Future Agenda Initial Perspectives Full Text

Initial Perspectives

Copyright © 2009 Future Agenda

www.futureagenda.org

Edited by Tim Jones and Caroline Dewing

Designed and typeset by Julie Bartram

All images sourced from iStockphoto

Sponsored by Vodafone Group Plc

All rights reserved. Permission should be sought from the copyright

owner before any part of this publication is reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted by any other means. Agreement will

normally be given provided that the source is acknowledged.

The copyright owner does not accept any responsibility whatsoever, in

negligence or otherwise, for any loss or damage arising from the

possession or use of this publication whether in terms of correctness,

completeness or otherwise. The application, therefore, by the user of

the contents of this publication or any part thereof, is solely at the user’s

own risk. The copyright owner furthermore expressly states that any

opinions given in this document are the opinions of the individual

authors which are not necessarily supported by the views of their

employers, the copyright owner or any company forming part of the

Vodafone Group of companies.

A CIP Catalogue record for this books is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-0-9549853-1-8

Printed in the UK

To keep the environmental impact of this document to a minimum, we

have given careful consideration to the production process. The paper

used in the production of this document is 55% recycled from de-inked

post consumer waste. It was manufactured at mills with ISO 14001

accreditation and printed in the UK by a FSC accredited supplier in

accordance with the ISO 14001 environmental management system.

3

Vittorio Colao, CEO Vodafone Group 5

About Future Agenda 7

Authenticity Diane Coyle OBE 8

Choice Professor José Luis Nueno 14

Cities Professor Richard Burdett 20

Connectivity Jan Färjh 26

Currency Dr. Rajiv Kumar 32

Data D J Collins 38

Energy Leo Roodhart 42

Food Jim Kirkwood 48

Health Jack Lord 54

Identity Professor Mike Hardy OBE 60

Migration Professor Richard Black 66

Money Dave Birch 72

Transport Mark Philips 78

Waste Professor Ian Williams 84

Water Professor Stewart Burn 90

Work Chris Meyer 96

Biographies 103

Contents

4

5

The Future Agenda provides a forum for discussion on how to address the challenges we face and gives you the

opportunity to share ideas, visions and solutions and ultimately seed change by contributing to the debate via the

website www.futureagenda.org This booklet is the beginning of that discussion with experts from academia and

industry establishing initial points of view on a range of issues.

The opinions expressed in this document are not ours but those of independent experts whose views we respect

even if we don’t always agree with them. I thank them for their wholehearted support. They have important things

to say that should be of interest to anyone concerned with creating a sustainable future for us all.

Mobile technology can offer many socio-economic benefits but I believe that the most important contribution that

the industry can offer is the power to allow people to communicate. Never has a conversation been more important.

Vittorio Colao, CEO Vodafone Group

We have all heard enough to know we live in a world that is facing some significant, potentially life-threatening

challenges and yet, as a society, we lack clear direction and seem ill-prepared to do anything. What is evident

is that individual, corporate and even national action is not enough. Issues such as climate change, population

increase and the development of socio-economic infrastructures all require a co-coordinated, urgent and

focused approach.

6

7

As the world responds to accelerating challenges, organisations are seeking to gain clearer and more informed

views of the future so that they can place intelligent bets in terms of business strategy and innovation focus. In

order to understand emerging opportunities, we believe organisations should look, beyond their traditional

horizons, and use new combinations of insight and foresight methodologies.

The Future Agenda programme has already gained the support of a range of corporate, government and third

sector organisations keen to share perspectives, challenge each others views and identify ways forward across

the topics being addressed. As all participants are free to use the material as a source for ongoing research and

innovation, we invite you to add your views into the mix to build and share a unique view of the future we need

to collectively address.

Supported by Vodafone Group, the Future Agenda is a unique cross-discipline programme which aims to

bring together thoughtful people from around the world to address the greatest challenges of the next

decade. In doing so, it is mapping out the major issues, identifying and debating potential solutions and

suggesting possible ways forward. We hope, as a consequence, that it will provide a platform for collective

innovation at a higher level than has been previously been achieved.

About Future Agenda

Future of Authenticity

Diane Coyle OBEFounder, Enlightenment Economics and Member, BBC Trust

8

It is now so easy to make imitations that the value of

the authentic has been enhanced. This phenomenon

was pointed out by the critic Walter Benjamin long ago

(in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical

Reproduction). Furthermore, given the historically

unprecedented declines in the cost of computing and

communication in the past 20-30 years, copying and

sharing information has become easier and cheaper

than anybody of an earlier generation could have

imagined - especially when so many goods and services

are digitally delivered. Managing this explosion in

imitation is one of the real challenges of the digital age.

Authenticity has great salience in our times because new information and communication technologies have

greatly expanded the scale and scope of the inauthentic. For example, they have made identity fraud possible

and also playful; many of us now have multiple personalities online. When it is easy to choose an identity, what

does that imply for the underlying reality? How do I know who I am, and how do you know who I am, and how

does my bank know who I am?

The Global Challenge

The technologieswhich seem toprotect the badguys - the identitythieves orspammers -also seem able tolead repressiveauthorities toclamp down onthe good guys.This is a genuinelydifficult dilemma.

9Future of Authenticity

Things can be authentic or not.

Fakes are proliferating in the online world. Fake

drugs are sold over the internet, to the great harm of

the customers. ‘Fake’ music, films, software are

sold too, to the benefit of customers but not of

copyright owners. Piracy in this metaphorical sense

is absolutely rampant.

What’s more, the majority of reasonable people don’t

seem to believe there’s much wrong with intangible piracy

- it’s a different matter in the tangible world of medicines

or aircraft parts. What is the authentic reality that the full

force of the law and the state should be protecting? After

all, an online copy of a song is no different from the original.

People can be authentic or not.

Online identities can reflect the multiple ways we think about ourselves: A work and a home email; Several

different sign-ups for accounts; a Twitter account; perhaps Facebook profiles, or a character in World of

Warcraft. These are the benign possibilities. There are malign ones too. Thieves will seek our log-ins and

passwords to bank accounts. Malicious spirits will hide behind fake identities to spread rumours, attack other

people, incite violence even.

What are we to think about the cloak of anonymity online? It seems to encourage intemperate comments,

rudeness and viciousness in online forums. On the other hand, it is essential to protect whistleblowers, or

those who post information in a country affected by violence or a repressive regime. The technologies which

seem to protect the bad guys - the identity thieves or spammers - also seem able to lead repressive authorities

to clamp down on the good guys. This is a genuinely difficult dilemma.

Options and Possibilities

A number of steps will have to taken so that we can establish some form of order in the digital world. These are

1) The establishment of credible, digital identities. This is essential for trust - and hence any economic and

commercial activity - online. But conversely it is equally important to protect privacy - and anonymity too where

it’s needed.

2) The protection of intellectual property in the online world while continuing to protect civic space, an

intellectual commons - what James Boyle has entitled The Public Domain in his recent book of this title.

3) The continued provision of widespread access to communications and information. This brings enormous

benefits especially to people largely excluded from the privileged information access of the past (libraries, print

media). At the same time we must build in verification mechanisms, ensuring the reliability of widely-accessed

online information.

The Way Forward

Information can be authentic or not.

This has always been a fundamental issue in how we

navigate the world but is overwhelmingly important now

that so many people have access to so much

information. The internet, modern communications,

amplify the questions of veracity and reliability which

have always affected the mass media. Urban myths

move with the speed of light down fibre optic cables.

Rumours and incitements to violence are spread, as

always, person to person - but each person can now

reach many others, very quickly. A flash mob can be

assembled either to dance in the streets of London or

beat up and stab neighbours in Kenya.

The skill of verification has become fundamental. Can

you identify spam email? Can you recognise bias in

your source of news? Is Wikipedia a good source

for homework?

Finally, experience can be authentic or not.

Authenticity has an existential value. In rich countries,

where most people have lots of stuff, experience is

more valuable. Activities that take time - ballooning,

cooking lessons, a holiday, book club meetings - are

considered good presents, treats. Representations of

experience have value too. Street style sells - as does

home made jam or hand-made crafts. But of course

being packaged and sold makes the authentic instantly

inauthentic.

These reflections contain an enormous range of

challenges and trade-offs.

The internetand modern

communications,amplify the

questions ofveracity and

reliability whichhave alwaysaffected themass media.Urban mythsmove with thespeed of light

down fibreoptic cables.

What do you think? Add your views to the global perspective on www.futureagenda.org

10 Future of Authenticity

The most effectiveway to counteractfalsehoods infuture willprobably comefrom the poolingof manymessages andreports so thepeople can seewhere there is aconsistent story.


The issues raised in all these different contexts are

varied, and difficult. For some of them, it is quite likely

that there will be many technology-based solutions

forthcoming in the near future.

There are key areas where technology is already playing

a major role in authenticity: Digital Right Management

(DRM) uses technology to limit access to certain content

- technology having created the potential for access in

the first place. Equally biometric identity uses technology

to limit the potential to form multiple identities. If my

avatar can always be traced back to the me of my DNA,

is there any point in having it?

I predict technological ‘solutions’ will be commonplace

in the next few years. Sellers of content, government

agencies, airlines, and others will put up hurdles

designed to identify individuals. The world of ‘Minority

Report’ will lurch closer. But taken too far, this is a

dystopia. The technologies ought to open up the world of

information and creativity. If the full potential of the

information and communication technologies for the

majority of people is to be recognized, technology can

not be used to build mechanisms which protect existing

interests or structures and prevent change. ICTs are

disruptive technologies. Printing was ultimately absolutely

revolutionary - it’s why we all (in the rich west and many

other countries too) have an education and the vote. The

internet is revolutionary too. This is uncomfortable for

those who were previously comfortable.

So although technology can certainly in the short or

medium term clamp down on its own effects, it is at the

expense of restricting some of the positive potential.

In the longer term we need to look for better solutions.

The most promising will depend on greater

transparency of information and reputation. Here are

some examples.

Misinformation is dangerous in any context, including

misinformation spread via conventional media. It’s all

the more so when it can be spread rapidly via the

internet, email and mobile and potentially change

people’s behaviour. While SMS messages have been

used to positive effect to spread correct information and

encourage positive action - as in elections from the

Phillipines to Zimbabwe - there were concerns that

messages containing misinformation and lies were

being used to encourage and incite the violence after

Kenya’s December 2008 election. The most effective

way to counteract falsehoods in future will probably

come from the pooling of many messages and reports

so the people can see where there is a consistent story.

The aggregation of different sources - which can be

done using new social media applications such as

Ushahidi - could be a powerful tool for verification.

For reasons of food safety as well as personal

preferences - for organic food, or fair trade food perhaps

- traceability has become an important issue. The

prototype Fair Tracing Project uses online maps to follow

products on their journeys from farmers to consumers.

Tracing will involve ‘tagging‘ individual products with

information readily accessible by both producer and

consumer. The information that may be attached to

tagged products is virtually limitless, beginning with

details of the product’s date and cost of creation, as well

as its individual creator and his/her working environment

and pay, through the various steps of its transport

to the eventual point-of-sale to the consumer.”

(http://web4.cs.ucl.ac.uk/students/v.shah/fairTracing/)

Another example is Sourcemap, a new tool which

permits the researching and optimization of supply

chains, using transparency to deliver sustainability.

(http://ow.ly/rgRs)

Finally, online security and encryption are ways of

protecting personal information and safeguarding

personal identity. That identity is created offline. The

likely next step in establishing identity is likely to be

biometric technology which will link the physical person

The fact isthatvirtual identity and"physical" identityare not the samething, and they

differ in ways thatwe are only

beginning to takeon board


12 Future of Authenticity

to the digital environment - a thumbprint pad on the

computer screen, perhaps. But a person’s online,

connected identity could potentially be impossible to

copy when it consists, as it eventually may, of all the

accumulated patterns of their digital activities. Each

individual’s activities and conversations and searches is

as unique as a fingerprint. Dave Birch, who runs the

Digital Identity Forum, says in a recent blog post: “the

"common sense" notion of identity, rooted in our pre-

industrial social structures and pre-human cortex, is not

only not very good at dealing with the properties and

implications of identity in an online world, but positively

misleading when applied to system and service design.

The fact is that virtual identity and "physical" identity

are not the same thing, and they differ in ways that

we are only beginning to take on board.”

(http://digitaldebateblogs.typepad.com/digital_identity

/2009/09/what-identity-is-important.html)

Technological solutions are likely to need changes to

social and legal institutions as well. Thus it is feasible to

imagine identifying a person through the pattern of their

communications and online activities, but this ability will

be irrelevant unless government authorities in particular

will accept alternatives to the present paper-based

proof of legal identity.

Reputation is fragile - taking time to build but able

to vanish overnight - it and will be more robust the

more it is the product of personal experience and

recommendations. Personalization will, paradoxically,

become increasingly important even as new

technologies stretch the range and geographical spread

of connections between people.

However, there will be an ‘arms race’ between efforts

to market products or create or shape a reputation and

resistance to any message which is not wholly

authentic. This is a pattern familiar from the world of

fashion: the cool people move on from a certain style as

soon as many others take it up because it’s cool. We

can already see this expansion of the dynamics of

fashion in the evolution of social networks as means of

word-of-mouth recommendation. Trends such as

Facebook or Twitter are subsequently taken up by

companies and other organizations as a means of

conveying messages, but this ‘official’ and inauthentic

use of a social medium in turn leads to resistance

amongst users of networks who move on to another

online location.

The triangulation of information from different sources

will become an essential skill, an aspect of ‘media

literacy’ without which consumers and citizens will be

unable to navigate daily life.

Trusted guides will come to play an increasingly

important role. These could be social networks, media

organizations, certain connected and well-informed

individuals, or companies or other organizations. For

these guides, too, reputation will be all-important and

will require constant vigilance.

A long, collective conversation about authenticity, in at

least some of its aspects, is needed. Personal identity,

verification of information, piracy - there are huge

challenges in this list. They will be best addressed by

creative thought about the potential of the technologies

which are amplifying the challenges of authenticity to

provide solutions too.

The journey is unlikely to be easy. A comparison between the valuation of any company and its physical assets

shows that the vast majority of value in the economy is intangible and based on an understanding of what it

is - whether or not it is authentic. Intangible value can evaporate overnight - and we’ve seen many examples

of that, for instance in banking recently, in the case of Enron before that. This makes reputation everything,

and the only way to sustain a reputation is to live it constantly.

Impact and Implications

There will bean ‘arms race’between effortsto marketproducts orcreate or shapea reputation andresistance toany messagewhich is notwholly authentic.


Future of Choice

Professor José Luis NuenoIESE, Barcelona

14

In addition, choice is being threatened from the

expropriation of freedom of choice launched from

regulators, media, and the general public. Tobacco,

candy, alcoholic beverages, speed, late hours,

advertising, food… all are being subject to regulation

that limits choice and how we get to know about it.

The way forward is for all to get used to the new world

and operate by the new rules. While a few of the usual

suspects may put up national or regional protectionist

barriers, the realities of global trade are all too clear and

we can see the end of variety. In fact we can see a

changing balance between variety and cost.

Consumers are making a trade-off in a smart way and

cost is winning. We therefore face the challenge of how

to deal with a reduction in the number of options in the

categories of consumption but an expansion in the

number of categories.

Hypermarkets and department stores will all struggle in

the next decade: They may reduce their product mix

down from 26000 SKUs (stock keeping units) to 16000,

but continuing to provide consumers with such choice is

unsustainable when discount stores only have to provide

1000 SKUs - an increase in the assortment from the 800

they offer today. Commoditization is the way forward for

the mainstream majority and in many sectors this will

mean a race to the bottom in terms of margins.

Department stores need a continuous stream of new

ideas and innovation to keep their mix fresh and so attract

high-end consumers, but in a world of less variety where

high quality, low cost Asian products dominate, why will

the majority seek out the niche brands?

Why should we continue to build brands when China

and India can buy them ready-made off the shelf? Just

as Lenovo bought IBM and Tata bought Jaguar Land

Rover, with the financial reserves now available, why

should any established brand not be for sale? The

Chinese production model is all about the right products

- good quality at a low price and the brand is a

secondary issue. Yes, there is the luxury sector - the

Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton segment of the fashion

industry and its like in electronics and automobiles, but

that is, by its very nature, niche - and increasingly Asian

in production. Moreover, culturally intensive products, a

traditional refuge of variety, are under threat by

consumer unwillingness to pay.

In the next ten years I see the rise of Asian retailing

driven initially by the sheer size of the associated

domestic markets and then a move into the

international arena. The Aldi model will win over the

Wal-Mart one, but what about a Chinese Aldi selling

products made by a Chinese P&G? Who could

compete against that combination? I believe that this

will occur without any significant backlash. Consumers

will follow the mainstream and quickly get used to less

choice given the benefit of lower cost. This will apply

across the board.

The only categories where I see an alternative future

are those that are affected by time; perishable products

(food), live content (broadcast) and extreme time to

market goods (those that respond to latent consumer

needs) will be relatively immune. Indeed, if the quality

of the staple products is to improve and local production

The world has changed: Product supply and demand is globalized and there is no putting the genie back in

the bottle. The flow of goods from Asia to the west has created an economic dependency over the past ten

years that will be exploited over the next ten. As China and India and other fast-developing economies become

the primary global marketplaces, the needs and wishes of the 4bn new consumers will dominate those of the

800m old ones in the US and Europe. The days where the US set the pace in the consumer mindset are over

and this is not going to change.


Consumers aremaking a trade-offin a smartway and costis winning.

15Future of Choice

increases to ensure security of supply, we can see

rising costs on the horizon - but still with less variety of

choice. In 2020 how many of us in Europe will eat

strawberries in December?

Choice will also be limited by our ability to process

information. Ten years ago we did not have MP3s,

PVRs, thousands of interesting websites, travel

destinations, or hundreds of lifestyle drugs. We will see

more of these and, in addition, many disruptive and

complex new products, services or solutions will grab

the attention of an already over-solicited and less

affluent consumer. As the number of categories

expands, choice will have to be shared among, rather

than within, categories of consumption.

We can foreseea world in whichZara and H&M

are moresuccessful than

Gap and NeimanMarcus and

the Aldi modelwins over theWal-Mart one.


16 Future of Choice

One likely development is in the food sector which is

fast-becoming the tobacco of the 21st Century. We are

progressing towards a model where no single

organization can have as much influence as they have

had in the past and we will become accustomed to a

restriction in our freedom of choice. As suggested

previously, the obesity epidemic has not been

adequately moderated by the food industry and so

governments will increasingly intervene to limit choice.

Healthier foods will cease to be an option but instead

will become the norm. Portion size will be reduced and

low fat and low salt will be the new default standards.

Although some companies, such as Mars and Coca-

Cola, have been proactive in cutting back on advertising

and taking away vending machines from within schools,

and PepsiCo especially has shifted towards lower fat

products, the majority of the food sector has not made

a sufficient move over the past decade. So, faced with

increasing health costs and long-term disease risks, I

see that regulators will act. The industry will have to sort

itself out and we will see more transparency on

ingredients. More variety in food is nonsense. We will

see a shift to less. Less choice maybe better and

hence, by 2020, again I see less choice within

categories but more choice between categories. This

will benefit the leading companies (a winner takes all

proposition) as well as the most flexible, pragmatic, and

adaptive followers.

The other certainty I see is a reduction in the number of

players within each category. The top mega-brands will

survive as will some of the most efficient non-brands.

But there will be a clear out of the middle market - the

me-too brands will become ex-brands and will disappear.

Some may see that there is uncertainty in how

consumers will react to less variety. I see that, if they

With the certainty that variety will lose out to speed and cost, we can foresee a world in which Zara and H&M

are more successful than Gap and Neiman Marcus and, as mentioned earlier, the Aldi model wins over Wal-

Mart one. Hypermarkets and department stores will lose out to discount stores and the speed merchants. This

is clear. The shape of retailing has changed and the consequences over the next decade will be driven by a

clear-out of the also-rans.


are not given so much choice, the mainstream majority

will follow where they are led. Take, for example, what

will happen when the first Renault, Citroen and VW

electric cars are launched into the European market in

2012. When consumers are given an option to buy one

of, say ten efficient, zero emission, zero-tax vehicles,

who will be interested in the hundreds of non-electric

alternatives? Regulation, public opinion and financial

incentives will all accelerate the migration of the

consumer vehicle fleet to electric and we will not care

about the reduction in choice.

Europe witharound 200mactive consumerswill become asecondaryinfluence toAsia with 4bn.

17Future of Choice

Over the next ten years we will see a reduction in the

number of players per category. As variety is reduced

and commoditization increases, only the #1 and #2

brands will survive. So what about #3, #4 and #5? The

playing field for the future will be increasingly

determined by whoever sets the standards. And the

standards will be set by the category leaders and the

biggest marketplaces - the US, China and India - it is

a numbers game. Europe with around 200m active

consumers will become a secondary influence to Asia

with 4bn. Therefore, as products and services are

configured to meet the global consumer, who will be

increasingly Asian, the variety of choice will become

less influential than scale and speed of delivery.

Back in the 1950s William Starbuck developed one of

the few ideas in retailing to have lasted: Every retail

model is substituted by a more efficient one. This has

been the case for the last 50 years and I see no reason

for change in the future. As the success of discount

supermarkets like Aldi demonstrates, variety will be

substituted by budget. I see that, in the forthcoming

decade, many retailers will struggle to compete and fall

down in between the leaders in providing low cost

commodites and trend setting. As the continued growth

of fast-fashion chains such as Zara and H&M reveals,

providing a limited but fast-changing product range is

more profitable that holding a broad portfolio to cover

the full range of potential consumer choice. We have

now entered a world in which the distinction between

prediction and following of trends has become blurred.

