Macrotrends and Disruptions Shaping 2020-2030Vision 2050 Issue Brief Contents Context | 3
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Macrotrends and Disruptions shaping 2020-2030Vision 2050 issue brief Contents Context | 3 Macrotrends & Disruptions | 5 1 Macrotrends | 6 Demographics | 7 Environment | 8 Economics | 9 Technology | 10 Politics | 12 Culture | 13 2 High-level implications of the macrotrends | 14 3 Disruptions | 16 Conclusion | 22 Context a dynamic operating environment. the decade. It is powerfully In 2010, the World This means thinking about all the demonstrating the profound, Business Council pressures that shape the world wide-ranging – and, more for Sustainable we live in, and that business often than not, long-lasting Development (WBCSD) operates in, from demographics – consequences that such and economics, to technology and disruptions can have. released Vision 2050, a politics. WBCSD partnered with landmark piece of work Volans to explore the world that COVID-19 has triggered multiple that laid out a pathway lies ahead of us. A comprehensive disruptive shocks and accelerated research paper is available as a many of the macrotrends that we to a world in which nine had identified. It has made certain billion people are able to companion piece to this issue brief, offering the evidence behind things more likely and others less live well, within planetary our attempt here to summarize likely. With both the public health boundaries, by the macrotrends and potential crisis and the linked economic mid-century. disruptions likely to shape that turmoil still unfolding, there operating environment over the remains a high level of uncertainty In 2019, WBCSD decided to decade ahead. about what the full ramifications revisit its Vision 2050 work – 10 of COVID-19 will be for the decade years on, there has not been as As with any look into the future, ahead. But the macrotrends much progress made along the caveats are required! This issue and disruptions covered in this Vision 2050 pathway as required. brief, and the research behind it, is summary have not suddenly gone WBCSD is working together with not a set of forecasts, predictions away. In many cases, COVID-19 40 member companies to update or scenarios. We are not trying may serve merely to accelerate the pathway to reflect some of the to put a particular spin – positive or intensify them. It is therefore great changes that have unfolded, or negative – on the analysis. essential that we continue to to bring the pathway in line with the The point is to take a clear-eyed consider the bigger picture at Sustainable Development Goals view of what the 2020s might the same time as planning the (SDGs), and to prioritize the critical have in store, so that we can responses and eventual recovery actions that business can take to develop more effective strategies from the current crisis. unlock the progress required for for how to respond and make WBCSD is issuing a separate issue the kinds for transformations that progress on Vision 2050. We will brief that looks in greater depth at our Vision 2050 demands. need strategies that harness the momentum created by trends that the implications of the COVID-19 From the moment we decided can act as tailwinds; and we will pandemic, both in terms of the to update Vision 2050, we knew need strategies that are resilient macrotrends and disruptions laid we needed to think about what and adaptive in the face out in this paper, and more broadly the next 10 years might throw of inevitable headwinds. with regard to lessons learned at business. Not just in terms from past recoveries and therefore of sustainability challenges: we One such headwind is the how business should respond to wanted to explore more generally COVID-19 pandemic. Just this crisis. what the world would look like, like most other forecasts of and consider how that would recent years, we had identified affect business’ ability to operate a pandemic as something that successfully (so that they can also the world would be ill-equipped operate sustainably). to deal with were it to occur, not to mention something that was Our collective ability to deliver actually quite likely to occur. on Vision 2050 (9+ billion people And yet, we too find ourselves living well, within planetary stunned by the arrival of the boundaries) is dependent on our COVID-19 global public health ability to understand and navigate crisis in the first weeks of 3 Vision 2050 issue brief Macrotrends and Disruptions shaping 2020-2030 Macrotrends & Disruptions This issue brief outlines MACROTRENDS the macrotrends and We outline 12 macrotrends set to suggest how the global business disruptions that could shape the 2020s. These represent community might seek to influence major shifts in the demographic, the way these trends play out in shape the environment environmental, economic, order to accelerate progress on business operates in technological, political and cultural Vision 2050. Crucially, too, all the over the next 10 years. landscapes that can be foreseen macrotrends are interconnected: It is best read alongside with a relatively high degree of how they interact with one another certainty, though their implications is central to how the next decade our Issue Brief on the are often more uncertain or will play out. We explore some of specific impacts of ambiguous. We then focus in these interconnections briefly in COVID-19 on the on a subset of the macrotrends the introduction to each landscape. decade ahead. to explore this ambiguity and Macrotrends emerging over the next decade DEMOGRAPHICS ENVIRONMENT ECONOMY 1. GENERATIONAL HANDOVER 3. WORSENING CLIMATE IMPACTS 5. SHORT-TERM CRISIS, Political, economic, cultural More frequent and more severe LONG-TERM SLOWDOWN & innovation power is shifting weather becomes harder to ignore. Under-investment, low productivity, . weak demand and COVID-19. 