
At what may be a historical planetary tipping point, global threats are already driving a new
planetary consciousness25
(“push of threat”). Planetary consciousness now needs to be pulled
forward by a positive planetary vision (the “pull of hope”) thru “optimism of will”. Accelerated
learning (formal, non-formal and informal) for a globally sustainable lifestyle can play a crucial
role.
Competency Wedges as Insurance for Life
There are many indications time is of the essence in addressing the sustainability challenge. It
is to avoid less desirable scenarios of the future amplified by the inability of natural and
human systems to cope and in recognition of the fact that learning lead times that need to
produce desired change through for example a GCM (assuming most people will consider this
to be desirable), would commonly be measured in decades if not more. It is for this reason we
need to identify and deploy ingenious ways to accelerate learning processes.
One way to visualize the global sustainability challenge and think about it in practical strategic
terms is to consider the development over time of the size of our Global Ecological Footprint
(GEF) as a proxy for the effectiveness of accelerated learning processes. Simply put, they are
effective to the extent the GEF’s upward trend slows, declines, and then stabilizes at a level
considered to be sustainable within the reality of one planet. Any targeted GEF size and
timeframe for reaching it will establish measurable goals too shrink and share humanity’s GEF.
These GEF goals may further be disaggregated at the regional, national, organizational and
citizen level.
Page 21

Figure 13: Competency Wedges as Insurance for Life
STRATEGIC
COMPETENCY AREAS
1. Water for Life
2. Renewable Energy
3. Healthy Living
4. Sustainable Energy
5. Diversity of Life
LEARNING
INTERVENTIONS
COMPETENCY WEDGES
• CROSS-CULTURAL
• TECHNOLOGICAL
• SOCIAL
• ORGANIZATIONAL
• HUMAN
Transformational Life-long Learning
New & Innovative
Time
Speed
FORMAL
IN -
FORMAL
NON -
FORMAL
GLOBALLY
SUSTAINABLE
LIFESTYLE
Within the above described framework, learning interventions (formal, non-formal or informal)
in strategic competency areas (such as water for life, renewable energy, healthy living,
sustainable agriculture, and diversity of life across human, social, organizational, technological
and cross cultural domains) would have the purpose of driving a wedge between a negative
development path (the business as usual scenario - BAU) and a positive scenario which lowers
the GEF. As such, accelerated learning interventions can become the nutrient base for a
rapidly evolving human-ecological system. These interventions can also precipitate the
emergence of a GCM’s unity of thought, feeling and action directed towards the realization of a
positive image of a globally sustainable future based on empowering values and principles.
Simply put, they become critical competency wedges insuring the web of life.
Investments as Insurance for Life
Realization of the transition to a sustainable future will require appropriate and innovative
financial instruments to provide the proper market signals for new practices, new technologies
and new businesses to take hold. This will necessitate an alignment of incentives for
individuals, businesses, schools, religious organizations, communities, municipalities, nations
and international bodies towards a common purpose. In addition, misaligned or so-called
“perverse incentives” (e.g., for further fossil fuel extraction) must be switched to prime
alternative solutions. For example:
• For the public sector, tax breaks, switched subsidies, targeted R&D support, provision
of infrastructure (e.g., ‘smart grids,’ hydrogen delivery systems), rationalized public
transport and new procurement practices can lay the foundation for transition to a
clean and sustainable energy system.
• For corporations, the insurance sector can exert enormous leverage via its Directors’
and Officers’ insurance. For institutional investors, banks and insurance companies,
directed asset management can help shift the flow of capital into clean, healthy and
safe technologies.
• Industrial companies and the farming sector can improve energy-efficiency and adopt
measures, such as wind energy and biofuel production, that create profitable
solutions.
Page 22