Given the speed with which Zara changes its product

mix, we are no longer certain whether media leads

fashion or vice-versa. But who leads who is irrelevant

when we, as consumers, don’t have to choose. The

decisions about what we can buy are made for us and

so variety again reduces. The most important capability

for any manufacturer seeking a decent margin will be

the ability to produce faster than the diffusion of a

trend. Scale will dominate over choice.

Given the impact of the global downturn, in the retail arena I don’t think that we will be returning to a business

as usual world. Consumer attitudes have changed to shift many of us away from wanting increased variety.

In addition, the framework within which we consume has changed: Governments, the big brands, the

acceleration of China and retail efficiency are all creating a new landscape within which our choice will become

more limited: Less will be less not more. Variety is increasing across categories not within them.

The Way Forward

In addition, we are facing greater intervention of an

increasing number of influential bodies and groups

into the world of retailing which will all align to reduce

our freedom of choice. The media, public opinion and

government regulation are moving us towards a

reduction in variety in the consumption of products

and services. As they have in the past impacted

alcohol and tobacco, so in the next decade they will

impact other areas of consumption from food and

fashion to transport.

It may seemcounterintuitive

but fewerchoices provide

higher levelsof satisfaction


18 Future of Choice

Moving to the wider impacts of how I see the future of

choice, it is clear that, although some may see my view

as being a little negative from a Western perspective, it

does highlight the dynamics at play across the retail

environment of the next ten years. As we are cognizant

of a world in which less variety is the predominant shift

for most, if not all, categories, then, as manufacturers

and retailers, we can prepare ourselves for a new

paradigm. With good quality, low-cost, mass

commoditization the norm for the mainstream, we either

need to compete on these terms or else migrate to the

margins. I have highlighted the successful approaches

taken by Spanish Zara and Swedish H&M in the fashion

industry where they have both developed fast-fashion

as a core capability. There is nothing to stop other

companies in other categories from following the same

path or finding their own way forward which creates and

sustains a unique position in the marketplace. Yes, my

views on choice and the mainstream may sound alarm

bells for many in the middle market today, but they

should also provide a stimulus for others to think

differently about the new competitive landscape.

The future of choice is about less variety, but this does

not mean less interest. The products that will succeed

in the future will be the ones that offer global customers

what they want, even if it is before they have recognized

what that is. The successful retailers of the future will

provide consumers with a smaller portfolio of products

than their predecessors did in the past, but the portfolio

will be higher selling products. Less variety means fewer

SKUs but fewer SKUs mean more efficient retailing.

As variety reduces some may question whether consumers will miss the old days. I don’t believe so. Some

of our recent research at IESE has explored choice from a number of dimensions. It may seem counter-

intuitive but fewer choices provide higher levels of satisfaction: People like to have lots of variety, but when

faced with too many choices, we tend to vacillate and delay decisions. We may want 31 options instead of

six, but we find it easier to choose one of six than one of 31. In a series of experiments with men and women

from a range of different cultures we found that the greatest level of satisfaction, both with the final choice

and the decision-making process, was reached when people chose from an intermediate number of

alternatives as opposed to large or small choice sets. These findings have practical implications for people

offering many choices to customers, consumer and employees today. Going forward, I see that this supports

my notion that we will see little consumer backlash against a reduction of variety.

Impacts and Implications

The future ofchoice is aboutless variety,but this doesnot mean lessinterest.

19

Future of Cities

Professor Richard BurdettCentennial Professor in Architecture and Urbanism, London School of Economics

20

Urban growth is being fuelled by new levels of mobility

and migration of diverse populations within and across

nations especially in China, Brazil and India. These

rural-to-urban migrants are pulled by the tantalizing

prospects of jobs and opportunity, driven by the harsh

realities of rural life. Cities like Mumbai experience 42

people moving into the city per hour. Where do you

house them and what infrastructure do you provide for

them? Transport, electricity, sewers and water systems

- these are technical issues that need to be addressed

in a way that is environmentally smart.

Migration and in-migration has also created an urban

underclass which is often allocated to specific areas of

the city. Paris is a perfect example. The physical

infrastructure, with the beauty and qualities that we all

admire, has frozen. This means that all its growth (with

increasing immigration from 1945 and onward) has

created ghettoization. This kind of imbalance in social

mobility must be addressed.

The changing nature of work will also impact on the

physical form of cities. The global economy was born

out of the power of trans-national corporations and

global communications technologies. How does it affect

the way we live? If we focus on the fact that power

and communications capacities need to be produced,

implemented and managed, it becomes clear that cities

still have an important role to play but their layout and

functionality may be different.

Even the most advanced firms need cleaners, lorry

drivers, and secretaries. How must cities adapt to fit

the needs of all? Also how do we adapt to the possibility

that we are seeing an internationalised labour market

for low wage manual and service workers? How do we

adapt housing design and create neighbourhoods that

will benefit local communities and encourage urban

integration?

Technological innovation has shrunk the world reducing

the cost of transmitting to virtually nothing. Internet

users in developing countries could constitute more

than half the world total within 5 years if trends persist.

The reality of urban connectivity taken to its logical

conclusion will create a network of interlinked cities

connected, and soon to be even more connected, by

modern rails and technology. Consider also the effects

of mobility and transport systems on social cohesion

and economic viability.

Lastly, any future urban model must of course be

sustainable. If we are to make up for past failures,

cities will have to produce more energy than they need,

become net carbon absorbers, collect and process

waste within city limits and collect and clean recycled

water. All this should happen in parallel to the creation

of wealth and the promotion of social wellbeing and

individual health.

The big issues facing cities are clear: Think globalisation, immigration, jobs, social exclusion and sustainability:

Given that global urbanisation is taking place at an unprecedented speed with a scale, diversity, complexity

and level of connectivity that challenges all existing perceptions, questions regarding the size, speed of growth,

shape and land use of cities have become increasingly complex and politicised. Although cities themselves

have a remarkable ability to innovate, there are broad disconnects between urban change and urban policy.

The priority, therefore, must be to identify ways in which policy makers can create a regulatory environment

that provides a framework for sustainable forms of urban development.


Although citiesthemselves havea remarkableability to innovate,there are broaddisconnectsbetween urbanchange andurban policy.

21Future of Cities

We should also consider how we manage the dramatic

upturn in immigration and address the fight against

poverty. One billion people live in disease spreading

slums characterized by inadequate housing, unsafe

drinking water and open sewer systems. This makes

the builders of informal housing the largest housing

developers in the world and it is they who are

creating the cities of tomorrow. We can plan for this

“unplanned” inevitability. There are already noticeable

success stories; take for example Ciuadad Neza in

Mexico City where, as hundreds of thousand

immigrants arrive each year, an open-ended and

networked community is succeeding in establishing a

lively economy out of literally nothing. Yet cities offer

the promise of ultimately connecting hundreds of

millions of workers to the expanding job opportunities

offered by the global economy.

Can cities address the environmental crisis of global

warming and climate change? Rapid urbanisation has

no doubt exacerbated environmental pressures but

cities offer the best promise of developing in ways that

are environmentally sound and energy efficient - a pre-

requisite of global prosperity. The need is to develop

carbon reduction policies - such as London’s

congestion charge, for example, at the same time as

improving infrastructure. This is why the planners in

London are focusing on improving the transport

infrastructure and have committed to reduce C02

emissions by 60% by 2050 focussing on existing

housing stock which accounts for nearly 40% of

today’s emissions.

Can planners adapt with sufficient speed to create policies which address the challenges we face? There

seems to be a disconnect between the complexity of challenges of the urban age and our current set of urban

solutions. Planners and urban governance must consider re-evaluating how they address the problems they

face and consider multi-dimensional, integrated interventions rather than specific policies covering specialised

issues (education, health, housing etc). If, for example, housing is going to be a platform for opportunity, then

housing policies must connect with education, transportation and childcare; if transportation is going to

promote mobility and advance sustainability, then transportation policies need to expand choice and embrace

dense, transit rich corridors of mixed residential, retail and employment use. Ultimately, to be successful, we

also need to share innovations across networks of urban researchers, practitioners and policy makers across

the developed and developing world.


Can plannersadapt with

sufficient speedto create policieswhich addressthe challenges

we face?There seems tobe a disconnect

between thecomplexity of

challenges of theurban age andour current setof solutions.


22 Future of Cities

New Delhi, for instance, holds 13-14 million people

depending on the time of day. It used to have the

highest pollution rates in the world but then overnight all

the auto-rickshaws and the buses were made to change

from diesel to natural gas. If you can use natural gas in

New Delhi, then why can’t you use it everywhere?

In London we use congestion charge, which is very

effective in re-prioritizing the traffic. There are clear

environmental benefits but a radical social difference is

a 100% increase in bus use by the middle class. If you

get the middle class onto public transport you are

winning, and that’s a great example.

Tokyo is the largest city in the world. Its transport

system, integrated by overhead and underground rail

systems, means that the average commute is around

one hour. Compare that to Los Angeles where the

average commute is about two hours and at least 80%

of the population takes the car to work. In Tokyo, 80%

of the population use public transport. There is little

doubt that, seen through the lens of efficiency, more

densely populated, compact cities such as Hong Kong

and Manhattan are inherently more sustainable places

to live than the likes of Houston and Mexico City.

However, across the scale empowerment becomes

significant; you need to have a system which allows

people on the ground to solve the problems where they

need to be solved. I go through the tiny streets of a

small slum area of the outskirts of Mumbai and I see a

series of young men and women who have worked

together to create a communal bathroom (toilet).

Where people don’t have water and don’t have toilets,

this place is important because it’s where people meet.

They have created a moment of pause in the city. This

is one of many projects that I saw in Mumbai, New

Delhi and elsewhere which are fantastically powerful

and are done by individuals.

Cities are often at the forefront of the delivery of cultural

richness In Mexico city, for example, there is a fantastic

initiative which is called the ‘Fallon’, The Lighthouse,

signifying hope; a stunning project designed by an

architect called Callas. Next to it is an area of

approximately a million people living under the poorest

conditions, a lot of them using the nearby rubbish tip as

a way of living, recycling whatever is there, living at the

bottom. The Lighthouse is a cultural centre where kids

learn how to paint and do art. Mexico City is a city of

enormous violence; people don’t feel safe going out

and whenever there is a crowd of people together the

police try to break it up. So an outdoor music area is a

no-go area. Outside the Lighthouse they have built a

simple amphitheatre out of earth where they hold music

concerts in the summer. This does more to lift the

spirits of the community than any policy I ever saw the

mayor or the politicians do. At the centre of this is the

physical environment. By designing spaces you can

make an enormous change.

You can become very depressed about cities of the future when you look at all the challenges facing us.

But, the more I go and visit cities and through the work we do at The London School of Economics, the more

I think that there are solutions. They depend on people rather than policies - it could be a mayor making a

decision or a community activist.

Proposed Way Forward

There is littledoubt that, seenthrough the lensof efficiency,more denselypopulated,compact citiessuch as HongKong andManhattan areinherently moresustainableplaces to livethan the likes ofHouston andMexico City.

23Future of Cities

Cities of the future have to be organic, flexible and

versatile. As society and aspirations alter over time, the

city has to adapt to change. Utopian cities have never

worked. The people that created Rome, New York and

London certainly didn’t think of them as fixed artifacts

that wouldn’t change over time. We have to be clever

enough as urban designers to design the city like a

metabolism, like a body. When it gets older and weaker,

you do corrective surgery. Cities need to be versatile;

otherwise they fossilize and die. For example, many

cities of the last 50 years have been designed around

the needs of the car. But as oil costs soar and the city

of the future will increasingly need adapt to modes of

transportation that are not petrol-dependent. This will

have a significant impact on the shape of the city.

In order to be versatile and responsive to change the

sustainable city will also have to be compact. A city like

Mexico City, which goes on for 100 kilometers in one

direction and 150 kilometers in another, has hardly any

chance of actually becoming sustainable. On the other

hand a city like New York or Copenhagen and a city like

London which has highs and lows of density, has the

potential to become sustainable within the next 30 years.

Creating more compact urban environments generally

will result in more efficient infrastructures: One direct

consequence of variation in population density is the

associated energy demands: Tighter, more compact

cities have far lower energy use per capita than more

spread out ones: So, as energy costs continue to

escalate and energy security becomes even more of an

issue over the next decade, this inherent design

relationship will come more to the fore.

The quality of a city does not only concern the

environment. We mustn’t forget that cities are about

people coming together. Ultimately a city may be very

efficient in terms of CO2 emission but if the places

where we come together are not beautiful (a word

which is rarely used in this debate) and if the places

don’t have a wonderful relationship to urban nature - a

river, water or views that compensate for this human

closeness, this is not a city that people will want to live

in. The qualities I am looking for in a city that is

sustainable, that embraces the notion of versatility, that

is compact, that offers bounds of beauty in its buildings

and the quality of its open spaces.

Perhaps more than ever before, the shape of cities, how much land they occupy, how much energy they

consume, how their transport infrastructure is organised and where people are housed - in remote segregated

environments behind walls or in integrated neighbourhoods close to jobs, facilities and transport - all affect

the environmental, economic and social sustainability of global society. Cities are not just a concentration of

problems - but they are also places where problems can be solved.


Cities are notjusta concentrationof problems -

but they are alsoplaces whereproblems can

be solved.


24 Future of Cities

The qualities Iam looking forin a city that issustainable, thatembraces thenotion ofversatility, thatis compact, thatoffers boundsof beauty in itsbuildings and thequality of itsopen spaces.

25

Future of Connectivity

Jan FärjhVice President and Head of Ericsson Research

26

Technology in itself will not be a restricting factor.

Transport, access, storage, and processing will all thrive

on the continued effects of Moore’s law and

miniaturization will continue where beneficial. High

performing systems are of course an absolute necessity

but the implementation challenge is not straightforward.

We need to consider how to deal with the phenomenal

increase in capacity both in terms of number of devices

to be handled but also in terms of the amount of

information that will be exchanged between these

devices. Power consumption will also still be an issue

because of battery lifetime and sustainability concerns.

So, how can we develop a system that is cost -

effective, adaptable, easily deployed and, most

importantly, simple to use? How can we develop

networks that are self-deployed, self-operated and self-

maintained? These questions cannot be answered by

technology alone; in order to achieve success we need

collaboration between network providers, device

manufacturers and, of course, policy makers both

nationally and internationally.

What will this mean for consumers? Essentially

ubiquitous connectivity will continue to change the basic

structure and conditions of our lives and, although it has

the potential to bring extraordinary benefits, for some it

will be a real challenge to adapt to this. Information on

almost everything is now widely available making

industries and markets much more transparent and

efficient. However, the way consumers share information

and communicate with each other, utilizing a variety of

online social networking tools, IPTV, images and video,

means that how we give and receive information is

becoming increasingly personalised. This, in turn, means

that individuals, more than ever before, have to manage

their own public identity. This indicates that concerns

around cyber crime and data protection will continue to

rise. As a result, security and consumer protection

related issues will become increasingly important.

Business will also have to adapt to a changing

environment as their services are increasingly delivered

online. In a world of endless choice and seemingly

complete transparency some will be hard put to

differentiate themselves. Of course, communications

technology is not in itself a limiting factor for the

diffusion of new products and services - in fact

evidence suggests quite the opposite - those who are

successful will have made the most of the opportunity.

This is why brand identity will continue to dominate.

The internet has finally gone mobile. Today over 300m of us access the web using mobile technology. In 2010

the number of subscribers reaches 1bn, surpassing the number of fixed internet users. In a couple of years

the number of mobile broadband connections will be in the order of 4 to 5bn - with the majority of new

consumers coming from China and India. By 2020 there may well be as many as 50bn devices connected

to each other. These devices will work across different networks which, in turn, will be connected to each

other. This global, pervasive connectivity will facilitate new types of services and opportunities for people,

industry, and society but it won’t be an easy journey. Delivering this vision is a major commercial and technical

challenge for the ICT sector, but on the other hand very exciting.


In a couple ofyears the numberof mobilebroadbandconnections willbe in the orderof 4 to 5bn - withthe majority ofnew consumerscoming fromChina and India.

27Future of Connectivity

We face rising populations and increased dependency

ratios which will be exacerbated by scarcities of

resources and environmental requirements. In order to

maintain standards of living with substantial and

continued global productivity improvements will

be needed. This will partly be enabled by the

communication industry and, particularly when

combined with other vital industries such as

transportation and healthcare, will play an important role

in addressing this need. For example, scarcity of labour

can, to an extent, be mitigated if machine to machine

(M2M) communication is used to address labour

intensive tasks; automation is specific vertical industries

can be enabled by connected sensor networks. In

addition, self-service solutions will also continue to grow

far beyond today’s e-bank and e-retailer services

applications into areas such as government and

healthcare; and, the increased global use of mobile,

video and internet will mean that people can benefit

from the services they need more quickly at less cost.

Sustainability is certainly high on the agenda for the

next decade and here ICT can make a large

contribution. As the world measures more or less

everything by new sustainability standards, whether

quality of life, business success or government actions,

there is potential for connectivity to play a significant

role in areas such as carbon mitigation. A recent report

(SMART 2020) concluded that, although ICT merely

represents 2 percent of global CO2 emissions, it has a

clear role to play in reducing the remaining 98 percent

from other sources. Therefore expect a boom in

innovation of services to meet this emerging

demand; e-government, e-health, e-education, e-work,

telepresence, logistics and energy management

services will all increase. Machine-to-machine and

process-to-process communications as well as tools

leveraging data mining will all flourish as sustainability

efficiency measures will be taken across the board and

in all enterprises.

In the corporate world, there will be a blurring of borders

between large and small enterprises with large scale

companies deploying true global operating models,

increased inter-company collaboration and workers

increasingly tele-working and being loosely connected

to organizations. As creative knowledge workers

become strategic assets for companies, IT budgets will

increasingly be geared at making them effective.

Increased connectivity will enable competitive

advantages and new business models to be sought

from mining massive amounts of data. For instance

real-time business intelligence and statistical

experimentation, real-time management of goods in

world-wide distribution and logistics chains and targeted

advertising solutions will all require data systems that

will be enabled by falling prices on data storage,

communications and processing.

By 2020 the majority of the world’s population will have access to basic telecommunications services.

However, even though the current development pace is high, with more connected devices and availability of

internet access “everywhere”, it is still uncertain how fast this will really impact and change conditions for other

value chains, industries and daily lives. This depends on many factors including the rate at which networks

can be rolled out and the connection speeds that will be possible. Where there is connectivity, smart phones

and devices will enable people to leapfrog a generation of technology, especially for those who never had a

land line phone. Mobile voice increase in developing economies may slow down but these markets will add

local innovation and stay in the forefront with overall growth consistently higher than in mature markets. It is

also likely that Broadband access penetration will increase primarily by means of radio solutions in developing

markets outside areas where fixed broadband is economically feasible.


Machine tomachine andprocess toprocess

communicationsas well as

tools leveragingdata mining willall flourish assustainability

efficiencymeasures will

be takenacross the board

and in allenterprises.


28 Future of Connectivity

Technology initself will notbe a limiting factorand there will bethe introductionof many morenew productsand services.

29Future of Connectivity

User generated content will also probably continue to

grow strongly, increasing traffic and the abundance of

available information, However, the impact on media

value chains and the commercial value of that content

is unclear. The online advertising market will grow, but

will not be of a magnitude sufficient to substitute

telecom services revenue streams at the current price

levels. That said, as media consumption continues to

become more fragmented an interactive, the gap

between the rapidly growing online share of media time,

and the online share of the global advertising budget,

will close.

We see an increased separation between the content

and services that people use and the means by which

it will be delivered. Companies with strong brands will

shape the communications industry and their services

could be delivered over the top of independent network

providers and will be tightly integrated with devices.

Simplicity and convenience is the driving force and

brand loyalty will win over variety.

The sustainability agenda comes to the fore and

changes the conditions for societies, companies and

individuals worldwide. In order to reduce travel and

energy consumption there will be an acceleration of

new mobile internet services for health, government,

work and machine-to-machine (M2M) operations.

Increased regulation will come into place to secure

affordable services and drive industry players to pool

their resources to ensure that networks are capable,

reliable and robust.

As with many scenarios, we see that the way forward

will probably be a hybrid of these. An open application

environment will enable new services and applications

to combine adjacent scientific fields such as energy,

food, water, transport, health and ICT - globally and

locally. Everything that could benefit from a wireless

network will have one. Industries will become

increasingly mobilized and there will be an increasing

share of services delivered online. Technology in itself

will not be a limiting factor and there will be the

introduction of many more new products and services.

Usability and simplicity will be in high demand, fixed and

mobile broadband will converge and 50 billion devices

will be connected globally.

Looking to 2020, we see that, while the technology platforms that will enable global ubiquitous connectivity

are clear, the way in which businesses, society and individuals use these could vary significantly. Some

examples of scenarios that might occur can be described as follows:


In the next decade, addressing the major global

challenges and a continued shift to wireless and online

services will bring forward new societal vulnerabilities.

‘Cyber crime’ and malware may be increasingly

common, and dependencies on the availability of

information and communication systems will increase.

Restricted online anonymity and privacy will also raise

integrity concerns. As a result, security and consumer

protection related regulation will increase and industries

will move to capture these new opportunities.

IP will be the prevailing delivery vehicle for much of our

connectivity, and the vertical dependence between

services and infrastructures may gradually disappear.