2. POPULATION GROWTH 4. LOCAL POLLUTION, IN ASIA & AFRICA DEGRADATION & SCARCITY 6. PEAK GLOBALIZATION Sustaining geopolitical & THE RISE OF ASIA CREATE IMPETUS Rival blocs form as shifts and straining FOR INNOVATION scarce resources. Loss, suffering, instability, economic and political displacement & innovation. power pivots. TECHNOLOGY POLITICS CULTURE 7. AUTOMATION IMPACTS EVERY 9. POLARIZATION & 11. POST-MATERIALISM: ATTITUDES INDUSTRY & COUNTRY RADICALISM ON THE RISE AND LIFESTYLES DIVERGE Automation changes lives, High levels of dissatisfaction create Changing aspirations are helping industries and economies. appetite for radical alternatives on-demand service models to spread globally. 8. DATAFICATION, FOR 10. GEOPOLITICAL INSTABILITY Weakened multilateralism BETTER & WORSE 12. CULTURE WARS ESCALATE Smarter, more efficient, and nations in decline – Cultural clashes (young- more surveilled – massive the incentives for stability old, rural-urban, rich-poor) efficiency and productivity slowly fade away. contribute to polarization gains come at a price. and in turn feed off it. 4 Vision 2050 issue brief Macrotrends and Disruptions shaping 2020-2030 DISRUPTIONS We propose 10 “wildcard” The macrotrends and disruptions disruptions that could plausibly are deliberately not presented as materialize during the 2020s, risks and opportunities. Every risk resulting in significant impact. Indeed contains the seed of an opportunity some of them already have, with within it – and every opportunity the impacts still snowballing. However, seed of a new risk. What matters is the wildcards are not all negative how we respond to and influence the – they simply have the potential to dynamics of the world around us. significant disrupt the landscape that business operates in. Potential “wild card” Disruptions 1 2 3 4 5 FINANCIAL GLOBAL MAJOR AN ECONOMIC SOCIETAL CRISIS PANDEMIC CONFLICT “SINGULARITY” “TECHLASH” How much will COVID- No country is fully Cyber attacks, e.g. on What happens when Society sours on the 19 cost, and how will prepared to handle a critical infrastructure new jobs can’t be costs of free tech, we pay when the next pandemic, and neither will touch all ordinary created where jobs treasuries tire of lost crisis comes? are any economies. citizens in a conflict. have been destroyed? taxes and competition. 6 7 8 9 10 POPULAR REVOLTS A CLIMATE ENERGY TRANSITION BIOTECH GLOBAL GREEN & REGIME CHANGE “MINSKY MOMENT” TIPPING POINT BOOM (NEW) DEAL Inequality will continue Costs, disclosures, Market forces lead to Disruption comes to Citizens embrace the to rise making more social pressures all fossil fuel demand food, health and chance to improve frequent and severe reorient financial flows peaking and the energy materials as biotech’s jobs, communities protest likely. – but how fast? transition accelerates. potential emerges. and environments. 5 Vision 2050 issue brief Macrotrends and Disruptions shaping 2020-2030 1 Macrotrends 66 VisionVision 20502050 issueissue briefbrief MacrotrendsMacrotrends andand DisruptionsDisruptions shapingshaping 2020-20302020-2030 DEMOGRAPHICS The global population is growing, ageing and urbanising. By 2030, there will be more than a billion over 65s: 12% of the global population, up from about 8.5% in 2015. Two- thirds of us will live in cities – and a growing number, particularly in Africa and Asia, in megacities (though megacities are expected to account for less than 10% of the total urban population). Migration – both within and between countries – is also increasing. 1. GENERATIONAL HANDOVER: FROM BABY BOOMERS TO MILLENNIALS AND GEN Z Globally, those born after 1980 now free market capitalism than their outnumber those born earlier. A predecessors who grew up during generational handover of political, the Cold War. cultural and economic power is already underway and will continue The countries with the largest throughout the 2020s. Increasingly, Millennial cohorts are all in Asia, tensions between the different the Middle East and Africa: India 1 generations are likely to bubble alone has 385 million Millennials. to the surface. These reflect the Conversely, the countries with different formative experiences the largest Baby Boomer cohorts of different cohorts. For example, are in Europe, North America and those who came of age around the Oceania: by 2030, roughly 30% of time of the 2007-8 financial crisis the population of Europe will be tend to be much more skeptical of over 60.2 2.