Global Sustainability Trends

Delivery

This report comes in PPT.

Key findings

Global climate emergency

With the United Nations declaring a Climate Emergency in December 2020, the world faces complex sustainability challenges that could negatively impact life on earth, hinder access to resources and disrupt global supply chains, causing commodity price volatility and international conflicts.

These concerns have increased the world’s appetite for climate-friendly products and renewable energy. The COP26 climate conference, to be held in Glasgow in November 2021, could revive interest in the production and consumption of green energy.

The world needs to “do more with less”

Growing populations and middle-class expansion are putting significant pressure on natural resources, increasing depletion at a faster pace than the planet is able to regenerate.

This is causing environmental damage (pollution, forest and biodiversity loss, water stress, etc), and is also having a negative impact on economies and society, increasing production costs, limiting access to resources and ultimately challenging business growth over the long term. The shift towards circular production and consumption models is becoming a survival imperative for businesses and individuals.

From a “degenerative” to a “regenerative” approach

Environmental degradation is a luxury that the world cannot afford. There is a need to move towards an economy that can regenerate itself. If businesses are to stay operational and profitable in the next 50 to 100 years, they need to stop taking things for granted. There are invaluable assets beyond their balance sheets that need to be prioritised and protected.

Giving back to the planet is not philanthropy, it is investing for the future. Over the next years, there will be more collaboration and innovation to create business models that reconnect industrial processes with nature’s cycles. More investment will be directed to the design of planet-compatible products and processes, using nature as a model.