Users will access services and content independently of

the network provider to a larger extent. Business

models will vary, but lower entry barriers and innovation

globally will also increase the number of providers

offering the same service - but at a reduced cost to

consumers of financed by alternative business models,

such as increasing advertising revenues.

Most other areas will to some extent be affected by

global connectivity: Money, authenticity, transport, travel,

mHealth, privacy, identity, energy, cities, migration, food,

water, waste. For all these areas you can find a use for

connectivity. Global connectivity can change, improve

and be used to catalyze innovation in everything.

Real change, however, can only be made when

communication technology is properly integrated into

adjacent scientific fields. This will open up new services

in a wide range of complementary industries such as

healthcare, automation, positioning and information

management. It is clear that everything that can benefit

from a network connection will have one. Not only will

more people be connected, but devices for various

types of automated services and functions (e.g. energy

meters, surveillance, climate sensors, e-health sensors,

and industry process automation) will exchange data

and change lives.

Full global connectivity is already well underway. It has already changed the way we communicate with other

people and groups. The amount of information we can share and the speed with which we can share it is

increasing rapidly. Indeed, it is possible to suggest that access to advanced communications will be come

a “universal right” and that a wide and deep penetration of networks and services is a prerequisite for the

continued struggle against climate change and poverty. This suggests that universal services requirements

will drive new investments in the industry, while measures to keep services affordable (e.g. price regulation)

may reduce revenues and profits leading to increased pressure for lower cost and higher efficiency.


It is possibleto suggest

that access toadvanced

communicationswill be come a“universal right”


30 Future of Connectivity

It is clear thateverything thatcan benefitfrom a networkconnection willhave one.

31

Future of Currency

Dr. Rajiv KumarChief Executive, ICRIER

32

By 2020, will we, for instance, therefore see the ACU

(Asian Currency Unit) develop from an Asian Monetary

Union to become the third global currency alongside

the Euro and the dollar? While Asia may not be ready

for a common currency, the time is right to work

towards a parallel currency. Furthermore, within this

context, would the ACU be pegged to the Yuan or the

Yen? And will the Rupee be part of the basket that

determines the value of the ACU? These global

currency reserve questions are a primary challenge for

the world’s economies for the next ten years.

While I see that this is the main issue, I believe that

during the next decade we will also have to address two

other significant issues along the way:

One of the most important of these is the continuation

of money laundering that will increasingly impact the

smaller economies as the larger ones take steps to

minimize the impact on their own systems. Will such

countries as Switzerland and The Bahamas, as well as

other financial havens, finally be brought into the

financial mainstream and stop affording haven status

to residents of other countries? Will the advanced

economies come together and force the emerging

economies to join in the move against laundered and ill

gotten wealth?

We also have the impact of replacing printed and

minted money with electronic equivalents: The move to

digital money will certainly raise a number of major

issues. Especially as the banking and mobile

telecommunications sectors see their interests

converge in developing more widespread electronic

transactions which will minimise the use of cash, or

even traditional credit as we know it, digital money will

have increasing applicability. As banks adopt new

software and the Bank for International Settlements

develops guidelines for electronic money, its movement

across national borders will become practical. However,

what is the real pace of the related technologies and

who either individually or collectively will emerge as the

real driver for this convergence? Given the access gap

that still exists for significant proportions of the

population in many developing nations, will we need to

wait for true, near ubiquitous mobile connectivity and

24/7 energy supply before digital money can really

have global impact?

Both of these issues will have impact upon international

remittances, inter-bank transfers and the many

associated financial vehicles that are presently in place.

I see that greatest challenge for the next decade to be a fundamental one - what should the world’s currencies

be? Over the last century we have seen the rise of the US dollar as the primary unit of global currency which

we use to measure and value much of our relative individual, organisational and national wealth and

investments, and through which we exchange, trade and price commodities, businesses, goods and services.

The status of the US dollar as the global reserve currency is however under enormous pressure and, with the

rise of new currency blocs in the world, many have been asking whether the Euro will emerge as an alternative

reserve currency. The 2008-9 financial crisis put enough pressure on the US currency to such an extent that

many now see that we need an alternative, but the question is what? Will the US remain as the pre-eminent

financial power or will its influence secularly decline stimulated by the recent crisis and its inability to achieve

a major technological breakthrough or exercise the necessary conditions for it to remain a reserve currency?

And, if we go for an alternative, why would this be the Euro?


The status of theUS dollar asthe global reservecurrency ishowever underenormouspressure

33Future of Currency

Over the same period, it is possible, but not highly

probable, that the Euro will become a major reserve

currency. Although the European Monetary Union led to

the public introduction of the Euro in 2002, this was

twenty years after the first creation of the ECU as an

artificial basket currency used by participating countries

as their internal accounting unit. It is unlikely that,

another two decades later, the Euro will have become

quite as significant a currency as the dollar, but it may

not be far off. A world where the Euro has equal status

to the dollar as a reserve currency is increasingly

credible.

However, at the same time, it is certain that the Yuan

is emerging as the central focus for economic and

financial activity in Asia with increasing number of

transactions occurring in that currency, though with

limited convertibility. We have seen the rise of China to

become the world’s primary economic power. This is

accompanied by a similar rise of India and the

associated rebalancing of wealth between the West

and the East. Although the recent economic model has

largely been one where Asians produce goods that are

bought by Americans using money that is lent back to

them by the Asians, this may not last much longer: As

a number of commentators, including historian Niall

Ferguson, have argued this ‘Chimerica’ balance is not

sustainable in the long term and, as such, a leverage

based model cannot continue. The 2008 shock to the

global financial system could have significant influence:

De-leveraging is already happening as individuals and

governments across Asia decrease their investments in

the US dollar.

That said, over the next decade, it is unlikely that we will

really see the emergence of the ACU as the third

currency block. This is because Asians cannot decide

on either a viable collation or leadership by one of the

countries. As experts, including Jin-Chuan Duan at the

National University of Singapore, have highlighted:

although much debated, Asian Monetary Union looks

unlikely in the short term. Just as with the formation of

the ERM and the Euro, the realisation of the ACU as a

single regional currency would demand cross subsidy

via taxation between countries, the loss of autonomy in

the conduct of monetary policy and the partial surrender

of some national sovereignty: Right now the Asian

version of the Euro is theoretically possible but

practically far from certain. However, dual currency

systems are common and I believe that, although Asian

Monetary Union is improbable by 2020, a parallel

currency ACU that allows for exchange rate

adjustments is practical. But the ACU must be based

on a wider basket than just the ASEAN countries.

It is certain that for the next decade the US dollar will remain as one of the reserve currencies. As such it will

still be a key currency for foreign exchange and a transaction currency for international trade and investments

in 2020. The US dollar will continue to be integrated into, and influential upon, the world economy.


De-leveraging isalready happening

as individualsand governments

across Asiadecrease theirinvestments inthe US dollar.


34 Future of Currency

In a similar manner to how Shell’s current global scenarios

outline the future for the energy sector, I see that the

challenge in the financial world is to also ensure that we

try our best to follow the ‘blueprint’ and not the

‘scramble’ approach: I suggest that we need to

strengthen the global coordination mechanisms to

facilitate the monitoring of global financial flows and

enable the emergence of new technologies to help

balance the system. The major economies represented

in the G20 need to agree to have some arrangement for

a universally acceptable reserve currency, starting as a

unit of account and then also phasing it in as a currency

of exchange. I believe that we should adopt such a

universally acceptable currency that does not face the

risk of being debased as a result of the fiscal and

financial indiscipline on the part of any one country. The

ACU has the potential to be that currency. But to function

as such it must include the Rupee: India is currently the

largest economy of South Asia and plays a far more

influential role across Asia as a whole than many of the

ASEAN countries. The ACU has been seen as a

precursor to a common future currency, just as the ECU

was for the Euro. Therefore, it is important to focus on

how the world will therefore look when this occurs - India

is currently poised to be the third largest economy in the

world over the next 30 years. Hence the inclusion of

India in Asian economic monetary integration is prudent.

Many would correctly suggest that a true single world

currency is not practical: Differential interest rates and

selective monetary policies make it impossible and

currency harmonization cannot readily be implemented

while different countries are in different stages of

economic development. The IMF is not a super central

bank and turning Special Drawing Rights into a world

currency is neither possible nor practical. However, the

introduction of a broad basket ACU as the third global

reserve currency will provide the world with the

opportunity to more appropriately balance economic

influence and trade.

Over the next decade, we will move unmistakably towards a multi-polar world which will be characterized by

a much broader consultative process that extends to a larger number of jurisdictions. Greater coordination

amongst major economies on financial sector regulation will be needed, and this can be facilitated by the

newly enlarged Financial Stability Board based in Basle. At its core, the coordination will have to be aimed

at achieving greater trust in the transparent and universally applicable working of the financial system. This

will especially need to dispel the fear that the global financial system has a bias in favour of any one country

or group of countries or group of dominant institutions. As the G20 has superseded the G7, financial

management of the global system must become more equable: Within this it is possible that a more prominent

role is given to Special Drawing Rights - the international reserve assets managed by the IMF that currently

amount to over $300 billion. It was used to boost global liquidity in 2009, but additional ongoing and arguably

more proactive applications should be made more practical.


The introductionof a broad-basketACU (AsianCurrency Unit)as the third globalreserve currencywill provide theworld with theopportunity tomore appropriatelybalance economicinfluence andtrade.

35Future of Currency

When the European Monetary System first came into

effect in March 1979, few people believed that within

two decades a single European currency would be a

reality. At the time of inception the European Currency

Unit (ECU) had as little chance of becoming Europe’s

currency as Special Drawing Rights (SDR) had of

becoming the world’s currency.

If the Asian Development Bank takes the European

model forward and creates a parallel currency that is a

plural basket of national currencies, the Asian region

as a whole will gain some decoupling from the US

dollar. This will allow economic agents in the region to

invoice financial and trade transactions in a common

currency and reduce exchange rate risks as well as

channel Asia’s savings more efficiently within the

region. As a regional benchmark, the ACU will help

share the degree of divergence of each participating

countries’ currencies, which will improve the

understanding of generic problems in a particular

currency’s market and in pursuing macroeconomic

policies. The ACU can be used to devise new

instruments that can be easily traded across borders;

importers and exporters can denominate intra-Asian

trade in ACU; and governments and corporate bodies

may wish to issue bonds in ACU and banks can take

deposits and provide loans denominated in ACU. The

widespread use of ACU will definitely increase the

extent of financial and trade integration in this part of

the world. As such Asia as a whole, rather than as

individual countries, will achieve more balanced

influence in the global economy.

To overcome the obstacles that currently exist, such as

strengthening the Chaing Mai Initiative and the Asian

Bond Fund and managing diverse exchange rates, we

clearly need to create and strengthen international

safeguards and promote the use and acceptance of a

parallel currency. The move towards an ACU as a legal

tender alongside domestic currencies will necessitate

significant monetary and exchange rate cooperation

among participating countries and, as with Germany in

Europe, the role of a centre country or centre countries

also needs to be clear.

The US dollar currently acts as the de facto parallel

currency in Asia, just as it did in Europe in the early

1970s. However the fast emerging global rebalance is

very different to the world of the 1970s and

necessitates a move away from the dollar. It is in the

interest of the Asian central banks to move away from

the dollar to assets denominated in an alternative

currency, and the ACU can be that alternative. If the

ACU becomes a global reserve currency then a much-

needed, major world shift can occur: Central banks can

diversify their foreign currency reserves and hold part of

their reserves in ACU; investors can invest in ACU

denominated instruments; and both corporations and

national governments can finance their operations by

issuing ACU denominated debt. Such a move will have

a positive impact on reduction of global imbalance as it

will hasten the depreciation of the US dollar vis-à-vis

other countries.

The successful acceptance of an ACU driven by a wide basket of national currencies will, in itself, have

several significant impacts within Asia: If the ACU is positioned alongside the US dollar and the Euro as a third

global reserve currency the broader implications will be far-reaching.


If the ACU ispositioned

alongside theUS dollar andthe Euro as athird global

reserve currencythe broader

implications willbe far-reaching.


36 Future of Currency

It is in the interestof the Asiancentral banksto move awayfrom the dollarto assetsdenominatedin an alternativecurrency, andthe ACU can bethat alternative.

37

Future of Data

D J CollinsHead of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs, Google

38

If we take the field of data to encompass all digital

factual information, the current work of both leaders

and emerging companies suggest the issues that will

arise in years to come. Companies such as IBM, Oracle

and SAS are making strides in data mining and

database management. Their research shows that

intelligent systems will become increasingly prevalent.

Other organisations, like Amazon, Sun and even

Google, are demonstrating the amazing benefits in

scale and interoperability that come through moving

data storage into the cloud. And, if one was to talk to

the people who are driving the web forward, they

anticipate a more powerful, flexible and useful web in

the years to come. The much-touted ‘semantic web’-

in which the relationships between pieces of

information will be both apparent and useable - may not

be imminent, but it’s certainly within sight. Its advent

will drive further research, and it will also make the web

more useful to people around the world.

As investment and regulation follows rapid development

of potential technologies, they will have to adapt to the

new challenges of the online world. Google is involved

in many of these, but for me the big issue at the heart

of the future is that of access to information…to data.

Today, anyone with an internet connection has access

to more information, quickly and easily, than was

available a generation ago to anyone not connected to

a research library or university. That’s an amazing

development, but we should remember that less than a

quarter of people globally have access to the web. New

developments will increase the speed, scale and

sophistication of the data we can use, but, for most

people, there is still a high barrier to access.

Access to information is the great leveller. It empowers

citizens and consumers alike. That’s why it’s imperative

that access to data be fast, cheap, and ubiquitous,

whether you are in the New York, Shanghai, Lagos or

Patagonia. Right now, in many parts of Africa and Asia,

internet connectivity is both expensive and slow. As

such, the positive benefits of the information age have

been unevenly enjoyed. Addressing this disparity is a

clear and significant challenge for the future.

The future of data is a broad topic, which can cover a range of issues: some technical, some regulatory,

some social and others philosophical. The web is still a young technology - it has only been twenty years

since Sir Tim Berners-Less and Robert Cailliau invented it at CERN: It will take many decades for us to fully

understand its impact on our society. And the pace of change on the Internet, and that which is enabled by

the Internet, is speeding up. Whatever happens, as it continues to develop, we’ll be presented with more

opportunities and more challenges. The web is a fundamentally democratic platform, and it reflects both

positive and negative aspects of the offline world.


Access toinformation is thegreat leveller.It empowerscitizens andconsumers alike.

39Future of Data

One certainty is that information discovery will continue

to get better. Wouldn’t it be good to have a system that

asks questions as well as answers them? A recent

article in the Economist described how this could

revolutionise innovation as we know it - citing a

research chemist at Pfizer as an illustrative example.

How cool would it be if he could find solutions to one

of the mysteries of science, perhaps cure a disease,

simply by asking the right question of the web? A

semantic search engine that has read (and understood)

all the relevant literature, interrogated the patent

libraries and medical records, and studied the chemical

theory, etc, might well suggest workable solutions.

Science fiction? Perhaps, but imagine the value of a

system that understands the relationships between

information in different corpora, created with vastly

different uses in mind.

It also seems clear that access to data will help to widen

the pool of potential creative ideas - a step on from

crowd sourcing towards democratized innovation. Think

of Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia written by its

users, or iStockphoto allowing amateur photographers

to earn money selling their pictures alongside

professionals. Each combines cheap and widely

available tools to allow talented people to make the

most of the Internet’s distribution efficiency, and this

trend is only beginning.

Closer to hand is the migration of computer applications

from the desktop to the web. In this shift to cloud

computing, more and more of our personal and

professional lives will be spent using our web browsers.

That means browsers will have to be stable, powerful,

and above all secure.

Also apparent today is the role mobile phones will play

in improving access to the Internet (and therefore to

data). There are already nearly 4 billion mobile phones

in use today around the world, and over 80% of

humanity lives within range of a mobile network. At the

same time, the cost of web-ready phones continues to

fall. Computers are getting smaller and cheaper, and

the next generation of mobile networks will improve

access speeds. Already, net-books can cost as little as

$200, making them cheap enough to be given away

with mobile-broadband contracts in some countries.

Even when mobile access becomes universal, there will

still be real challenges connecting some places to the

larger Internet. There is reason for hope, though: a

series of new cables are in the works to improve

Africa’s connectivity with the rest of the world,

increasing capacity and reducing the cost of internet

access. The first of these, the SEACOM cable, eastern

Africa’s first modern submarine cable, was completed

in July 2009. In coming years, some places in Africa

may well have higher speed connections than parts of

Europe.

Doubling the number of people online will have an

amazing impact on innovation. More people (with more

diverse experiences than ever before) will be able to

contribute to the innovation happening online. That’s a

very exciting prospect.

The beauty of the internet, and therefore by association access to data, is in its unpredictability. The web’s

openness means that new innovations appear online every day. Some succeed and others don’t, and

successes spawn further innovation. Two years ago, for example, very few people would have predicted the

role that Twitter and YouTube played in the Iranian elections. Even so, as we look ahead, some things are clear.


One certainty isthat information

discoverywill continue to

get better.


40 Future of Data

One pivotal issue will be identity online, as people

become more comfortable managing what information

they share about themselves, and with whom. Many

services on the web improve quickly when they people

give them access to personal information. An example:

in the process of crawling the web, Google visits more

than a trillion different pages. Several billion more are

added every day. Finding the right information is like

having a fraction of a second to find a needle in a

haystack of astronomical proportions. The links

between web pages are the first indicator of how

important any given page is, but our search logs provide

an excellent form of feedback on whether we're

providing the best results. But if people are comfortable

sharing their search history with us, we can use that as

a valuable signal to provide them more relevant

information more quickly.

The second and related issue, that I think needs to be

taken several steps forward in the next couple of years,

concerns regulation. There is an on-going discussion

about how to limit the uses of personal information

without compromising innovation or decreasing access

to information. Different countries have significantly

different views on this, but, as national boundaries

become less significant in a world of digital natives, we

need to decide what rules are necessary and how those

rules should be formulated. We all need to understand

the balance and consider the possibility for increasing

transparency in both directions. If people are given

access to data to re-use, the power of innovation shifts

to the public, and the potential for sharing of more ideas

increases exponentially.

If we consider what has been achieved in the past ten years, over the next decade we have the opportunity

to give more and more power to users. In the world of ubiquitous and uniform access, intelligent agents and

the semantic web, we have the potential to enable even greater shifts in transparency and access to data than

previous generations would have ever imagined. However, to achieve this we need to move forward on two

key topics that will moderate the impact that can be achieved.

The Way Forward

If people arecomfortablesharing theirsearch historywith us, we canuse that as avaluable signalto provide themmore relevantinformationmore quickly.

41Future of Data

Substantive research has already shown us that access to information has significant impact on quality of life

from an economic, social and political perspective in many dimensions. For example, think first of the

fishermen who can now identify in advance where they are most likely to get the best price for their catch and

so sail straight to the port and thus improve their efficiency and also profitability. Or think of the student who

can check online to see where friends a meeting up - and then decide whether to join in knowing who will be

around, what the music will be like and, even get information about how to get there. Access to new data is

already changing lives - what it will do in the future is pretty much only limited by our imagination.


Future of Energy

Leo RoodhartPresident, Society of Petroleum Engineers and VP Group GameChanger, Shell

42

Whatever happens, supplies of easy-to-produce oil will

certainly not keep up with growing energy demand.

This is because, as economies grow and ascend the

energy ladder, demand is likely to double over the first

half of this century and we simply cannot increase (oil

and gas) production that fast. Even if we produce

energy from all possible sources it will be difficult to

meet the world’s growing needs. Within this context,

while oil will remain the leading energy source and there

will be some price volatility, the era of cheap oil is over.

The key questions being asked here are when is global

oil and gas production going to peak? This could be

anytime between now and 2040 for oil and a decade

later for gas. How can we take it out of the ground fast

enough to meet demand? How can we fill the gap

between supply and demand from renewable energy

such as wind, solar, etc or from coal or nuclear energy

when, historically, it has taken 25 years for new energy

sources and carriers to obtain a 1 percent share of the

global market following commercial introduction? And

will there be one leading alternative energy source?

To add more complexity, the oil market itself is also

undergoing major and lasting internal structural change,

with National Oil Companies (NOCs) in the ascendancy

against the Integrated Oils Companies (IOCs) such as

Shell, BP and Exxon. The NOCs have different

motivations for globalization: For example, as China

does not have many of own resources in oil and gas

(but lots of coal), the Chinese NOCs such as CNPC,

CNOOC and PetroChina all have a responsibility to

provide the ‘motherland’ with secure energy supplies.

Simultaneously, the NOCs of the major resource

holders such as KOC (Kuwait), Petronas (Malaysia)

want to expand globally in the downstream, i.e.

refineries, forecourts arenas, and so by-pass the

‘middle man’ (IOCs) who traditionally refine and sell

their crude oil. Others, like Saudi Aramco, simply want

to decrease their dependency on the technology owned

by the IOCs and develop their own staff. The key

questions being raised here are therefore what will the

role of the IOCs be in the future? And how can they

play a role in, for example, sustaining supplies of

affordable and responsibly produced oil and gas,

through better technology, cost reductions, more

efficient operations and fresh thinking?

Lastly, turning to the major challenge of climate

change, we have to be clear that emissions of CO2 and

other greenhouse gases are on an unsustainable

pathway. To avoid "abrupt and irreversible" climate

change we need a major decarbonization of the world’s

energy system.