• All organizations can cooperate to change their practices, programs and policies, and
can exert a strong voice on national and international levels to change policies and
create the financial architecture to jump start change.
The investment amounts that will be required to lower the GEF over time are not trivial, for
example: (i) an estimated $ 300 billion per annum will be needed to finance a clean energy
transition26
and (ii) in excess of $ 100 billion per annum needs to be invested in the
maintenance and restoration of our life-supporting ecosystems27
. What amounts to a Global
Community Investment Program28
needs to be financed by means of new and innovative
financial mechanisms. These could include new types of taxes, subsidy switching, insurance
premiums, fees, and/or cap and trade approaches within a target based common framework,
for example along the lines depicted in Figures 4 and 13. All have positive aspects and
drawbacks that need to be addressed. As such, the Global Community Investment Program
can be thought of as the catalyst of, and wedge for, required change as “insurance for life”
(much in the same way as the competency wedges for accelerated learning for sustainability
referenced above)29
.
Investments sow the seeds of change. They can for example enable technology revolutions,
but also finance conflicts or war – they can be flip sides of the same coin. Over the next
twenty years, the management of most if not all public and private sector investments around
the world will have to increasingly internalize sustainability criteria as a priority. This will come
about as part of an emerging global awareness which values successful realization of a
peaceful transition to a sustainable future based on precaution, equity, efficiency and choice.
Investments as insurance for life will spur the ascent of re-engineered financial services’
industry consisting of new banks, eco-investment and venture capital funds, international
development institutions, (re-)insurance companies, and other financial intermediaries and
advisors. It will also drive the materialization of a globally integrated commerce and trade
business ecosystem focused on the delivery of products and services that contribute to the
emergent hard reality of one people, one planet and one future.
Exploring the Implications
If (i) increasing stress will shock the global system onto uncertain pathways, (ii) an emerging
global consensus inspired by a for example a Global Citizen’s Movement’s unity of thought,
feeling and action and for example widespread support for the Earth Charter can guide the
world to a more sustainable future, (iii) innovative learning solutions (formal, non-formal and
informal) can build the competencies required to achieve that goal, (iv) ecological footprint
metrics can be used as an easy to communicate proxy for measuring the effectiveness of
learning interventions as well as sustainability, (v) we accept the premise that such learning
interventions need to take place without delay and produce meaningful change by 2025, and
substantial investment resources are to be mobilized to seed the transition, then the strategic
opportunities and threats along this pathway to a more positive future are important to
explore. It will enable us to “connect the dots” followed by appropriate actions.
Within the context of this scenario brief, a central question has been formulated to initiate the
first in a series of strategic explorations leading up to and informing the Planet2025 Learning
Conference. The central question is followed by fourteen examples of first order implications,
where each implication leads to many second order implications and each second order
implications to third order implications as part of a cascading process.
You are invited to ponder the central question and explore additional implications yourself.
Page 23

CENTRAL QUESTION
“What are the implications of an emerging global consensus to significantly
reduce the global ecological footprint by 2025 by means of innovative learning
solutions at the global, regional, organizational and individual level?”
POSSIBLE IMPLICATIONS
1. A prestigious international award program is launched to recognize innovations in
accelerated learning solutions for a globally sustainable lifestyle.
2. Local communities, including indigenous peoples are actively consulted, and employed to
realize effective and sustainable management and provisioning of ecosystems products
and services.
3. The private sector adopts voluntary measures to reduce their footprint in order to manage
anticipated risks (including; regulatory, financial and reputation risks).
4. A public-private network of networks is established to stimulate humanity towards
reducing the GEF by 2025 thru learning solutions using the internet & mobile phones
5. Youth across the globe are mobilized in support of a globally sustainable lifestyle by means
of accelerated learning approaches
6. Cross-cultural tensions, prevent an emerging global consensus from taking hold
7. The global community votes to pay a tax, insurance premium, or fee based on the size of
its footprint.
8. A global community investment fund capitalized and co-managed by global citizens for the
benefit of humanity will catalyze the achievement of a globally sustainable lifestyle
9. Educational Institutions mainstream science of the whole thinking across all disciplines and
curricula
10. The media (radio, television, games, and movie industry) takes an active role in making a
globally sustainable lifestyle a “cool-things-to-pursue”.
11. The influence of powerful stakeholder groups is leveraged to fight the emerging global
consensus,
12. By 2025 a vibrant $ 1 trillion plus global business ecosystem of commerce and investment
transactions emerges focused on GEF reducing consumption solutions
13. Failure of the market to overcome persistent fossil fuel addiction around the world
prevents the emergence of a viable and/or timely pathway to a clean energy transition.
14. An alignment of financial incentives focused on a globally sustainable lifestyle materializes.
Page 24