The global energy system sits at the nexus of some of the deepest dilemmas of our times: prosperity versus

poverty; globalization versus security; and growth versus the environment. Current energy trends are patently

unsustainable — socially, environmentally, economically. That said, there is still plenty of oil and gas to be

found and produced, most of it is in increasingly difficult places - whether that’s difficult geology, difficult

environmental conditions or difficult politics.


The global energysystem sits atthe nexus of someof the deepestdilemmas of ourtimes: prosperityversus poverty;globalizationversus security;and growthversus theenvironment.

43Future of Energy

The other certainty is that, faced with the now fully

transparent challenges ahead, the world will electrify,

particularly in the mobility arena. While big-city traffic

such as buses, taxis and trams will come first,

developments in high-end electric cars, such as those

being introduced by Tesla, may help to accelerate

awareness and acceptance for the general car driving

public to switch to electric. That said, the main source

of electricity will continue to be from power plants

burning hydrocarbons for many decades: Sufficient

large-scale renewable electrons will not be available

before the middle of the century.

One of the main uncertainties is around global reserves

of hydrocarbons: Nobody really knows how much oil

and gas Saudi Arabia or Russia has. It is therefore

uncertain when global hydrocarbon production will

peak, level off or start to decline. We all recognise that

alternative sources of energy, renewables, coal and

nuclear are needed to fill the gap: Shell’s scenario

experts believe that renewable sources could provide

around 30% of the world’s energy by the middle of this

century, up from around 3% today. That would be

impressive growth, but it also means that it will take

forty years to get there and that fossil fuels and nuclear

will supply the remaining 70% even then.

While we wait for alternative energy to reach material

scale, we may well find it impossible to curb CO2

emissions in time because of the continuously

increasing overall demand for energy. Therefore to

prevent severe climate shocks we need to also focus

on reducing the CO2 intensity of fossil fuels. However,

the infrastructure required to capture and transport the

CO2 we want to eliminate will be massive, roughly

equal to the current infrastructure (pipelines, tankers,

facilities) to extract and transport oil and gas across the

globe. It is highly uncertain whether the world will be

able to build that in time.

Given the long timelines involved in delivering new

energy sources, CCS is a transition technology the

world simply cannot do without. Indeed the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),

Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) states that

it could provide over half of the global CO2 emissions

mitigation effort until 2100. But, in the short term,

while seeking to deploy CO2 Capture and Storage

technologies, many of the world’s energy companies

are also trying to address the challenge by reducing

the CO2-intensity of fossil energy by delivering more

natural gas, the cleanest-burning fossil fuel and by

helping the world to broaden the energy mix, with

involvement in wind, solar and, in particular, bio-fuels.

While the bio-fuels arena is fast developing from first

to second generation and also to marine algae, there

are also interesting developments around solar

energy. Electricity generated by solar panels is

predicted to become cheaper than electricity from

large scale coal or gas burning power plants within the

next 5 years, and countries like Abu Dhabi and Saudi

Arabia are planning large-scale solar power plants in

the desert.

Over the next decade and beyond, there are three main certainties which we call the 3 hard truths - increased

demand for energy, an associated struggle for supply to keep pace; and, consequently, increasing

environmental stresses: We cannot stop China and India from growing. Within this context, it is evident that

hydrocarbons (oil and gas) will remain the primary energy source of choice for the coming decades, gas will

become more important in the mix but both will be increasingly difficult to extract. Having picked much of the

low-hanging fruit, our industry is now focused on more difficult resources such as tight reservoirs, fractured

carbonates, oil shale, oil sands, and ultra-heavy oil.


One of the mainuncertainties isaround globalreserves of

hydrocarbons:Nobody reallyknows how

much oil and gasSaudi Arabia or

Russia has.


44 Future of Energy

At the same time, given the energy supply challenge,

over the next ten years it is likely that enormous

amounts of money will be invested in finding and

developing new reserves, which will have an impact on

the oil price. Although the price of oil will always be

volatile, it is unlikely that oil will become cheap again.

The days of‘easy oil andgas’ are over.

45Future of Energy

• Scramble summary: In the Scramble scenario,

nations will rush to secure energy resources, fearing

that energy security is a zero-sum game, with clear

winners and losers. The use of local coal and home

grown bio-fuels will increase fast. Taking the path of

least resistance, policymakers will pay little attention

to curbing energy consumption - until supplies run

short. Likewise, despite much rhetoric, greenhouse

gas emissions are not seriously addressed until major

shocks trigger political reactions. Since these

responses are overdue, they are severe and lead to

energy price spikes and volatility. This is a turbulent

and uncomfortable world with many tensions and

insufficient attention to environmental issues.

• Blueprints summary: in this scenario energy security,

energy supply and environmental challenges are

anticipated and coalitions emerge to take the lead in

dealing with them. Much innovation occurs at the

local level, as major cities develop links with industry

to reduce local emissions. National governments

introduce efficiency standards, taxes and other policy

instruments to improve the environmental

performance of buildings, vehicles and transport

fuels. As calls for harmonization increase, policies

converge across the globe. Cap-and-trade

mechanisms that put a cost on industrial CO2

emissions gain international acceptance. Rising

CO2 prices accelerate innovation, thus spawning

breakthroughs. The energy system is much more

stable and environmental outcomes are much better

than in the Scramble world.

The best path forward would be to live and work in a

“Blueprint” world of a more stable energy system and a

more sustainable environment. This future offers a

better pathway to provide enough energy for economic

growth while managing greenhouse gas emissions.

I see three key areas where our industry can play a

positive role in promoting a gradual energy transformation:

First, we need to supply sufficient amounts of

affordable oil and gas to meet the world’s growing

energy needs. The days of ‘easy oil and gas’ are over.

Although there are still huge reserves in the Middle East

and possibly Russia, the western Integrated Oil

Companies (IOCs) have little or no access to those

reserves. The IOCs will focus in the coming decades

At Shell, we think the world could take one of two energy routes over the next 50 years, which we've called

- Scramble and Blueprints. These are both challenging outlooks. Neither are ideal worlds, yet both are feasible.

They describe an era of transformation. The choices made in the next five years will be critical in determining

which route is taken.


on the very high-tech, difficult reserves that can be

found in the Arctic and ultra deep water as well as the

technically challenging shale oil and ultra heavy oils

found in the Canadian oil sands. Gas will become more

dominant and technologies to liquefy gas through

cooling (LNG) or by chemically turning gas into diesel

(Gas-to-liquid) will require massive investments for the

years to come (Shell will invest in excess of $30bn in

2009, and Exxon will do similar).

Secondly, we need to reduce the CO2 intensity of fossil

fuels. The International Energy Authority believes that in

the period to 2030 the growth in CO2 emissions from

coal fired power generation in just three countries -

China, India and the US - will be double the growth in

emissions from all the transport worldwide. So the first

priority should be to deploy CCS in the power sector,

especially coal-fired power. In the transport sector,

where we can’t capture CO2 from billions of exhaust

pipes, the challenge is to reduce the CO2-intensity on

a ‘wells-to-wheels’ basis: We can make big gains by

mixing in sustainable bio-fuels, building lighter-weight

vehicles, and developing more efficient engines. In the

longer term, we can add CCS to hydrocarbon fuel

production to bring down well-to-wheel emissions even

further. Cumulatively, these measures will allow liquid

transportation fuels to compete with vehicle

electrification for a long time to come, especially since

electric mobility will depend for many years on coal and

other non-renewable resources. The world’s vehicle

fleet will more than double between now and 2050.

With a billion new vehicles on the world’s roads there

will be room and need for diverse energy sources for

transportation. The oil industry may play a role in

delivering more sustainable electricity, including through

natural gas, the cleanest burning fossil fuel, and

through CCS.

Thirdly, we can help the world to increase the share of

non-fossil fuels: Most oil and gas companies are

developing new areas of expertise outside of

hydrocarbons. Shell has serious involvement in wind,

has proprietary thin-film solar technology, and is a

leading player in bio-fuels. For the next few years, for

Shell it’s in bio-fuels where we will concentrate our

additional efforts. Bio-fuels are a natural fit with Shell’s

downstream capabilities in transport fuel, and, provided

they are sourced sustainably, they can make a huge

impact in reducing CO2 emissions from transport.

Other IOCs, such as Chevron, will choose to focus on

a mix of alternatives varying from solar to wind.

Gas will becomemore dominant

and technologiesto liquefy gas

through coolingor by chemicallyturning gas into

diesel willrequire massiveinvestments for

the years to come.


46 Future of Energy

The problems the world is facing around energy in the decades to come can only be solved by global

cooperation at an unprecedented scale. Massive investments are required in increased efficiency in using

energy and in solving the Global warming issue. The Blueprints scenario will be realized only if policymakers

agree on a global approach to emissions trading and actively promote energy efficiency and new technology

in four sectors: heat and power generation, industry, transport, and buildings. It is critical that the Copenhagen

summit in December must deliver a credible post-2012 climate regime. Time is short and we must move fast

and with the same ingenuity and persistence that put humans on the moon and created the digital age. For

instance we will need to develop Carbon Capture and Storage on a large scale. The Blueprints scenarios

assumes that CO2 is captured at 90% of all coal- and gas-fired power plants in developed countries by

2050, plus at least 50% of those in non-OECD countries. It is a big assumption; today, none capture CO2.

Because CO2 capture and storage adds costs and yields no revenues, government support is needed to

make it happen quickly on a scale large enough to affect global emissions. At the very least, companies

should earn carbon credits for the CO2 they capture and store.


Because CO2capture andstorage addscosts and yieldsno revenues,governmentsupport is neededto make ithappen quicklyon a scale largeenough to affectglobal emissions.

47Future of Energy

Future of Food

Jim KirkwoodVice President R&D at the Center for Technology Creation, General Mills

48

In terms of demographics, we all now recognize that

with the world’s population growing to around 7bn by

2020 and 9bn by 2050, meeting our collective

nutritional needs is going to be a stretch. Adding on to

this is the growing middle class in Asia and Africa, who

are demanding more of the less calorically efficient

western diet, and, as a consequence, there will be a

significant strain on world food resources. Moreover,

with an ageing world demanding new healthful foods

and a more fragmented market demanding more

customization and personalization, food companies are

asking how they can deliver the right food to the

developed world while delivering enough food to meet

the needs and desires in Asia and Africa.

We are in a world of paradox where a growing portion

of the developed world is obese at the same time as

15% of the global population is facing hunger and

malnutrition as they can’t afford to buy the basics. As

a result food suppliers are looking for ways to both

design foods to help some people eat less while also

delivering food that is affordable, safe and nutritious

for those who need more. How can we best balance

this equation?

We are also in a world where food safety is a growing

not diminishing concern. With increased evidence of

food-borne illnesses and more prevalent, virulent

natural as well as malicious man-made safety issues,

we must protect our supplies in order to mitigate the

risks. The world regulatory environment is consequently

becoming ever more restrictive and the food industry

has to both build trust with consumers at the same time

as using new affordable technologies to ensure that

their food is safe and secure.

Given that ‘government’ uses regulation and taxes to

drive change, a question is what the impact on the

economics and profitability of the food industry will be?

Globalization continues to break down geographic

barriers and equalize food economies across the world,

so we face several uncertainties around food supply:

The need for renewable sources of energy is driving the

food vs. fuel conflict as bio-fuels compete for food

acres and increasing competition raises commodity

prices; population change, climate change and security

challenges all increase variability and make food supply

costs less predictable; and, because of the increasing

demand from developing countries, there is significant

trade-offs between calories of grain vs. calories of meat

and dairy which means that complete protein

commodities are becoming increasingly scarce and

alternative sources will be required. How then can we

control ingredient and energy costs in order to make

nutritious food that people will want to buy? How can

we ensure that we will have enough protein to meet

global needs? How do we ensure a predictable supply

of food? And how will new consumers change the

demand cycle?

On top of all of this, there is the sustainability challenge:

As ever, more unstable weather adds uncertainty to

overall food supply and costs, so will increasing over-

exploitation of land resources and the depletion of

aquifers result in a decrease in the acres of arable land

available to grow enough food. In addition, over-fishing

of oceans will continue to decrease the supply and

increase the cost of fish protein.

The demand, supply and composition of food over the next decade is facing a number of major challenges

ranging from demographics, obesity, hunger and food security to the implications of globalization,

sustainability, consumer choice and new technologies. Taken in isolation, each of these challenges provides

us with some fundamental decisions. Taken together they are a formidable and accelerating global test.


We are in a worldof paradox wherea growing portionof the developedworld is obese atthe same time as15% of the globalpopulation isfacing hunger andmalnutrition asthey can’t affordto buy the basics.

49Future of Food

Demographically, as the overall global population

increases we know, for instance, that by 2020 China

and India will have over 33% of the total and the US

will, for example, become more ethnically diverse. We

know that the food market is very fragmented and there

is no ‘one size fits all’ and as the health challenges of

obesity and malnutrition continue. We know that more

healthy, nutritious food is a ‘must have’. We also know

that the right amount of food will not be in the right

places to feed the world affordably.

Environmentally, as oil-based energy resources diminish

and water for agricultural use becomes more limited,

we know that commodities, and especially meat and

dairy proteins, will become more expensive. As the

world becomes more connected, there will be more

global crises related to biological and chemical factors

such as SARS, Avian Flu, H1N1 etc. These crises will

have socio-economic effects that cause industry shifts

in demand and supply as imports / exports are

restricted and all of certain livestock (i.e. the chickens

in a region) are killed - remember Hong Kong in 1997

and 2008?

Technologically, over the next decade, there will be

significant advances in areas such as bioengineering,

genetics and nutrition. Advances in information

technologies will improve the production and distribution

of food. However more paradoxes will continue to exist:

obesity vs. malnutrition; traditional authentic vs.

bioactive delivery; sustainability vs. convenience; and

the anti GMO consumer attitude vs. the need for GMO

to feed the world.

What we are less sure about are the unpredictability in

consumer attitudes and the technical potential of

‘pharma foods’.

Consumer perceptions around the necessary trade-offs

between food science vs. food simplicity will be a

challenge to manage and may impact the ability of the

food industry to implement the needed solutions: Will

consumers, for instance, accept the need for

genetically modified or artificial foods in order to feed

the masses and provide health benefits at lower cost

or will they want more natural foods? Equally changing

consumer preferences are uncertain: Will demand for

expensive individual customization continue to increase

while consumers also want less expensive products?

Will traditional branded products remain relevant and

valued as retailers build their own-brand products? Will

customers want convenient single-serve portions while

also wanting to be more sustainable?

Pharma-foods, the intersection between food and

pharmaceuticals, is an area of growing opportunity for

many in the food sector. As consumers demand more

technologically sophisticated foods with unique,

complex health benefits, food companies will need to

respond. We now understand more about individual’s

disease propensities from the human genome.

Therefore nutrigenomic determination of diet becomes

technically possible. Technology is advancing and as

natural bioactive components are better understood,

the line between pharma and food will blur: The

challenge will be how to continue to find new ways to

continue to provide natural, food-delivered preventative

health benefits and begin to provide natural, food-

delivered disease state improvement benefits without

food becoming a drug.

There are three main certainties about the next decade which can be seen as demographic, environmental

and technological.


Consumerperceptionsaround thenecessarytrade-offs

between foodscience vs.

food simplicitywill be a

challenge tomanage


50 Future of Food

I see that to both enable and build on this, we should

establish a global infrastructure to incentivize

public/private collaboration and investment consortia

that can be leveraged to advance the necessary

technical solutions to address malnutrition, obesity and

increasing agricultural production. We need to

significantly increase global research investment in

biotechnology, genetics, food science and nutrition to

reach the technical breakthroughs required for a

second agricultural green revolution that will enable us

to feed the world. In addition we must invest in

exploration/research and development of the meat and

vegetable protein alternatives that can efficiently meet

the world’s increasing need. We should also initiate a

coordinated worldwide science education effort to help

developed populations of the world understand and

accept the technical solutions that will be required solve

the coming world food crisis.

At the same time, we must continue to support Africa,

India and China in building viable economies to bring

the vast numbers of their populations out of starvation

and poverty; we should incentivize developing

countries to invest more heavily in their own R&D for

self sufficiency and potential global trade; and we

need to build substantial food education programs

across the world which focus on dietary and nutritional

health and wellbeing.

In order to achieve this, a number of compromises may

be required - some of which are within the control of

the food industry and others not: Free market principles

may be compromised as governments become more

involved in the food business; food companies may

need to consider sharing intellectual property more,

being open with technical breakthroughs and, in certain

cases, trading off competitive advantage for the greater

good; food industry profit margin expectations may

need to be adjusted or subsidized in order to enable the

provision of sufficient food in key regions such as India;

producers may be forced to accept reductions in crop

yields to comply with sustainability demands, implement

significant shifts in agricultural production methods and

also grow non-traditional crops to produce the right

food in the right quantity for the right geography; the

established western companies will need to develop

partnerships with new companies from developing

countries to gain access to the new markets where

most of the economic growth will take place; and

traditional western agribusiness approaches may need

to change as Asian populations grow and these

markets become dominant.

By 2020, it is probable that there will be a number of global policies in place on climate change, energy and

agricultural methods. These will be supported by incentives and public / private collaborations to develop new

technical solutions. Regulation is likely that will, for example, direct land usage for meat and dairy production

vs. grain and it is a good bet that another ‘green revolution’ will increase the yield of food supply possibly

involving bioengineering and genetic modification. These could deliver step-change increases in the efficiency

of food production and may involve frame-breaking science such as edible oil from algae and lab-grown meat

protein. In addition, the development of non-meat, high protein foods as meat alternatives or acceptable protein

vegetable alternatives could help us more efficiently meet the increasing world protein demand.


We need tosignificantlyincrease globalresearchinvestment inbiotechnology,genetics, foodscience andnutrition to reachthe technicalbreakthroughsrequired for asecondagricultural greenrevolution thatwill enable us tofeed the world.

51Future of Food

As a result, the dietary habits of consumers may well

change due to availability and the prices of agricultural

materials: For example, western populations may need

to adjust to consuming more plant based sources of

protein as their choices for protein may decrease. In

addition, driven by economic and/or political pressure,

consumers may also be required to change their food

shopping habits.

The future of food will have major implications for many

other areas: The supply of energy; the use of water;

the processing of waste and the state of our health are

all obvious arenas of direct influence, but food will also

both impact and be impacted by future choice,

authenticity, connectivity, work and money. Food is

fundamental to economics, politics and other societal

issues whether directly or as support technologies.

If we get the regulation, technology and consumer

attitudes right, over the next ten years we can make

a shift: We really do have the opportunity to address

the challenges presented to food by the demands of

demographics, obesity, hunger and food security and

the implications of globalization and sustainability. The

issue is how best to do this collaboratively.

In the next decade, the world economics of food will change and food will change the economics of the

world. Investment in food production, research and technology development must become a priority.

Consumers and society in general will need to become more literate in science and more science education

will be required for the population to understand and accept the technology required to feed the world: The

natural / local / authenticity trend may become obsolete. The global community (governments, academia and

industry) will need to collaborate in a much more effective way or face the societal, ethical and political

consequences of large portions of the population not having the food they need. World food production and

agriculture must become more globally integrated - A true working world market will be required. Decisions

on where and what to produce must be made on a global basis not on an individual market or geography.

Political and societal pressure for change will increase as the population and need for affordable food

increases in Asia, Africa and India and the disparity between the West and emerging economies around food

becomes even more stark.


In the nextdecade, the world

economics offood will change

and food willchange the

economics ofthe world.

Investment infood production,

research andtechnology

developmentmust become

a priority.


52 Future of Food

Decisions onwhere and whatto produce mustbe made on aglobal basis noton an individualmarket orgeography.

53

Future of Health

Dr Jack LordCEO, Navigenics Inc.

54

Firstly, between now and 2020 we are likely to see

somewhere between 2 to 3 global pandemics. Several

years ago the pandemic of Avian flu began in Asia;

today the world faces the Swine flu that can be traced

back to central and south America. And tomorrow? In

general these pandemics arise in areas that do not

have the top tier of preventative or public health

infrastructure and, from there, spread to the advanced

Western countries. And our ability to achieve global

bio-surveillance for disease is limited because of

unequal infrastructure, inadequate local investments

and only limited global cooperation. So issue number

one is bio-surveillance and adequacy of public

health infrastructure.

This raises the age-old social questions about

re-distribution of wealth from the richest nations to the

poorest ones. Perhaps this is the decade that it will

occur? If “enlightened self-interest” is a driver of

behaviour, then in a world with airplanes, ships, and

dependencies on global sourcing for food, it seems only

logical to attack the pre-existing conditions that give

rise to pandemic and invest in the infrastructure to track

and treat. Of the issues the “answer” is the easiest of

the global challenges - the question is “is there a will to

do this?”

Secondly, for the industrialized world from the United

States to Europe to Japan the cost burdens of

healthcare in the face of demographic shifts (aging),

increasing rate of chronic illness and related pre-cursor

conditions (eg obesity) present enormous systemic

challenges. The increasing cost of these effects

government and personal budgets but has failed to

provoke a change in approach. The context of these

systems is a cultural “more is better” attitude to the

investment in treatment of illness without a

corresponding investment in prevention and health.

The industrial age model of treating disease in hospitals

or other high intervention settings has almost a “nuclear

arms” like pace of investment that outstrip any evidence

of improved productivity or quality of life. So issue

number two: “The world is older, sicker and fatter” than

it has ever been.

We are victims of our own success. By successfully

“rooting out” the causes of death and at least deferring

death, we have ended up in a spot with far more people

living into age bands that the world hasn’t had

experience before. Consider this - today there are more

people living over the age of 65 than ever have before

in the entire history of the world! How do we adjust to

new roles for people in these age bands? How do we

engage their minds so that they remain active and

contributing in the face of age related changes? What

are the new rules for work, retirement, and “family”?

What do our communities need to look like? And

stepping beyond that the “rules” of history around work,

exercise, food and natural resources are turned upside

down. In a world where we used to get paid for

physical work, we now pay to go to gyms to work out!

We have created incredible productivity for relatively

cheap food and have been super sized as a result! And

today we pay more for water than we do for petrol. So,

issues like behavioral change, social policies around

obesity and personal responsibility for health, public

investment in programs to prevent illness through a

variety of means are all questions in an incredibly

complex situation.

Thirdly, the role of healthcare as an important part of

the economic infrastructure is often overlooked.

Balancing investments in new technologies, prevention,

healthcare related Information Technology with existing

The world is a connected and shrinking place - and whilst we all are connected - the global issues for health

are both dissimilar but connected! How so? I see three major challenges:


Between nowand 2020 we arelikely to seesomewherebetween 2 to 3global pandemics.

55Future of Health

labor intense processes present a challenge. The

balancing is complex in and of itself, so high

expenditure already does not guarantee a high level of

quality. Above and beyond this whilst almost every

industrialized country has undertaken some approaches

to healthcare reform, none have tackled the

fundamental economic questions about healthcare, the

healthcare workforce, and healthcare investment. This

issue needs to be contextualized to the other societal

investments that need to be made in education,

sustainability and infrastructure. So issue number three

is the ‘right’ amount of healthcare to spend as a

percentage of GDP.

There are two tracks here: One related to the

revamping of the provisioning of health care services

and the other around the process of discovery. On

provisioning, when will the industry join the “information

age”, how will it rethink the labor and productivity

related challenges, and how and who will provide

prevention services? Embedded in this discussion is the

entire transition from a “sick care” system to a “health

care” system. The investment in discovery will parallel

that transition - from “thermonuclear war” against death

to the aspirational march to improving health and the

quality of life. How do government policies need to

change to re-prioritize these investments? How does

government thinking need to move from “budgeter” to

“risk manager”? And how do new discoveries around

genetics, probabilistic medicine and regeneration

influence the balance of prevention vs. treatment?

China, India andthe Middle Eastare all seeing

spikes in the ratesof diabetes, heart

disease andobesity. It is an

inevitable marchthat seems to beassociated withaffluence and a

knowledge basedeconomy.


56 Future of Health

There is a reasonable level of certainty to the waves of

infectious pandemics - what is not clear is the source

and vectors. But given history, these diseases seem

to follow a wave form and become generally more

complex to treat and eradicate.

On the provisioning of health care, inertia seems to be

the greatest force. Whilst there are many great

discussions of healthcare reforms, the betting man

would need to say that the problems as they exist today

will only grow as budgets get leaner and the population

has greater demands. On discovery, high probability of

a “fly” wheel effect for new diagnostic and therapeutic

interventions; a questionable appetite to rebalance and

invest in prevention

There are two paths that need to be worked in parallel.

A holistic view of what needs to change for the twenty

first century and a geographically focused bottom up

for reforming healthcare systems.

As the old saying goes “nothing is certain but death and taxes”. But the pandemic of chronic illness and

obesity is about as certain as one could come too. And that certainty isn’t only for the developed world; it

appears to be certain for the developing world as well: China, India and the Middle East are all seeing spikes

in the rates of diabetes, heart disease and obesity. It is an inevitable march that seems to be associated with

affluence and a knowledge based economy.


Holistically the possible changes that need to be

considered include; the move from a sick-care system

to a healthcare systems accompanied by a shift from a

passive view to health to a more active view to co-

creating health. At the same time we could change

from conducting research to treat disease primarily to

one where a balanced research investment - disease

and prevention. In parallel with this, we can choose to

migrate from provincial mindsets of health systems to a

more global view of health and disease, and move from

a professional driven system to a popular frame of

consumer driven health.

In an ideal worldthe organizationsresponsible forglobal healthwould move fromtheir marginalizedroles to a leadrole on the publicstage.

57Future of Health

Many would now agree that, from the bottom up,

individual health economies need to undertake

assessments of future risk and management of future

health inflation. In addition, we need to establish public

policy forums around entitlement to health, sharing

risks, personal responsibility, and basic health access

vs. specialized healthcare services. The exploration of

the utility and impact of social media, transparency of

information and incentives and rewards for healthy

behaviors is another one on the ‘to-do’ list. On top of

that we should review the effectiveness of bio-

surveillance programs and undertake strategic planning

for the role of the healthcare industry in context of

domestic economies

I see that in an ideal world the organizations responsible

for global health would move from their marginalized

roles to a lead role on the public stage. From that

stage, the items that need to be addressed include;

looking at population health from a risk managers view

with subsequent strategies for mitigating or eliminating

risk; leveraging the emerging power of science that

allows us to predict future health and take organized

steps to prevent illness; creating a global approach to

sharing best practices, standards for information

technology platforms; leveraging technologies to

improve bio-surveillance and; providing education and

access to social media resources that enable people to

better co-create their own health as opposed to being

dependent on a sick-care system or be subject to

environmental influences that they are completely

unaware about.

Given the three main issues of improving bio-surveillance and adequacy of public health infrastructure; dealing

with a world that is older, sicker and fatter than it has ever been; and, at the same time, determining the “right”

amount of healthcare spend as a percentage of GDP, we have some pretty substantial challenges to address.

However, as outlined above, we also have a number of alternatives available to us. So what is the best

path forward?


While health changes will affect and be affected by

developments outside in such areas as food,

technology, housing, public policy and financing, the

core implications are clear. Each of the issues discussed

contains a paradox that challenges our conventional

ideas about how we think about these risks.

To protect ourselves from rogue infections on our own

shores, in today's interconnected world we may have to

think about investing in a global public health

infrastructure abroad. The boundary between us and

them is permeable.

We tend to view our personal health behaviors as

personal and not really anybody else's business but our

own, and yet the diseases that issue from our indolence,

gluttony, and addictions to tobacco and alcohol are

going to be financed by those of us who chose to

exercise, eat sensibly, and shun smoke and drink. The

boundary between me and you is permeable.

And we tend to think that the way to reduce health

costs is to beat down the supply of care, when we really

need to invest in preventive strategies today that will

reduce the future demand for care. The boundary

between now and later is permeable.

To manage these risks we need to get beyond the

binary thinking. Between this and that, between us and

them, between you and me, between now and later,

there is an infinity of intimate connections that we can't

ignore and we can't break. We can't choose between

personal behavior and social responsibility. It has to be

both because our personal behavior has social

consequences. We can't choose between reducing

health costs and investing in health promotion - it has

to be both or we won't have either. We need a new kind

of thinking for the pursuit of health.

While progress could be achieved from quickly addressing the key challenges, unfortunately the most likely

outcome is one that results from inertia The next decade is not likely to be the time for change, but instead

a time that “stressors” on the system become progressively evident. The march of increased burdens of

demography and chronic illness will remain unabated; for industrialized countries the ratio of workers

contributing to the system compared to the people utilizing government sponsored entitlements will continue

to drop; and international collaboration to prevent illness in underserved regions will likely remain perfunctory.

The net - net is we will see continuing and rising concerns about health and health care setting up the next

decade for fundamental change.


The next decadeis not likely to be

the time forchange, but

instead a time that“stressors” on thesystem becomeprogressively

evident. Increasedburdens of

demography andchronic illness willremain unabated.


58 Future of Health

We can't choosebetween reducinghealth costs andinvesting in healthpromotion - it hasto be both or wewon't have either.

59

Future of Identity

Professor Mike Hardy OBEStrategic Leader for Intercultural Dialogue, The British Council

60

Firstly, what I see as the challenge of ‘more-of-the-

same’. There are few signs that the existing challenges

associated with single-dimension personal and social

identity (whether as social role or type of identity)

are slowing down. So, North vs. South continues to

matter - even though new issues of East vs. West are

also becoming apparent. Similarly, identities around

faith, social mobility, language, gender and age,

among others, will continue to create more and

bigger challenge.

Secondly, the ‘dealing-with-multiple-identities’ challenge

is likely to become more complex and more significant.

As our world becomes smaller through migration and

mobility, both virtual and real, it may be that people and

groups will express themselves more insistently through

multiple rather than single identity lenses. So it will be

the particular ingredients of the ‘cocktail identity’ (the

combination of personas and their consequences) which

will be the more significant. How will we protect and

respect apparently contradictory and multiple identities?

Will it be through identity personas that we define or will

it be from an integrated set of values?

Thirdly, there is the ‘new-generation-identity’ challenge.

This will be where the answers to the ‘who are you?’

questions are framed in completely unexpected ways.

Here lies perhaps the most interesting (and

challenging) of all - a new demographic, a new

generation of (especially younger) people creating or

reflecting new types of social membership. These

memberships may be a reaction to what we currently

have or be the transient results of increasingly fluid

social networking, the automaticity of easy travel and

instantaneous communication. How can we make any

assumptions about how a 15-year-old frames her or his

definitions about self and awareness of self?

Fourthly, the ‘the-virtual-identities’ challenge. The

increasing application of smart working and virtual

engagement is creating whole new paradigms for

identity. Teams of young, professional South Asians

are trained in new identity characteristics (US-English

accents, up-to-the-moment knowledge of current US

television soap). Hence, qualified in new role and type

identities, they can be profitably applied to a call-centre

industry but separated from customers; more solemnly,

military drone-airplane operators can operate at a

continental distance and return home to supper with

their families at the end of a work-shift. We are turning

identities into jobs (rather than jobs into identities) but

creating new types of social dislocation.

If in each of the four cases, “identity” means either a

socially distinguishing feature that a person takes a

special pride in, or a social membership governed by

rules, attributes or behaviours (or both at the same time

in certain instances), then the global challenges are

around where difference is articulated hierarchically

(haves-have nots, traditional-new, digital native-digital

immigrant, home birds-migrants and so forth.) In the

case of the new generation, we may not be able to

predict the challenge at all - as we do not yet

understand the basic paradigm - and nor by definition

should we!

The uncertainty relating to how well we will manage

diversity is another significant issue. In this regard,

the potential ‘clash of identities’ must relate to

a community membership, let’s say European

citizenship. This brings with it the complex pattern of

relationships people have to nationality. Oversimplifying

nationality by seeing it as a simple and single

identity type (and hence in the same way citizenship)

would be dangerous. Diversity is the existence of

Identity provokes challenge in many ways. I want to suggest four challenges that might be considered noisier

than others:


How can wemake anyassumptionsabout how a15-year-oldframes her orhis definitionsabout self andawarenessof self?

61Future of Identity

multiple and parallel identities within one nation, each

with its own context and origin. These multiple identities

define and describe contemporary citizens (perhaps and

at the same time with a religion, a set of skills, a

first/second language, food preferences and so on).

They are further distinguishable by geographic origin,

political persuasion, level of education etc.

So, given the multi-layered and multi-dimensional

nature of nations, communities and individuals, the

challenge to bring positive coexistence is to develop a

cohesive set of values with due regard for diversity and

individual rights, and find successful ways of promoting

difference while also identifying and embedding a

shared identity among community members.

A certainty overthe next ten

years will be thecontribution of

identity issues todiversity, and to

the challenges ofdiversity and ofliving together incommunities of

multiple cultures.


62 Future of Identity

That said, a certainty over the next ten years will be the

contribution of identity issues to diversity, and to the

challenges of diversity and of living together in

communities of multiple cultures. It is clear that people

will continue to be mobile and migrate in huge numbers

as economics, politics, climate and so forth, provide

incentives. The more marginalized and excluded groups

will probably not join such movement over the next ten

years, constrained by their restricted toolkits and

opportunities. Such mobility will create new sustainable

and diverse communities characterised by the much

greater proximity of different identity types.

Issues of the cohesion of these new communities,

together with a strengthened sense of protectionism

and resistance to further diversification will prevail. In

the UK, communities are seen as communities where

there is a common vision and a sense of belonging

shared by all members with respect and understanding

of their diverse backgrounds and circumstances. A

cohesive community also displays strong and positive

relationships between its members and similar life

opportunities are actively promoted. So the joining of

very different identity types and roles need not lead to

a non-cohesive community, but what seems clear in

many European and North American contexts is that at

this moment in time, cohesion is not easy and requires

deliberate policies and actions.

Bad experience within diverse communities has been

considerable. This has created stronger understanding

of, but also stronger positions on, the notion of ‘cultural

pluralism’. In the wider Europe, experience of a number

of different measures and policy approaches following

racial and ethnic discrimination and conflict has

increased awareness about various cultures, religions,

Of course it may be more productive to ask associated questions by dispensing with “identity” and analysing

instead the political implications of personal desires for dignity, honour, and self-respect and the politics of the

membership of social groups. In a future 2020 European context, for example, a mono-layered European

identity is less likely (and maybe even less desirable); socio-economic and political crises, along with a

deteriorating climate, will provoke increasing protectionism - essentially stronger boundaries and potential

‘exclusion’ zones that will brigade sameness.


races, ethnicities, attitudes and opinions which might

be thrown together in a single community. Responses

have ranged from so-called ‘Multiculturalism’ (often

criticised for reinforcing barriers with its emphasis on

respect and acknowledgement of differences) to either

dialogue and actions aspiring to openness and

interaction between cultures in order to lead to long

term change or the application of more formal rules of

engagement with integration as the planned result.

I suspect that in the next decade we are likely to move

more quickly and more widely towards an integrated

identity for work and social interaction, although we

may see a serious reinforcement of difference in the

private world. What will appear as cohesive and

connected communities may well be quite

schizophrenic. This describes a community where

members play out distinctive identities depending on

the community context they find themselves in. Though

this might be a reasonably certain outcome, as yet we

do not really understand the nature of the challenge

that it creates. It may be that our communities are

stable and secure when times are reasonably OK but

hugely fragile when exogenous threats appear or bad

times arrive.

As I have implied, peoples in the joined-up and

interrelated world of the 21st Century will need to come

to terms with a plethora of pluralistic identities. In the

future, to be a Brazilian or Asian, or indeed a young

global citizen, will mean being much more than one rigid

thing. Above all, peoples will have to come to terms with

new community defined identities, which would include

Russian-Arab and European and may even challenge

the rugby world to add London-Polish to the London-

Irish in that league. Many other such identities will

challenge the shaping of communities, nations and

regions characterised not by multiculturalism per se, but

more by the coincidence and co-existence of multiple

cultures where transcending difference and somehow

helping to bring out the strengths (benefits) of living

together becomes an imperative.

Communication technology adds another layer of

complexity. A significant proportion of this emerging

generation may actively and deliberately develop parallel

identities - teenagers constrained by conservative family

contexts who use on-line dating and chat rooms to

create alternative egos and behaviours in the virtual

world. The potential challenge here may focus on a

whole generation who fail to ‘comply’ with traditional

rules, or who collapse into an inter-generational crisis.

If what is certain is that communities of different

identities will continue to proliferate, and that such

communities will increasingly have evident majority and

minority ‘identities’, what is not certain is how

community members will react and behave. Many

believe that unless the diversities and varieties are

harnessed and understood as community benefits, we

have a problem, as more likely than not, without this,

communities will not be sustainable.

In the nextdecade we arelikely to movemore quickly andmore widelytowards anintegrated identityfor work andsocial interaction.


Interventions by community (or national) leadership:

These would create the formal rules for social identity

groups - based on the desired and negotiated shared

values. So, this means introducing accepted and

enforceable laws that govern the behaviours within

diverse communities and promote community

cohesion. These would elevate community practices

above difference, and create space for difference to

exist as difference.

Changing the impact of identity issues by growing

understanding and trust within communities: Finding

ways of bringing people from different groups together

and encouraging collaboration between these people

helps create more comfort with difference. Recent work

suggests that contact is successful in bringing about

more positive attitudes towards others, reducing

prejudice and also building long-lasting friendships. The

approach is based on the premise that everyone,

individually and as a nation, benefits from knowing,

experiencing and working with other cultures, as the

focus with these projects are the commonalities that

bind groups together, rather than their differences.

Intercultural Dialogue is one of the ways in which

people can be brought together for such collaboration.

It is also important to stress the significance of the

individual as well as the community, and the benefits of

dialogue between individuals and communities. There is

probably more to be gained from a culturally open and

diverse way of life that involves interaction and dialogue

with other individuals and groups than there is for a

culturally self-contained existence. So, should

community leaders or the state set the agenda? Culture

and identity are so deeply linked into our everyday lives

that high degrees of openness are often more

successful if they are generated from the individual or

community. Dialogue and openness should not be

about abstract notions of cohesion or integration, but

about practical things. Communities can sit down and

discuss real issues of concern and potential tension.

Economic growth and stability: Identities matter most

when difference is seen as threatening - and the

threats are greatest when times are bad. This is

probably the most plausible approach to mitigation of

the worst case identity scenarios, though the extent to

which it is a sustaining and sustainable solution is

questionable. Ultimately we can make difference less of

an issue through prosperity and plenty, but we may not

actually be addressing the core problem.

In my view there are two huge compromises that need

to be made for solutions to gain traction and impact.

Firstly, we must have a commitment to an honest, true

account of the past. Intercultural exchange cannot be

viewed without consideration of global movements and

global communication. It is also often asserted that one

can only understand one’s own culture by looking at

other cultures. This requires being able to see one’s

own culture from an outsider’s perspective to some

extent; using an historical approach can help.

Second, diaspora matters. Diasporas provide a key link

between identity, history and now. Engaging with

diaspora space and identity strengthens understanding

of how and where identity and difference are made and

remade. Through migration, peoples are dispersed

across many physical borders. Through these journeys,

diasporas also cross social, conceptual, and

psychological borders. The diaspora and its location

becomes a distinctive place built by immigration, while

including the indigenous population as an integral part

of a diaspora space. Identity in a diaspora space or

The main issues for us to address going forward are the challenges associated with the complex impact of

identity and identities in communities. There are probably only three possible solutions.


The main issuesfor us to addressgoing forward are

the challengesassociated with

the compleximpact of identity

and identitiesin communities.


64 Future of Identity

location develops as an ongoing process that can

change with situations and experiences. Again,

intercultural dialogue can help with understanding

processes within diaspora space.

Coming to termswith the impactof identity anddiversity requiresus to renegotiateour approachto difference, toreject itsdemonisationwithoutabandoning it.


If global economic and technological events, processes

and change are creating difficulties for individuals to

cling on to traditional notions of identity (of both type

and role), and challenging our self-confidence and our

ability to really understand ourselves, they may at the

same time be redefining our potential and the

opportunities on offer for human development. Take for

example, the virtual world which radically changes the

notions of interface. This line of thought takes us quickly

to the potential consequence of a world economic order

which forms and massages identity types to deliver

majority identity agendas, whether for political or

economic gain. The influence of Hollywood or

Bollywood, the globalisation of brands or the promotion

of single-minded liberal democracy comes to mind.

Coming to terms with the impact of identity and diversity

requires us to renegotiate our approach to difference,

to reject its demonisation without abandoning it.

Communities must create space for difference to exist

as difference, and for diverse communities to exist

within their own parameters. This view would enable us

to confront the challenge without creating all-embracing

and philosophical solutions. Assimilation, integration,

multiculturalism and the like either eradicate or reinforce

difference, whereas success (whatever that means) will

require that minority identities retain some of their roots.

The path forward should be one which frames diversity

within shared values, where both majority and minority

cultures need to abandon the idea that a single truth

can be imposed on a plural society and where diverse

personal and social identity is mobilised as a good

rather than as a source of struggle. Inter- and intra-

cultural dialogue must create the space and opportunity

for reasoned disagreement and elevate co-existence in

the confined spaces of communities to a higher level.

This requires us to move forwards from a place where

identities are contested and in constant rivalry.

Socially, identity has become a complex and central phenomenon, and with it diversity itself has become one

of the single most important issues for human development. To accommodate diversity, we have to come to

terms with multiple and changing identities. What we define and describe as our constituent parts, say in

Europe or in Asia, become an integral part of ourselves. It is not just that these parts coexist in communities,

but their ideas, art, literature, food and lifestyles now play a central part in shaping both the communities and

the individual. In best cases, the difference is evaporating; and we must adjust to this radical change.


Future of Migration

Professor Richard BlackHead of School of Global Studies, University of Sussex and Director, Sussex Centre for Migration Research

66

• First, most poorer people in the world are unable to

migrate internationally, and so are unable to share in

any benefits of international migration; and that even

where they do, the ability of their home communities

and families to benefit from this migration is

often limited.

• Second, less visible forms of migration, such as

internal, temporary, seasonal or child migration

usually offer much lower benefits, yet often carry

greater costs for poor people.

• Third, migration to newer regional centres in the

Middle East, Central, East and SE Asia or parts of

Africa give rise to new challenges in countries that

have limited infrastructure or policies to deal with

immigrant rights, integration or ‘multicultural’

societies in the Western sense.

All three of these challenges impact a larger number of

people, to a greater degree of significance, than the

‘classic’ challenges of integration and diversity that

currently hold such a strong policy focus in the global

‘North’. If we focus on the consequences of migration

for poor people and poor countries, then a number of

associated questions come into play that are of

importance over the next decade.