End Notes
1
Diamond, Jared (2005) Collapse – How Societies Choose to fail or Succeed, Viking, New York
2
Typically, eighty percent of our knowledge is the result of informal learning at a modest twenty percent
of the total cost of learning; formal and non-formal learning represent twenty percent of learning at eighty
percent of the total cost.
3
World Population Prospects - The 2004 Revision, United Nation Population Division unless otherwise
noted, ►http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/WPP2004/2004Highlights_finalrevised.pdf
4
Migration Report 2002, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division,
►http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/ittmig2002/ittmigrep2002.htm
5
Urgent Support needed for Environmental Refugees, Update Issue 40 - Nov 2005 United Nations
University, ►http://update.unu.edu/issue40_7.htm
6
See for example: Woodbridge, Roy (2005), The Next World War – Tribes, Cities, Nations and Ecological
Decline, University of Toronto Press. in which the author argues that the international development
community must redirect present sustainable development and poverty reductions efforts in ways that
place the provisioning of societies at the heart of political decision-making
7
Internet World Stats–Usage and Population Statistics, ►http://www.internetworldstats.com and data
from UN’s International Telecommunications Union, ►http://www.itu.int/home
8
Wireless World Forum, ►http://www.w2forum.com/item/one_quarter_world_population_uses_mobile
and UN’s International Telecommunications Union, ►http://www.itu.int/home
9
Virmani, Arvind (2005), A Tri-polar Century: USA, China and India, Working Paper No 160, Indian
Council for Research on International Economic Relations.
10
Shell Global Scenarios to 2025 – The Future Business Environment: trends, trade-offs and choices, Shell
(2005), ► http://www.shell.com/static/royal-en/downloads/scenarios/exsum_23052005.pdf
11
Using: World Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by Region, Reference Case, 1990-2025, International
Energy Outlook 2005, Report # DOE/EIA-0484(2005)
12
Glenn, Jerome C. and Gordon Theodore (2005) J. State of the Future 2005 American Council for the
United Nations University, The Millennium Project. See also: ►http://www.acunu.org/
13
For further information on the Ecological Footprint, see: ►www.footprintnetwork.org
14
See for example the following reports: Living Planet Report 2004 by WWF International, UNEP World
Conservation Monitoring Centre, Global Footprint Network, 2004. WWF Gland, Switzerland
►http://www.panda.org/news_facts/publications/key_publications/living_planet_report/index.cfm; Europe
2005: The Ecological Footprint by WWF International, Global Footprint Network, and Netherlands
Committee for the World Conservation Union (NC-IUCN), 2005. WWF Gland, Switzerland,
►http://www.footprintnetwork.org/gfn_sub.php?content=europe2005, and Asia-Pacific 2005: The Ecological
Footprint and Natural Wealth by WWF International, Global Footprint Network, and Kadoorie Farm and
Botanic Garden, 2005. WWF Gland, Switzerland
►http://www.footprintnetwork.org/newsletters/gfn_blast_ap_report_2005.html
15
For a complete discussion see: Lovink, J S, Wackernagel, M, and Goldfinger, S H. (2004). Eco-
Insurance: Risk Management for the 21st Century: Towards a Policy Framework for a Sustainable Future.
Institute for Environmental Security, The Hague, Netherlands. ► http://www.eco-insurance.net/Eco-
Insurance%20-%20Risk%20Management%20for%20the%2021st%20Century%20-%20Final%20-
%20Print.pdf
16
Lovink, J.S. (2003), Eco-insurance for a Sustainable Future: A Contribution to the Johannesburg Plan of
Implementation, Institute for Environmental Security, The Hague, Netherlands. ► http://www.eco-
insurance.net/Eco-Insurance%20Consultation%20Paper-%20Publication%20Final.pdf
17
Pacela, S. and Sokolow, R. (2004) Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50
Years with Current Technologies, Vol 305, Science Magazine, where a portfolio of technologies is proposed
as stabilization wedges to solve the carbon and climate problem over the next 50 years.
18
Epstein, P. and E. Mills (eds.). 2005. Climate Change Futures: Health, Ecological and Economic
Dimensions. Boston, MA: The Center for Health and the Global Environment (Harvard Medical School)
►http://www.climatechangefutures.org/pdf/CCF_Report_Final_10.27.pdf
19
Shell Global Scenarios to 2025 – The Future Business Environment: trends, trade-offs and choices, Shell
(2005), ► Ibid 10
20
Pathways to 2050: Energy & Climate Change (2005), World Business Council for Sustainable
Development, Geneva, Switzerland. ►
http://www.wbcsd.org/DocRoot/gY6SkutjEUrq7v8q5qSH/pathways.pdf
Page 25

21
Barker, Joel A. and Erickson, Scott W. (2005), Five Regions of the Future: Preparing your Business for
Tomorrow’s Technology Revolution Portfolio, New York, USA.
22
Raskin, Paul D. (2006), World Lines: Pathways, Pivots, and the Global Future, GTO Paper Series,
Frontiers of a Great Transition #17 – Review Draft
http://www.gtinitiative.org/documents/ReviewDrafts/WorldLinesReviewDraft.pdf
23
Raskin, P., T. Banuri, G. Gallopín, P. Gutman, A. Hammond, R. Kates, and R. Swart. 2002. The Great
Transition: The Promise and the Lure of the Times Ahead. Boston, USA: Tellus Institute.
►http://www.tellus.org/index.asp?action=19
24
Raskin, P. 2006. The Great Transition Today: A Report from 2084. Boston: Tellus Institute.
►http://www.gtinitiative.org/documents/TheGTToday-APostscript%20_First%20Draft.pdf
25
An example of raised consciousness within the business community is the World Economic Forum’s
launch of a number of Global Risk Prediction Markets about the price of oil, flu pandemics, the war in Iraq,
and severe weather events. For more info ► http://weforum.newsfutures.com/login/login.html
26
Ibid 16.
27
Brown, Lester (2005) Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble
W.W.Norton & Company
28
Ibid 15
29
On the subject of wedges, see also ibid 17.
Page 26

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