First, in relation to the exclusion or limited involvement

of poor people from international migration, questions

include:

• Is there scope for relaxation of controls on migration,

particularly where this can be demonstrated to have

beneficial macro-economic effects on sending and

receiving countries?

•What is the role of education in giving poor people

access to international migration opportunities, and

can policies on migration and education be combined

in a way that gives rise to a ‘virtuous circle’, rather

than so-called ‘brain drain’?

• How can migrants’ remittances to poor countries -

which are currently greater in monetary terms that

international aid flows - be built upon to stimulate a

wider process of development (whilst recognising

that these are private rather than public flows

of capital)?

Second, in relation to the less visible forms of migration

that poor people do participate in:

• How can such forms of migration be facilitated in

such a way that they deliver tangible benefits for

migrants and their families, as well as the wider

population in sending and receiving areas?

• Is it possible to drive down the cost to relatively poor

people of sending relatively small amounts of money,

or to use such remittances to release capital

constraints, for example through stimulating the

microfinance sector?

•What forms of exploitation and abuse do internal,

temporary, seasonal or child migrants face, and how

can these be reduced or eliminated?

Third, in relation to those who migrate to emerging

regional centres in rapidly growing economies:

• Are there lessons that can be learned from European

or North American responses to immigrant

integration and diversity, or are entirely new models

required in other parts of the world?

Immigrant integration and increasing diversity in Europe and the North are significant questions for today’s

societies. However, I would like to focus on three other major challenges that are often ignored in public

debate. All rest on the assumption that migration is a challenge for poor countries too:


Is there scopefor relaxationof controls onmigration,particularly wherethis can bedemonstrated tohave beneficialmacro-economiceffects onsending andreceivingcountries?

67Future of Migration

In addition, although it appears that new migration flows

- in terms of origins and destinations - are emerging all

the time, it also seems likely that the major ‘channels’

of international migration will be the same in 2020 as

they are today, with few new major ‘poles of attraction’,

and few new emerging countries of emigration -

beyond the possibility of mass exodus associated with

economic or political collapse in a small number

of countries.

However, perhaps even more guaranteed is that there

will be a greater proportion of the world’s population

living in urban areas, both as a result of urban growth

(an excess of births over deaths in many of the

developing world’s major cities) but also as a result of

continued rural-urban migration. This process of

urbanisation appears to be particularly strong in Africa,

currently the least urbanised continent in the world, but

where the proportion of the population living in urban

areas is expected by the UN to rise from around 35%

in 2000, to around 45% in 2020 and 50% by 2030.

There is of course a degree of uncertainty even in

relation to the points above. For example, the recent

global economic crisis appears to have hit some poor

migrants particularly hard, as they often work in

manufacturing and service industries that are orientated

towards global export markets that have been

significantly affected by the downturn. The Chinese

authorities have estimated, for example, that as many

as 20 million migrant workers may return from urban

to rural areas as a result of the crisis. If such processes

were to turn into a medium-term trend, this could have

a major downward impact both on rates of urban

growth, and potentially on international migration.

However, what is much more uncertain is the way in

which sending and receiving societies might or might

not benefit more from the migration into the future.

For example, the ‘benefits’ of migration are often

indirect and therefore neither clear, nor easy to predict.

Few in the UK would now dispute that migration has

had a significant and positive impact on the range and

quality of food in restaurants across the country. Yet

there are almost certainly wider benefits ranging from

art and culture to entrepreneurship, technology and the

quality of healthcare that are difficult to measure (and

predict) but no less real. Such benefits are not limited

to the UK, or to international migration - for example

the increasing presence of rural migrants in urban

centres can lead to the development of trade links

between rural and urban areas, as well as contributing

to social and cultural transformations.

There also appears to be a growing interest at

international level in the potential benefits of migration

for development, as encompassed in initiatives such as

the ‘Global Forum on Migration and Development’, a

major international initiative to promote good policy

practice in this field. Yet to date the translation of these

initiatives into changed policy at national level is highly

limited, with continued suspicion of migration and

mobility amongst many policy-makers.

Although international migration has increased over the last few decades, it has done so slowly, rising from

just 2% to around 3% of the world’s population over the period from 1970 to 2005. It seems highly probable

that this percentage will continue to rise slowly over the coming decade, or at least not fall, implying that by

2020 there will be more international migrants in the world than there are today.


The major‘channels’ ofinternationalmigration will

be the same in2020 as they

are today.


68 Future of Migration

There is some prospect that the development of new

technologies might go some way to addressing the

problems faced by poorer people in deriving benefits

from migration. For example, in the field of money

transfer by migrants, significant advances have been

made in terms of online and mobile-phone based

electronic transfers, sometimes to the benefit of very

poor people. The challenge is to make sure that these

technologies are available to the poor, at low cost, and

functioning in ways that they engender trust that the

hard-earned cash of migrants is safe.

However, in relation to all three challenges identified

above, ‘solutions’ are most likely to arise from a more

mature public and policy debate, which in turn is likely

to rely heavily on the availability of robust research

evidence. Yet there are many areas in which such

evidence is lacking. For example, although the number

of international migrants in the world is now broadly

accepted to be around 200 million people, these are

figures for migrant stocks rather than flows; there is in

contrast no consensus at all on how many people move

across borders on a seasonal or annual basis, let alone

the numbers of people moving within their own

countries. Such data is not easy to obtain either:

borders are long, and often un-policed; few countries

have the kind of residential registration systems that

allow tracking of internal mobility, and in many societies

such systems would either be impractical or meet fierce

political resistance on civil liberties grounds.

Technological advances are already proceeding fast in

the field of migration, particularly in terms of migrant

remittances. There is the prospect too that the mobile

phone in particular can become the source of trusted

information on safe migration - in practice, many

migrants and would-be migrants already use mobile

phones extensively to plan their journeys, and to make

the necessary contacts along the way to enable them

to continue towards their destinations.

Solutions involving more rational public debate based

on better research evidence are perhaps less probable,

but still eminently possible, at least in some contexts.

To take one example, in Bangladesh, a mature public

debate is emerging on the causes and benefits of

migration for the country, and successive governments,

democratic and military, have taken at least some

action, based on emerging research evidence of the

significance of migration for the country’s economy and

society. This has led to some relaxation on the rules for

travel overseas by women, with likely benefits in terms

of reduced exploitation of women who were previously

forced to move illegally if they moved at all. A

combination of research and lobbying by organisations

such as the Refugee and Migratory Movements

Research Unit in Dhaka has also led to the granting of

citizenship to one of Bangladesh’s historic ‘migrant’

groups - Urdu-speaking Biharis who moved to the

country during colonial times or around partition, many

of whom had been confined to camp-like settlements

since 1971. Meanwhile, the country’s most recent

Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper deals in depth with

both internal and international migration, highlighting a

number of areas in which policy change might enhance

the benefits of migration to the poorest sections of

society. These include investigation of labour demand

overseas, improved services to overseas workers, and

attempts to find innovative ways to finance the initial

cost of migration by the poor.

In the field of migration, talk of ‘solutions’ is not straightforward. For example, the issues involved are complex,

politically highly contentious, and research evidence is patchy. Indeed, there are few countries in which there

is a mature public debate about migration, whether this is movement of poor people from rural to urban areas,

or immigration to new and emerging urban centres.

Proposed Path Forward

In the field ofmigration, talk of‘solutions’ is notstraightforward.


Yet the potential for global impact here is surely more

limited: out of a total of over 80 PRSPs completed in

nearly 60 countries since 2001, little more than a

handful deal in any depth with the issue of migration

based on robust evidence. Most simply identify

migration - and especially the internal movement of the

poor - as a problem, based on no hard evidence at all.

There is probably no ‘best’ path forward on migration,

nor is a world ‘free of constraints’ realistic. Migration

provides opportunities to some, but also poses

challenges for others, such that the task of dealing with

it is always likely to be beset by the constraints

associated with managing competing interests. For

example, if new migrants arrive in a labour market, they

clearly may compete for jobs with existing workers

(even if in some cases they do not, and in all cases,

they also contribute to demand which stimulates overall

employment). Where such competition does emerge,

it is likely to be felt most keenly by other recently-arrived

migrants, often at the lower end of the labour market.

In this context, I would argue for a more limited goal:

creating the space in which well-informed debate about

the benefits and costs of migration, and appropriate

policy responses, is possible.

We needcompromise

betweenpolarised

positions thatseek to classify

migration as‘good’ or ‘bad’ -

or betweenpositions that

see migrants as‘deserving’ or‘undeserving’.


70 Future of Migration

Yet surely a middle ground needs to be found. For

many migrants, movement is an essential means of

securing a livelihood or a better life, but migration is

often also an undesired, and undesirable outcome of

poverty, underdevelopment, environmental degradation

or armed conflict. Indeed, for an individual migrant, the

desire to escape difficult conditions at home, and seize

opportunities elsewhere can easily go hand in hand.

In this context, we need compromise between polarised

positions that seek to classify migration as ‘good’ or

‘bad’ - or between positions that see migrants as

‘deserving’ or ‘undeserving’. That does, however,

require policy-makers to rise above polarised public

debates, to see the phenomenon of migration in a

detached way, based on the best available evidence.

The consequences of taking a more rounded view on

migration are not easy to predict.

Socially, a more open and tolerant attitude towards

migration (whether or not numbers of migrants actually

rise) could be at the cost of increased social tension, if

that process is poorly managed or explained. But

equally, it could almost certainly contribute to improved

social relations, if understanding of the benefits of

migration and diversity can be clearly articulated. This

is as relevant a conclusion for migrant-receiving areas

Ultimately, the biggest problem in finding solutions to the issues and challenges raised by migration is the

polarised nature of the debate. For many people, migration is a symptom of the failure of states or societies

to provide adequate living conditions so that people can stay in their home areas. In contrast, for many others,

migration is a ‘right’ that is limited by the actions of governments and societies that are xenophobic or racist.


in the global ‘South’, such as commercial agricultural

plantations in Côte d’Ivoire or the slums of capital cities,

as it is for economically-advanced societies in Europe

and North America.

Economically, we still do not completely understand the

broader consequences of migration, although there is

growing evidence of the benefits of migration both in

macro-economic terms, as well as for individual sending

and receiving communities.

Finally, technologically, it seems clear that a more open

approach to migration could contribute to the

stimulation of new technologies (such as the ‘skype’

and other VOIP technologies, used intensively by many

families split across countries and continents) as well as

to new uses for existing technologies (such as the

growth of money transfer systems that use mobile

phones and the internet).

In terms of impacts on other issues, migration is

perhaps the archetypal cross-cutting issue, and as

such, it arguably impacts on all of the other topics for

this initiative. Thus: in the energy world, the extraction

of raw materials for energy often provides a stimulus

for inward migration, but equally can lead to the

displacement of populations in affected areas (e.g.

through the building of dams, or conversion of

agricultural land for the production of biofuels); food

insecurity is a classic cause of distress migration; both

too much water (floods) and too little (droughts) can be

associated with quite large migrations and

displacements; the influence of climate change makes

these particularly difficult to predict into the future;

growing urbanisation contributes to one of the major

challenges facing the world in the 21st century - how

to deal with rising urban waste; migration throws into

question established identities, and contributes to the

creation of new, sometimes ‘hybrid’ identities; the use

of new technology by migrants, and to control migrants,

raises significant issues to do with privacy; without

connectivity and transport, migration doesn’t happen;

with migration, connectivity and transport links can be

stimulated and developed; migration is blamed (not

entirely fairly) for decimating the health workforces of

many smaller or poorer nations; in turn, without

migrants, Britain’s NHS and other advanced country

health systems would likely grind to a halt; cities are

growing in the developing world, at least in part due to

migration; migrant remittances outweigh either

international aid, and/or foreign direct investment, in a

significant number of countries and lastly; is migration

a choice? That is a key question.

Is migration achoice? That isa key question.


Future of Money

Dave BirchFounder, Digital Money Forum and Director, Consult Hyperion

72

Money as a unit of account is a hot topic as the US

dollar is being questioned as the denomination of the

world’s reserve currency. Robert Zoellick, President of

the World Bank, recently said that the US must “brace

itself” for the USD to be replaced in that role and, for

other reasons, the UN Conference on Trade and

Development has also called for the USD to be

replaced with a new ‘global currency’ and not only as a

unit of account. The question is with what? Should we

adopt the Special Drawing Right that is used by the IMF

or, if stability is a driver, should we not go back to gold

as the price of oil in gold is much more stable than the

price of oil in dollars.

Money as an acceptable means of exchange is already

undergoing change. Money is useless as a medium

unless it is acceptable to both parties in a transaction.

In many countries cash is falling as a proportion of

transactions. In a decade will cash still be there? Why?

Might we eliminate money through ‘turbo barter’? Is

cash replacement realistic and under what

circumstances? Why now? Which technologies have

come together to make this a point in time when the

possibility of a change from cash to an alternative

means of exchange is not only credible but also

increasingly probable?

Money as a store of value is also open to question.

How will people in the future have access to good

stores of value and how will choice impact fiscal

policies? Will we have transactions between non-

monetary stores of value? In some African countries,

people already trade their means of exchange (the local

currency) for a better store of value - mobile phone

minutes. Why not open savings accounts in gold, or oil,

or food? There are many reasons for thinking, as

Edward de Bono once suggested, that an ‘IBM Dollar’

be a better store of value than a USD.

Money as a mechanism for deferred payment is seen

as a prerequisite for society to function. It must support

contracts between parties that include provision for

future payment. So will people and organisations

choose different payment mechanisms? Are there

enough reserve currencies to make choice a reality?

Will we collapse back to bullion, or grain? If I agree to

pay you $1million in a decade, can you continue to use

conventional assumptions to value that offer?

From my perspective, as a technologist, it is the means

of exchange that is most immediately subject to the

pressure of rapid technological change, particularly

since we are at one of those inflexion points that come

along from time to time. The mobile phone is about to

become the most important means of exchange on a

global basis and the first technology with the potential

to replace notes and coins as the means of exchange

for the ‘average’ person.

Money has four basic functions, each of which can be implemented in a different way and so each of which

are available for different types of change. To me it is reasonable to consider these four functions and look at

the global challenges to each of them individually and from there ask about the future.


From myperspective, asa technologist, itis the means ofexchange that ismost immediatelysubject to thepressure of rapidtechnologicalchange,particularly sincewe are at one ofthose inflexionpoints that comealong from timeto time.

73Future of Money

New technologies that will be moving into the

mainstream of money, payments and banking over the

next ten years include; connection technologies such as

speech recognition, near field communication, 4G

mobile networks and powered tags; disconnection

technologies such as smart cards, voice authentication,

face recognition and identity cards; and processing

technologies such as the semantic web, contextual

computing, autonomous agents, printed batteries and

virtual worlds. Of these, I see that it will be the

disconnection technologies that will shape the emerging

value network. Therefore small improvements in these

technologies will have a major impact on money.

Unlike the technological view, the social and economic

pressures on money are much harder to determine. If

the average person in the street thinks that their

government is printing money round the clock so that it

will inevitably lose value, then they would naturally want

to hold gold or some other asset they think might hold

its value against inflation. This does not mean using real

gold as a means of exchange but as a store of value. I

could envisage, for example, having a gold account. I

would still draw cash out of the ATM - but only enough

to support transactions. Gold would be the store of

value and, as a consequence reduce the demand for

currency as a store of value. Is digital gold the future?

Will the Islamic market be a driver for electronic gold?

A non-interest bearing 100% gold-backed electronic

currency would be attractive to many in times of

economic uncertainty. While the return to the gold

standard may be impractical or even undesirable, the

idea of a new technology monetising the store of value

that is gold is a different proposition. For the ordinary

person to be able to decide to hold Euros, gold or

mobile phone minutes simply by choosing a different

menu on their phone does provide practical choice.

However, given free choice, would people opt for

dollars over precious metal?

Perhaps people would prefer to use more regional,

local or even personal currencies. The next generation

of money may be more about so called ‘alternative

currency’ rather than a return to the money of the past.

Local currencies have been attracting a lot of attention

and there is history in this space ranging from Local

Exchange Trading Systems, frequently derided as

‘babysitting tokens’, to Time Banks and so on. In

London another such currency has just been launched

- the BrixtonPound. If regional, local or personal

currencies are to disrupt the financial system they need

to include an alternative means of saving and lending,

not merely spending. A combination of P2P (peer-to-

peer) currency and P2P lending could very well deliver

the key elements of new kind of money. One factor

nudging me towards this is the demonstrable collapse

in the trust of traditional banks: Many members of the

public, whether through financial calculation or outrage,

are now prepared to give alternatives a try. In the UK,

one such alternative of note is Zopa, the peer to peer

lending exchange.

Over the next decade, the technology timeline is one of the most predictable components of the Future

Agenda for money. As William Gibson commented in 1999, “the future is already here, it’s just unevenly

distributed.” All of the technologies that will make a difference to any organisation’s business model in 2020

already exist. The right way to get ahead of the curve is not to try and imagine amazing new technologies from

scratch but to simply look at how technologies are moving from the lab into the world and consider their

impact in a reasonable structured way.


Is digital gold thefuture? Will theIslamic marketbe a driver for

electronic gold?


74 Future of Money

To make something “cash like” then you have to be able

to use it pretty much everywhere (you need a high POS

density) and you need to be able to make small

transactions in private, without being tracked, traced

and monitored. There are two ways in which the

technological developments of the last two decades

have addressed these key objections and have put us

in a position to be able to take Willem’s ideas and

implement them.

The first is the mobile phone. We are already seeing

the launch of mobile phones that can replace payment

cards (there are 40 million of them in Japan already)

and provide prepaid “e-money” accounts (M-PESA in

Kenya, provided by mobile operators Vodafone and

Safaricom, has over six million users already). But the

strategic impact of mobile phones in the payment space

is yet to come. Yes, mobile phones can be payment

cards and that’s great. But mobile phones can also be

payment terminals. Or to put it another way, you can

use a chip and PIN card to pay, but you can use a

mobile phone to both pay and get paid. Since I live in a

country where, essentially, everyone has a mobile

phone this means that it is absolutely feasible to

eliminate cash altogether. In this coming world, if I want

to pay you a pound, I will do it by text message or

mobile Internet and you will know immediately that you

have the cash.

The second objection is that losing the anonymity of

cash would change the relationship between citizen and

state (and bank) in an undesirable way. I used to think

that this was true, but now I’m not so sure. Thinking

about anonymity again, my experience back in the old

days was that, for different reasons, neither the

consumers, nor the banks, nor the retailers, nor anyone

else actually valued anonymity at all. So, if you put it in

a tick-box, some people will tick it, but that’s because

they haven’t really thought about it. Once they had

thought about it, their interest in anonymity plummeted.

If we are to choose a path forward, let us make it a shared goal to make a substantial reduction in the amount

of cash in circulation: Willem Buiter (Professor of European Political Economy at the London School of

Economics and Political Science and former chief economist of the EBRD) is not the first economist to think

about getting rid of cash. But he may be one of the first to think about getting rid of cash in a technological

era that actually makes it entirely feasible. It wasn’t feasible when Hayek was thinking about it in 1970s, or

when European banks were thinking about in the 1990s, but it is entirely feasible in the 2010s. Why? Well,

there are some key technological developments that make Willem’s vision more than science fiction: in fact,

some might say, make it more likely than not. These developments mean that we can overcome the main

barriers to cashlessness - POS (Point of Sale) density and anonymity - in ways that can deliver more

functionality than Willem might expect.


The strategicimpact of mobilephones in thepayment space isyet to come.

75Future of Money

If the central problem is the cost of transactions for

poor people, and the central solution is to use mobile

phones to make transactions (including non-fiat

currency transactions) then the key compromise is

straightforward to set out: We must encourage

easy-entry competition for low-value, inter-personal

transactions and allow not only mobile operators but

other newcomers to deliver a service.

Why not take the €500 note as an example? Any

prepaid instrument with a maximum daily transfer of

€500 should be regarded as cash and regulated

globally much as the FSA regulates Electronic Money

Issuers (ELMIs) in the U.K. - but with higher limits on

both balances and annual transfers. In Europe, there

will be an additional chapter in the Payment Services

Directive (PSD) to create a framework for electronic

money institutions (alongside the frameworks for credit

institutions and payment institutions). So perhaps this

could form the basis of reciprocal international

agreement. In other words, anyone should be able to

buy a pre-paid card with €500 loaded on to it and then

do what they like with it; use it on eBay or in Marks &

Spencer; send it to a grandson at University or back to

the old country as a remittance.

Think about it - the immediate benefit to the poor (who

lose some 20% of their annual remittances to charges

or fraud) would surely outweigh any marginal

convenience offered to drug dealers. And if an

international terrorist were to go round Post Offices

buying a pre-paid card in each one and then sending

€100,000 worth of cards to their uncle up the Khyber

Pass, not only would it engender significant effort but

it would also cost them a lot more than sending €500

notes (which the Royal Mail might well lose anyway).

More realistic limits for the Know Your Customer (KYC)

and Anti Money Laundering (AML) protocols and

increasing competition in the provision of mobile

payment services would bring (literally) hundreds of

millions of people into the financial system. This would

deliver a significant net welfare increase and make a

huge difference to the daily lives of some of the

poorest people.

So, if we are to try and choose a path forward, let us

make it a shared goal to make a substantial reduction

in the amount of cash in circulation by adopting

regulatory compromise to open up the space for

solutions and encouraging new thinking, particularly

around mobile phones, to deliver those solutions. In

fact, we might make the goal the substantial

eradication of cash, as previously suggested.

Controversial? Perhaps, but possible, plausible and

potentially probable!

So, my central prediction for the decade is that the mobile phone will be used to transact non-fiat currencies.

Not much of a prediction perhaps because it is already happening. But the impact will be truly transformational

and will, I would argue, primarily benefit the poor.


My centralprediction for the

decade is thatthe mobile phone

will be used totransact non-fiat

currencies.


76 Future of Money

If we are to tryand choose apath forward,let us make it ashared goal tomake a substantialreduction in theamount of cashin circulation

77

Future of Transport

Mark PhilipsInterior Design Manager, Jaguar Cars

78

Much large scale transport change takes place over 20

years rather than ten so, given these timescales, in the

next decade we face three major issues; providing

mass mobility to the growing global community in a

sustainable manner; changing the behaviour and

actions of many in the developed world; and making

the right choices to set the scene for a practical a low-

carbon, global transport system after 2020.

• There are few who would say that mobility in the likes

of India and China should be restricted or who would

deny citizens in such countries the same freedom of

movement that the US and Europe have enjoyed.

However most would agree that the route taken in

the 20th century cannot be followed in the 21st.

Implementing the policies and making the large scale

investments required to provide sustainable transport

infrastructures in every country involve both bold

decisions and deep pockets, but, without a major

shift in the next couple of years, the long term

consequences on, for example, carbon emissions will

be dire. Major transport solutions need to be green,

affordable and desirable.

• In terms of the US and European lifestyles that

provide the template for others to follow, we must

make visible and significant steps and soon. This is

not just about shifting away from the SUV, three car

household culture often characterised in the media,

but involves significant changes beyond switching to

smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles. The developed

world, and the US in particular, must embrace public

transport options both within and between cities, and

at the same time proactively regulating for behaviour

changing policies such as congestion charging, road

pricing and speed control. This can be achieved a

much through designing transport that people want

to be part of as by regulation.

• In terms of future choices for the post 2020 world,

we already know the decisions that need to be made:

Whether to being electric, hydrogen or bio-fuel

powered, personal transport has to switch from fossil

fuels and this has to happen sooner rather than later;

low CO2 options for aviation and shipping have to be

found; and an accelerated rollout of integrated mass

transit systems has to occur. But, again, this has to

be achieved in a manner that attracts consumers.

Of all nations, the US faces many of the greatest

obstacles but it also could open the doors to new

solutions. The American transportation system has

been under-funded and is difficult and costly to maintain:

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers it

will cost $1.6 trillion to repair critical infrastructure,

never mind make the investments to accommodate

future demands. While this might sound like gloom, it

should be noted that California, as America’s most

influential state, raises its ambitions, so they become

the benchmark for the US - and this has traditionally

had a catalytic effect on global standards. Over the next

decade, proactive local policies from Sacramento may

well continue to reach globally. Although other nations

are thinking well ahead of the US in transport policy,

we should not ignore the significant influence that key

Federal and State regulations have around the world.

We live in a world at the point of significant change: Around half of us recognise that we need to travel less,

just at the same time as the other half want to travel more. There is little doubt that, without a major technology

shift, those in the developed, world who are used to high levels of personal mobility, cannot all continue to

behave in the same way as they have done in the past. While in the fast-growing emerging economies, with

burgeoning middle classes, many see the desire for individual car ownership as a credible and realistic aim.

We are at a tipping point between the two seemingly opposing drivers of sustainability and aspiration. Our

primary challenge is in balancing these two.


Of all nations, theUS faces manyof the greatestobstacles but italso could openthe doors tonew solutions.

79Future of Transport

Although the aviation industry attracts lots of attention,

the real options for change available in the next decade

are relatively limited: Rising demand from both low-

cost and premium passengers keen to fly shows little

sign of abating, airfreight traffic is forecast to double in

the next ten years and both Boeing and Airbus have

healthy future order books. Even if reduced travel

occurs in European and US markets, given the

competition between the three main alliances and the

growth in Asian passenger and freight miles, a net

global increase by 2020 is highly probable. Moreover,

as the average plane is in service for around 30 years,

the cycle time to change the fleet means that more

fuel efficient planes, such as the Airbus 380 and the

Boeing Dreamliner, will take a good while to have

significant impact. Other than the possible introduction

of bio-fuels into the aviation fuel mix, no major

technological change will have impact in the next

decade: While governments and media like to talk up

the contribution of aviation to global warming, it is only

responsible for 2% of carbon emissions and has no

credible alternative energy platform available in the

medium term. As more people desire to fly, despite the

cost, for many in the sector, the next ten years will be

more an opportunity for improved efficiency of the

overall system while continuing to compete for

customers on the experience.

The shipping industry is however a focus for potential

change. Not only does it contribute more than 5% of

global CO2 emissions, but inefficiency has been built

into the system. Over the next few years we can

therefore expect a convergence of existing GPS,

loading and navigation technologies to enable more

efficient routing and speed of transit of the world’s

merchant fleet. However, although retrofit technologies

such as high tech sails are much hyped, again, given

the time to change the fleet, the likelihood of mass

impact in the next decade is limited. Given continuing

economic globalisation, demand for more not less

shipping between sources of raw materials, production

centres and primary markets, will steadily increase.

Urban public transport systems covering bus, rail, tram

and taxi are all areas of government and industry focus:

For example, the French government has recently

announced a €20bn investment in the construction of

the worlds’ largest automated rapid transit line circling

Paris, scheduled for completion by 2020. Delhi has

gained significant praise for switching its taxi fleet to

LPG and Dubai is now promoting its newly opened

urban transit system. As cities around the world seek to

replicate the models of modern mobility efficiency such

as the integrated urban transport systems found in

Munich and Vienna, we can expect further

announcements of similar investments in the cities

which can afford it.

Turning to inter-urban transport, there is little doubt that

China is the now pacesetter for change. Recognising

both the challenge and the benefit in increasing the

speed of travel across the country, China is investing

over $1 trillion in expanding its rail network to

120,000km by 2020 - the second largest public works

program in history. Like Japan, South Korea, France,

Spain and Germany before, China is reshaping its

landscape around train services by investing in a mix of

both very high speed rail (350kph) and high speed rail

(125-150kph) that will be the global benchmark for

mass transit systems: Cargo transport and passenger

transport is being separated, double track artery lines

are being electrified and transport hubs are been built

in 196 cities. The decisions have already been made

and the ambition will be implemented. However, other

In each area of the transport sector, the choices available to us between now and 2020 vary considerably.

Some have little freedom to change and others have the potential for major shifts.


Although theaviation industryattracts lots of

attention, the realoptions for

change availablein the nextdecade are

relatively limited.


80 Future of Transport

countries, yet to take such bold steps forward, may not

be able to deliver material change by 2020.

Given the above, by 2020, I see that further significant

change can only really be achieved in the area of

personal mobility. Although ten years is barely two design

cycles in the automotive sector, with the right support

and leadership, we have the opportunity to change the

game in terms of both sustainability and aspiration.

I see that luxurymarket buyersincreasingly want‘better not more’.


I see that luxury market buyers increasingly want ‘better

not more’. I believe that this trend will increase as people

seek to buy items of higher quality, greater intellectual

depth and perceived value. We will move away from the

“Bling Bling” culture that has been with us for the last

eight years. The decline of the SUV market is already

heralding a shift in the way car companies as such

are positioning themselves to express a more

environmentally responsible message over just the car’s

performance: The new luxury 5 door vehicles are not

SUVs but “fast backs” like the BMW 5 Series Gran

Turismo, Audi Sportback and Lexus LF-Ch Hybrid

concepts which will have as much design influence in

the US market as they do in Europe and Japan.

Luxury goods buyers, I believe, will want to have items

that are visually more discreet: At the height of the credit

crunch, shoppers on New York’s 5th Avenue were

disguising their designer label purchases in brown bags

- this may not be a short term fad. In other markets, we

are leaving the era of buying disposable IKEA-esque

goods and seeking items that offer longevity and quality

- a future heirloom maybe? This is, in some ways, a

return to the values of previous generations.

An example from outside the transport sector that

supports this is the Slow Food movement which is now

coming of age. Originally established in 1989 as a

reaction to the growth of fast food, Slow Food focuses

more on enjoyment, quality and the effect upon others

- an interesting parallel to the use of transport.

Although for many, perhaps the greatest statement of

one’s personal freedom and, ultimately, individuality is

still the car. For others their buying tastes are changing

and the consumers’ definition of status and how a car

features in their lives is shifting: A recent survey of 18-

24 year olds of their top five most valued possessions

Over the next decade, some predict that upwards of an extra 300 million people will gain access to their own

cars. By contrast in the whole of the past century Ford only produced 90 million vehicles. Some consumers

will seek to make choices based on sustainability issues but most will continue to aspire to have the best

products they can. While the two are in no way independent, as more and more manufacturers join the likes

of Renault and Toyota in announcing all new electric and hybrid ranges for launch in 2012, we, as individuals,

will be attracted to rent, buy or lease the vehicles that not only meet our needs but also say something special:

Because it creates the aspiration by which many other areas judge progress, the luxury market in which Jaguar

plays a key role will continue to be a primary source of influence on consumer choice across the sector.


showed cars to be very low or non existent as a priority

for this influential community. Members of this group

will one day be influencing how car companies cater for

their needs, tastes and aspirations.

I believe, society will react to the presentation of a

number of influences in car design - from increased

globalisation and greater international collaboration

between manufacturers, government policy and climate

change regulation through to the shift in the balance of

wealth and the cultural influence of growing eastern

markets. As globalisation continues, national identity

and ultimate individuality will increase as a key factor in

design differentiation. Well recognised in such brands

as Citroen which bring French values to the fore, may

well be joined by new brands reflecting Chinese and

Indian values. Indeed, as the balance of wealth changes

between the East and West, we can expect both new

global marques to emerge as well as new market

niches that encourage more vehicles to be more clearly

Asian in values. The traditional cyclical product needs of

the US will be increasingly challenged by new luxury

car markets: I will be interested to see how the success

and wealth growth in such countries as Russia and

India will impact the tastes and trends in the west.

While we can clearly see the trajectory of more efficient

vehicles, many of which may be smaller that today’s,

we can also see the role of luxury setting the ambition

and attracting consumers across all platforms: Although

traditionally associated with large four door vehicles, it

will be interesting to see if any luxury marques will also

migrate to smaller platforms.

We can clearlysee the trajectoryof more efficientvehicles, manyof which may

be smaller thattoday’s.


82 Future of Transport

With an aging population and the affordability of

personal transport as certain mega trends, I can see a

huge increase in the introduction of new traffic control

systems including congestion charging and even a

pricing mechanism based upon the size of your vehicle

as well as the power of your car. Although the concept

of intelligent highways has been much discussed over

the years, the reality has taken a long time to become

main-stream. With more embedded intelligence such

as collision avoidance already available in some high

end cars, over the next decade we can see smart

mobility coming into place: Through combinations of

the GPS and mobile tracking of vehicles that are in

some markets today together with the need for wireless

traffic management systems in overcrowded mega-

cities, smart cars and smart networks will converge to

deliver the first global phase of smart mobility. I believe

that the consumer’s reaction to the effect on their

freedom in such a world could prove pivotal to the

development of these systems. After all, the car is

possibly the most powerful expression of freedom and

for a consumer product it offers the greatest possible

level of user interaction whilst delivering great personal

convenience and enjoyment. Design trends tend to last

between 5 and 10 years; for designers, the ends of

these trends cycles provide exciting opportunities for

change as much as they provide a challenge for

strategists to guide investments to capitalise on

the opportunities.

I believe that the next few years will be the time when

new products are launched that successfully balances

sustainability and aspiration. Whether in small urban

commuter vehicles or more efficient larger cars,

consumer choice will continue to play a major role:

Matching together sustainability and aspiration

provides equal opportunity across the whole of the

transport system.

I see multiple implications going forward. Foremost, driven by the inevitable rise in personal mobility, it is clear

that we will see more small cars. These will not only be new, mass access, low-cost vehicles such as Tata’s

Nano, but could also include some luxury marques: Aston Martin are reported to be currently developing a

concept based on the Toyota IQ ‘commuter car’ named Cygnet. However, with advancing fuel and alternative

power technology I am confident that luxury cars will still be able to offer a travel experience to the same

standards as currently enjoyed by consumers - except that this will increasingly need to be “guilt free”. This

is a challenge that car manufacturers must overcome in order to continue to offer true luxury which has always

been a measure of spaciousness, refinement and exclusivity. For me, it will be interesting to see if any luxury

car companies attempt to apply their brand values to the urban commuter segment and similar historically

“no-go” segments. If they do, will they be able to do so successfully with integrity and authenticity?


Design trendstend to lastbetween 5 and10 years; fordesigners, theends of thesetrends cyclesprovide excitingopportunitiesfor change.


Future of Waste

Professor Ian WilliamsDirector of Education and Deputy Head of the School of Civil Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton

84

Waste results in many problems. It smells bad, looks

bad and attracts vermin; it releases harmful chemicals

into the soil and water when dumped and into the air

when burned; around 4% of our GHG emissions are

currently from waste decomposition; and no one has

really yet come up with a solution for how to dispose of

some of the most toxic nuclear and industrial waste in

a sustainable manner.

On average in Europe, each of us produces over 500kg

of domestic waste each year. On top of this we

generate huge quantities of construction debris,

industrial effluent, mine tailings, sewage residue and

agricultural waste. Rich countries spend some $120

billion a year disposing of their municipal waste alone

and another $150 billion on industrial waste.

In the next decade, can we develop a practical and

achievable global strategy for sustainable resource use?

Making waste prevention the norm in a global society

dominated by consumerism will demand the creation of

a zero waste society - but can we actually achieve zero

landfill and move towards this goal? It will mean

simultaneously developing the appropriate

infrastructure, service provision and approaches to

facilitate behaviour change in multiple particular

environments. It will also require us to genuinely

decouple economic growth and waste generation on a

global scale.

Enabling the appropriate treatment of hazardous

wastes (including toxic, radioactive, clinical and

biohazard materials), particularly close to or in densely

populated, urban areas is a major issue. In particular,

we will need to address the unethical shipping of

hazardous wastes to developing countries and the

subsequent adverse health effects suffered by those

who handle and treat these wastes.

As economic growth has traditionally led to more waste,

to prevent the future doubling in global waste predicted

by some, we need to understand what are the

projected increases in waste volumes in emerging

nations? What will be the associated attitudes towards

waste management and what infrastructure and service

provision needs to be put in place and where? We must

devise sustainable and practical approaches to deal

with the (inevitable) increasing volumes of waste from

‘emerging nations’, their attitudes towards and ability

to manage their waste responsibly.

Last, but certainly not least, we need to change all

individual behaviours and attitudes and get consumers

and organisations to buy products made from recycled

materials and/or sustainable sources: Easier in some

countries than in others.

Global waste production is predicted by some to double over the next twenty years. Much of this will be due

to increased urbanisation and greater waste generation per capita as emerging economies grow. While some

regions are aiming at creating zero waste ecosystems, others are yet to truly recognise the scale of the

challenge we face.


Global wasteproduction ispredicted bysome to doubleover the nexttwenty years.Much of thiswill be due toincreasedurbanisation andgreater wastegenerationper capita asemergingeconomies grow.

85Future of Waste

What is less certain are a number of political,

environmental, global economic and technological

factors. Political motivation and resource policy directions

are very unpredictable, especially after a downturn where

the economics of waste recycling have become less

viable than before. In addition, we don’t yet understand

the impacts that global warming will have on

governmental decisions that impact waste management

- what is the connection between waste generation /

treatment and climate change? Can some waste

materials be used to generate sustainable energy in

order to address future energy needs? The impact and

implications of increased resource use on society, the

economy and the environment are likely to be global and

significant but the details are not yet fully clear. Although

some point to examples such as Switzerland where there

are currently high levels of waste recycling occurring due

to local conditions, it is not certain that this will be

sustained. At the same time, whether, or to what extent,

waste quantities continue to rise in the developed world

is not certain. Also, we don’t yet know how rapid will be

the uptake of sustainable and smart technologies, such

as nano-materials, which will in theory result in less

waste. Despite an increase in hazard, high use of rare

metals in IT hardware such as phones and PCs will

increase but waste quantities may reduce.

We have the options of accelerating the development of

Zero Waste concepts, creating better sustainable

technologies, and facilitating better geographical

spread of these technologies, but this needs

investment. This is investment in appropriate

infrastructures, service provision and new approaches

to facilitate behaviour change in particular

environments. We also have the option of creating new

accredited global standards for management, treatment

and disposal of waste, but this needs cooperation

between companies and countries. There are many

things we could do to fundamentally change direction

and create less waste, but some question what we will

actually do.

Over the next decade, the increasing global population and the increasing economic growth of many emerging

nations will create more waste. As well as putting a huge strain on resources such as fresh water and energy,

another billion or so people added to the planet in the next ten years will certainly demand more and so create

more waste. This will include more food and energy waste; more household waste; increased electronic

wastes facilitated by lower prices, new products and more choice; and more hazardous waste from industry

generally and an increase in nuclear energy specifically. To try and counteract this we will see less packaging

waste due to regulation and more biodegradable packaging; more pressure to reduce the environmental

impacts from waste; increased complexity in the waste stream and an increase in concerns regarding the

health effects of waste treatment. These are all visible trends today that will continue going forward.


We have theoptions of

accelerating thedevelopment of

Zero Wasteconcepts,

creating bettersustainable

technologies, andfacilitating better

geographicalspread of these

technologies, butthis needsinvestment.


86 Future of Waste

First off is the development of practical integrated

sustainable waste management solutions that are

clearly aimed at the creation of a zero waste society.

This will mean the simultaneous development of the

infrastructure, service provision and behavior change to

enable the core elements to be aligned. This won’t be

politically attractive but will be necessary. Within all

environments we need to develop truly sustainable

waste practices, policies and strategies. This will mean

moving waste management in line with a reduced

carbon economy; developing appropriate and low

environmental impact collection systems for small re-

useable/recyclable items (WEEE); and adherence to

approaches that satisfy regional self-sufficiency,

proximity principle, sustainability appraisals, etc. This

includes sustainable management of minerals and

aggregates; prevention of food waste, and facilitating

resource recovery from wastes, as well as addressing

imminent resource depletion of key materials such as

the rare metals used in IT hardware.

Second is the development of mass low-cost

sustainable technologies for waste treatment /

transformation and pollution prevention on a global

scale. We need to develop technologies and systems

for the global prevention of pollution from the handling

and treatment of wastes, especially waste waters and

industrial effluents. This will require concepts such as

green chemistry and engineering to become

mainstream rather than niche using appropriate

incentives and / or legislation. But can we develop

mass low cost sustainable technologies on a global

scale? This will require substantial knowledge transfer.

Better technologies offer money-making opportunities

and, in themselves, require less change to current

practice than the infrastructure and behavior pathway.

However, although zero waste strategies will be a

popular concept, many in business and industry will

resist it just as unleaded petrol was initially rejected.

Therefore the technology route should not be backed in

isolation - we need the technologies and the integrated

waste management solutions together.

While these are the two main issues, there are also a

number of additional actions that will have a quick,

short-term impact. These include increased

enforcement, education and awareness for

organisations and businesses in how to manage their

waste, especially from those not conflicted by

commercial gain; expansion of alternate weekly

collection systems in developed countries (e.g.

recyclables weekly, residuals fortnightly); further

legislation and / or economic disincentives on excessive

packaging; and higher involvement of both big business

and the third sector in re-use and recycling. We also

need to accelerate the willingness of individuals and

organizations to buy products made from recycled

materials and / or sustainable sources.

By 2020, I believe that we can make a significant impact on the waste problem by taking some clear steps.

And I would aim high: we need major changes.


Can we developmass low costsustainabletechnologies ona global scale?

87Future of Waste

• Economically, increased costs are inevitable:

Changes in feedstock for manufacturing, for

example, will probably increase costs initially until the

market adjusts and the use of recycled materials

becomes the norm. However given the long-term

impacts of not taking this route, most forward

thinking organisations should see the benefit and the

return that will be achieved on the necessary

investments.

• Socially, both to enable a zero waste pathway and as

a result of it, there will be significantly greater public

awareness / knowledge of both waste management

issues and also of the adverse health / environmental

consequences of poor environmental management.

However without a fundamental, behaviour change

towards a more environmentally sustainable way of

life, any economic investments stand less chance of

having impact.

• Technologically, we will see an increased use of

“smart products” to track, monitor and manage

waste, as well as new nanotechnologies and low

carbon technologies that create less waste.

Increased investment, to ensure all that waste

streams can be processed, will also eventually drive

a move towards mass low cost sustainable

technologies.

Until recently most people in the waste industry had

assumed that it was impossible to reduce the amount

being produced and were concentrating on better use.

But lately that assumption has been challenged. For

one thing, the pace at which the rich world churns out

rubbish has been slowing. Between 1980 and 2000

the amount of waste produced by the OECD countries

increased by an average of 2.5% a year. Between

2000 and 2005 the average growth rate slowed to

0.9%. That was just ahead of the rate of population

growth, but well behind the rate of economic growth.

The OECD describes this as “a rather strong relative

decoupling of municipal waste generation from

economic growth”

Reducing the amount of waste being produced makes

a great deal of sense. Some are trying to persuade

consumers to throw away less. One tactic is to make

households pay by volume for the rubbish they

generate, rather than through a flat fee or through local

taxes. Many places in Europe, America and Asia have

adopted “pay-as-you-throw” schemes.

Whether through such changes in consumer

behaviour, increased financial investment or the

development of new technology and policy, the world

is in desperate need of a shift towards the zero waste

society. Such a shift will not only benefit us by

addressing the growing waste challenge, but will also

have a positive impact on how we potentially generate

our energy, how we grow and use our food and how

we manage our water supplies.

There will be several direct consequences from seeking a credible move towards the zero waste society:


The pace atwhich the richworld churns

out rubbish hasbeen slowing.


88 Future of Waste

The world is indesperate needof a shift towardsthe zero wastesociety.

89

Future of Water

Professor Stewart BurnStream Leader of Infrastructure Technologies, CSIRO

90

Water consumption varies enormously across countries

and regions and is similar to patterns in energy

consumption. No surprise then that water and energy

share some of the same drivers and challenges. For

example, water follows a similar trajectory as energy in

that its use increases relative to GDP growth. Today,

average annual water withdrawals for urban and

agricultural use in the US are running at around 1.7m

litres per person: In China the numbers are less that a

third of this. As the populations and GDP of the

emerging economies continue to grow, overall demand

for freshwater will exceed supply by more than 50% by

2025 and so the number of people living in water

stressed regions will increase. Without decisive action

the imbalance between availability and demand will

continue to escalate.

In a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario where average

households’ income increases, in many countries, so

does their direct domestic water consumption. In others

experiencing water shortages, demand management

has controlled this growth. Equally important is the

indirect consequence of a changing lifestyle: As diets in

developing countries change from rice to meat so the

demand for water rises as it takes more water to

produce meat than it does to grow rice. Another indirect

impact relates to ‘virtual water flows’. These are a result

of exporting goods (both agricultural as well as

consumer products) that have been produced with the

use of water from a local source. As global trade

increases, this will result in further reduction in water

availability especially in countries like China, where

water consumption is already on the rise and sources of

water are on the decline. This challenge is compounded

when you recognise that population growth is primarily

occurring in regions where water usage per capita is

still relatively low and so has the potential to increase

dramatically. This trend of increased water consumption

is adding major strains in key areas of the planet over

the next decade. While today much of India, China, the

Middle East, Australia, Africa, the US and southern

Europe are already water stressed, by 2020 significant

areas of Northern Europe and South America will be

added to the list.

One major concern for the UN is how the increasing

scarcity of water will play out at national levels. Although

the likes of Singapore and Australia have well-

developed National Water Strategies, other countries

are recognising the higher chances of conflict as

different economies seek to secure resources. Some

believe that in the future we will again fight wars over

water not oil, and if you look carefully at what is going

on in Israel, Egypt and areas of the Indochinese

borders, the reality of this is all to evident.

Unlike most of the resources we consume such as oil, rice and steel, there is no alternative for water - it is

the only natural resource with no substitute. Today over 6 billion people share the same volume of water that

1.6 billion did a hundred years ago. Although two thirds of the earth’s surface is water, only 3% per cent of

this is fresh water and, if you deduct the majority share that is locked up in the polar ice-caps and other

glaciers, we only actually have access to around 0.5%.


Today over 6bnpeople share thesame volume ofwater that 1.6bndid a hundredyears ago.

91Future of Water

Living in Australia, I see that a country at the forefront

of managing and responding to water scarcity is facing

a number of major urban water systems challenges: A

projected 40 percent population growth over the next

quarter century will increase demand for water well

beyond the capacity of existing supplies. This as well as

the increase wastewater flows and storm-water runoff

will present a significant number of urban water

problems that will need scientific solutions. The current

urban infrastructure valued in excess of $94 billion was

mainly constructed during the 1960s and faces

significant deterioration. Management of the annual

revenue of $9 billion and capital investment of $4.5

billion provides significant opportunities for major

financial savings from small increments in efficiency.

These issues are not unique to Australia and either

already are, or soon will be, relevant in other regions

across the world.

Although most of the challenges we face will be

common across various regions, they will vary at a

country level, as will the solutions to address them. We

therefore need to understand the total water cycle

system that will account for alternative water and land

management options, including addressing changes to

flow, nutrient and sediment regimes; energy use;

greenhouse gas emissions; and the impacts on rivers,

aquifers and estuaries.

Recent droughts, such as the one in Australia, highlight

the vulnerability of existing urban water supply systems.

Alternative investment in desalination and other potable

and non-potable water supplies and their linkages into

regional water grids may potentially cause issues with

respect to water quality and public health if not properly

managed. In a few countries such as the UAE and

Singapore where desalination is economically or

politically viable, we are starting to see alternative

technical solutions for freshwater supply, but the mass

global application of new breakthroughs is more than

20 years away.

Global drivers to reduce the carbon footprint will

increase the cost of energy, compounding the

economic and emissions risks associated with the

adoption of energy-intensive manufactured water

supplies and wastewater treatment. This driver will also

present opportunities for recovery of water, energy and

nutrients from urban water systems.

In addition we must recognize the impact of extreme

events on the complete water cycle, including water

availability, use, resilience, infrastructure performance,

etc. Potential changes in climate variability will further

compound these issues by causing increased

uncertainty in supply and engineering issues associated

with bushfires, flooding and infrastructure failure.

Whether or not you believe the different projections of

how temperature rises will impact in different parts of

the world, the high probability of more variable weather

conditions and hence water availability will certainly add

more complexity.

With the advent of new water strategies, water quality

and treatment will be more critical to maintain our

lifestyle. New risks are emerging (e.g. endocrine

disrupting chemicals, N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA))

that need solutions to be developed to ensure the purity

of our potable water supplies. With an ageing asset

base in many countries, the integration of new supplies

from alternative sources and demand management

Options for countries with weak economies and poor access to resources are limited and so require different

strategies going forward. Access to water here is a primary health need: Sanitation is considered a key global

issue and is a millennium goal in itself, but one in danger of not being achieved if new solutions for sustainable

water supply are not available. This is not just a problem in places like Africa but in Eastern Europe as well.


Sanitation isconsidered a keyglobal issue andis a millennium

goal in itself, butone in danger of

not beingachieved if new

solutions forsustainable water

supply are notavailable.


92 Future of Water

strategies requires us to manage changing flows and

demand profiles in water and wastewater networks.

Blended water sources will influence water quality in

water distribution networks, and higher contaminant

concentrations in sewer systems and treatment plants

will require the development of new management

strategies. The effects of these changes on exiting

assets are largely unknown at present.

We need toembrace theconcept ofthe ‘watersensitive city’.

93Future of Water

Emerging thinking about the evolution of large cities

demands the revisiting of the fundamental role of water

system design in sustainable city development. We need

to embrace the concept of the ‘water sensitive city’. In

this context, the development of suitable decision-

making methods, as well as planning and management

processes, should be based on sustainability concepts.

This drive for improved water management has led

companies such as GE and Siemens as well as

newcomers like IBM to focus on innovating new

businesses around water. Similar to ‘clean energy’

startups in the past decade, water is now also attracting

the attention of investors and entrepreneurs from other

areas to fund and found new companies. It is expected

that the penetration of the “business world” in to water

management will add a different perspective to how

water services are provided compared with the

traditional local government view.

Maximizing recycling of water from local wastewater and

storm-water sources in the context of a water sensitive

city will require the development of efficient and reliable

treatment options for environmental protection and

public health. In addition we need options for energy and

nutrient recovery during water and wastewater

treatment, thus transferring waste streams from a

disposal problem to a source of wealth. Examples of this

can be found in the renewed interest in harvesting algae

for the production of bio-fuels and in the development of

microbial fuel cells: Clean water meets clean energy.

Furthermore, containing leakage rates to acceptable

levels requires continual ‘active’ leakage detection that

is expensive, labour intensive and slow to deliver: The

ability to automate leakage detection could provide a

For the majority of us, the options focused on managing our existing water supply are the only ones really on

the table for the next decade. Breakthroughs in desalination and point of use purification are still some way off.

Developments in membrane technology that will realize significant changes are pushing in many different

directions, for example companies such as “Aquaporin” are seeking to leverage learning from white biotech

principles: Membranes mimicking specific natural processes could be one breakthrough that makes

desalination viable across more geographies than is the case today. In addition, developments in membrane

distillation could significantly reduce the energy costs associated with desalination. However, these

developments are many years away. Therefore, considering the challenges ahead, three key elements need to

be viewed together if we are to address them successfully: Sensible policies; (technology) solutions; and

lifestyle/behavior changes.

Proposed way forward

step change in water loss control. Australia already uses

close to world’s best practice in minimizing leakage from

distribution networks and utilities in the UK, France and

the US are now focused on similar aims. The gains to

be achieved are clear - the UK looses about 3.3bn litres

of clean water every day.

In a scenario of ageing infrastructure and growing cities,

we need to develop new strategies for water, wastewater

and storm-water systems. These must accommodate

the inevitable population growth and increase resilience

to climate change. At the same time, they should provide

sufficient flexibility to adopt a mix of centralized and

decentralized components where most appropriate to

meet both environmental and stakeholders’ needs.

It is also essential that we develop real-time

management, operational and control systems which will

greatly manage risk and increase public confidence in

the increasingly complex water networks. This will

require the understanding of system condition and

performance, detection of impending system

deterioration and failure via networked sensors, and

accurate prediction and detection of significant ‘events’.

Lastly, planning is needed for the integration of new

water sources and treatment processes into existing

water supply and wastewater networks. In the context of

an ageing asset base, we also require the development

of optimal management techniques for new water

supply grids.

Changes inbehaviour will

require measuringour water

consumptionbefore we can

manage it.


94 Future of Water

In urban environments water scarcity might force us to

reconsider certain lifestyles and at the same time open

up opportunities for innovation in areas such as water

capture, treatment, conservation and efficiency.

Changes in behavior will require measuring our water

consumption before we can manage it and solutions

such as smart metering will find their way into our

homes. The questions are at what level and how

granular will we require this to happen and who will

manage the change?

Agriculture accounts for most of our water

consumption and, with developments in biotechnology,

by 2020 new crops will be introduced that are more

efficient in their water use as will new ways to grow

them. Concepts including vertical farming might find

their way into, or close to, urban environments if there

is a real benefit both in terms of water recycling and

lower energy consumption.

The water debate has accelerated over the past 18 months and is now considered by several governments

as the single greatest challenge we face. Since the issue is so intertwined with many other topics (energy,

food, health), in fact with pretty much anything we do, whether in policy, technology implementation or change

in life-style, it will have an impact on not only our lives, but the lives of generations to come. We must therefore

“get it right”.


Finally, businesses will soon learn more about

embedded energy and have a more mature

understanding of how to measure this in their products.

Water will likely follow the same path - but this might be

introduced faster as a result of the prior experience with

CO2. Success depends on common ways to measure

water footprints supported by clear and simple

messages to the public. Governments will undoubtedly

play a role in this, and may follow Australia’s and other

countries’ lead in developing national water strategies

as well as developing capabilities to secure a

sustainable water supply that meets demand.

Governmentsmay followAustralia’s andother countries’lead in developingnational waterstrategies.

95Future of Water

Future of Work

Chris MeyerCEO, Monitor Networks

96

Geographic and Economic Dislocation: Networks

have reduced or eliminated barriers to entry to national

labor markets for many categories of work. This is

particularly evident in areas such as IT (through

outsourcing), engineering (e.g. Innocentive tapping

global talent pools), and medicine (e.g. tele-radiology).

As off-shoring increases, it puts pressure on wages

in the rich countries, and skills rise in nations with

lower per capita income. And, as income increases in

emerging markets such as India, China, and Brazil,

growth in demand for skilled services will occur

disproportionately outside the developed world.

Together, these two effects lead to income stagnation

in the rich countries and rapid wage and employment

growth in emerging economies. Looking ahead, these

all point to equalization of purchasing power incomes,

segment by segment. Eventually this may inhibit

globalization through backlash against growing

displacement, increasing the pressure for barriers to

trade, and could put multinational corporations at odds

with their home governments.

Automation: Farming once occupied 60% of the U.S.

workforce; now the number is 3%; manufacturing in

the U.S. now occupies about 15 million people -fewer

than 10% of the workforce; and this number will

continue to fall by 1.5 million per year through to

2016. As networks and decision-making algorithms

become more powerful, we can predict that services

jobs will be displaced next. Although many offer ideas,

it is difficult to identify exactly what will replace them.

Education: Life spans and careers continue to grow

longer as the half-life of knowledge continues to shrink.

A decreasing proportion of value will be added by

repetitive work: physical machines will become more

self-aware and adaptive, requiring less supervision;

more importantly, information technology will eliminate

services and middle management labor. Since the

growth in ‘value added’ will be through innovation and

creation, a major challenge will be to ensure that

education (both early and continuing) will support the

development of a “creative class” of all ages, in the

same the way that public high school taught people to

work in large enterprises organized around the division

of labor. Since the educational institutions in the rich

world have proven very resistant to change, it is likely

that innovations in primary and secondary education will

come from emerging economies and, in university and

ongoing education, from the business sector and self-

organized networks.

Collaboration: Web 2.0 is teaching organizations about

the power of collective work product, leading to

“Enterprise 2.0,” an organizational form with

porous boundaries, shared responsibilities, greater

transparency, and fewer mandatory rules and practices.

In part, these organizations will likely help answer the

education question, as jobs become more diverse and

stimulating and the habit of looking outside one’s

organization for answers becomes prevalent; the

challenge will be to discover how management will take

place in these adaptive enterprises.

Not since the Industrial Revolution, when work migrated from fields to factories, from villages to company

towns and cities, and from families to corporations, have the context, form, and nature of work been in such

flux. Organizations now question how to make the best use of their people resource and educational

institutions seek to predict what skills will be required for the next generation. Individuals increasingly think in

terms of work not balanced with other priorities, but integrated into their lives. I see that the future of work is

influenced by four unstoppable trends each of which will have significant impact. Taken collectively they

suggest the need for a fundamental rethinking of management, the way we work and what we work on:


As incomeincreases in India,China, Brazil,and elsewhere,growth in demandfor skilledservices will occurdisproportionatelyin these emergingeconomies.

97Future of Work

These four evident and ineluctable trends will impact us

all in different ways and the implications for how our

individual work lives are multiple and varied.Will the openinnovation

movement evolveto a point whereknow-how andcapability rather

than pure IP inthetraditional senseis the currency?


98 Future of Work

What will global capitalism learn about work from the

emerging economies? For example: Will copyright and

patent law be the framework for intellectual property (IP)

in the emerging economies?What is the future of full-time

employment? (In India only 7% of the labor force has

formal jobs.) And, how can incentive systems fairly

measure, motivate and reward collaborative work?

Reverse Imperialism? How strongly will the rich economies

resist globalization if the export of high-paying jobs

becomes more of an issue than the import of inexpensive

goods and services? As consumer and corporate benefits

have acted as a catalyst, the off-shoring trend of recent

years has served both the developed and the developing

countries well, but will that continue for much longer?

IP rights in an information economy? IT has reduced the

marginal cost of IP to essentially zero. Collaboration in the

human genome project and many other bioscience

projects (the sequencing of the SARS virus, for example)

is demonstrating the power of open access to new

information. So, how will incentives for creative work

change to recognize these two powerful economic shifts?

Will the open innovation movement evolve to a point where

know-how and capability rather than pure IP in the

traditional sense is the currency? If so, how will

organizations monetize collaboration?

The context in which these issues will unfold will be

radically, but predictably, different from the past. I

believe the most important is the locus of growth.

Today, there are over six billion people on the planet,

about one billion of them in rich countries. In 2050,

there will be nine billion people - yet still only one billion

in current rich countries. E growth will be centered in

the emerging economies, where the middle classes are

growing rapidly in both number and consumption per

capita. The requirements in the developing world for

basic products and services - food, health care,

housing - will be the world’s largest growth opportunity.

Global companies will be seeking to engage these next

billions not only as consumers, but as human

resources. They will be inhibited, however, to the

degree they bring with them business models and

practices from the rich world.

Technology innovation will clearly continue to change

the business environment: Software will continue to

erode white collar and professional work. It has already

de-skilled many professions - spreadsheets make

everyone a financial analyst, i-Phone-based software

can now make everyone a solar panel installer. And

robots being developed in Japan help take care of the

aged: Automated people-care will be big business.. In

Each of the four identified trends is significant, and they are neither mutually exclusive nor exhaustive. When

considered together, they raise many questions, and suggest issues to monitor as the next decade unfolds.

Three of the most pertinent are:


one recent study, half an hour with Paro, a robot

resembling a fur seal, improved the brain function of

Alzheimer’s patients more than an hour of music

therapy. Innovations in preventative healthcare will

reduce the very high projections of growth in this

industry. Next, workflow automation and smart

infrastructure will assume much of the surveillance

and coordination work done to keep supply

chains, transportation systems, utilities, and security

systems functioning.

The technological advancement pattern of the Industrial

Revolution will write its next chapter with information

technology. Once again, progress will reduce manual

labour, save time and increase wellbeing, but will also

reduce traditional roles and limit opportunity for some.

Education will beindustrialized -broken intosmall, repeatabletasks andthus increasinglydeskilled.

99Future of Work

Digital Natives in different countries will work together

more effectively than the connected and the

unconnected within a single country. Digital Natives

may find new protocols arising from social networking

behavior, and tele-presence technologies will improve in

cost and performance. It’s possible that global

collaboration could become much more effective

through the development of a range new IT solutions -

as it has through email. Cisco, Google, Infosys,

Microsoft, IBM and the like are all placing big bets in

these areas.

In the next decade, I also foresee a revolution in our

approach to education. In Singapore, teachers have

been sharing and improving one another’s lesson plans

for a decade. In India, “para-teachers” are being trained

to teach focused elements of the curriculum under the

supervision of senior teachers, one teacher for ten

para-teachers; what is more, the para-teachers are

trained using on-line tools and experiences. In addition

both schools and corporations worldwide are

experimenting with simulations and games as training

tools. In the US, MIT has put much of its syllabus on-

line and home schooling is growing more popular, and

home schoolers are sharing materials and resources.

None of these practices amount to an important major

global trend yet, but they have the potential to disrupt

the way education, training, and feedback and

evaluation are done. Education will be industrialized -

broken into small, repeatable tasks and thus

increasingly deskilled. It will also become

“informationalized” - benefiting from training tools that

are owned and improved by their “Web 2.0” user

communities. Success could address both the “life-long

learning” challenge in the rich world and the need to

rapidly educate tens of millions of people in the

emerging economies.

Industrial technology was born in the UK and grew up in the US. Information technology was born in the US,

and is growing up in the emerging economies. The US will fall behind for a period, while it learns to adopt

the approaches developed elsewhere. What are these? Looking globally I see four pathways that will influence

work by 2020.

The Way Ahead

As well as these pathways I can imagine two more

speculative shifts will, both enabled by advances in

collaboration technologies.

The first one of these concerns the development of

North-South vs. East-West trade routes. As

development accelerates in the southern hemisphere

and communications and collaboration technologies

improve, the attraction of doing business in the same

time zone will become powerful. No longer will 24/7

be the only way to link between the centers of

resource: Europe will increasingly work with African

people resource pools, and the North - South America

working dynamic will grow.

The second shift that I see having increasing impact

concerns individuals’ predispositions to work together.

Human beings are biologically tribal - consequently

some amount of face-to-face meeting is required for

collaboration among people who don’t know one

another. But time zones are inescapable - global

cooperation requires that most communication be

asynchronous. And language barriers, though lower

than ever before, persist. As in the North-South

dimension outlined above, these forces could lead to

increased in-country partnerships. As the outsourcing

trend is mitigated by rising costs of employment in the

emerging economies, we may expect to see an

increasing shift from off-shoring to on-shoring of jobs

in which ongoing relationships are important. This will

not decrease, however, the development of global

supply chains and the tapping of pools of capital -

financial and human - wherever they exist.

If I had to putmoney on it I

would suggest theindustrialization ofinformation workis certain, and willaffect pretty muchevery business.


100 Future of Work

Were I in charge and free from all constraints I would

announce a plan for eliminating intellectual property

rights over the next 25 years. I would require corporate

boards to have some form of representation of each

stakeholder. I would develop performance measures

that reflect performance in non-financial dimensions.

Perhaps most importantly I would fund a global effort

on the scale of the Apollo Program to share progress

in education globally. And, in the United States, I would

institute a two-year requirement for national service with

one year spent outside the country.

Compromises have to be made so I suggest, with an

own-country perspective, at least three articles of faith

in US business should be re-examined: The focus on

individuals as the source of organization performance;

the primacy of shareholders over other stakeholders;

and the value of competition as currently practiced in

assuring efficient resource allocation.

Pragmatically, if all the trends discussed above

go forward, it is possible that there will be a

bifurcation of business systems - a world of utilities

If I had to put money on it I would suggest the industrialization of information work is certain, and will affect

pretty much every business. A revolution in education is less probable, but this would affect the most people

globally, make a difference to their entire lives, affect nations politically and economically, and represent a

force for equalizing income around the world.


I would fund aglobal effort onthe scale of theApollo Programto share progressin educationglobally.

101Future of Work

(telecommunications, supply chains, manufacturing and

natural resources), patterned on the capital-intensive

industrial economy, in which business will be a zero-

sum game, a fight for market share and dominance;

and a world of experiences (software, media,

hospitality), based on positive-sum collaboration and

open sourcing. But beware: these two worlds may

have difficulty dealing with each other because of their

fundamental differences around trust and value.

102

Biographies 103

Authenticity - Diane Coyle OBE

Diane is founder of consultancy firm Enlightenment Economics, a member of the BBC Trust and a Visiting Professor at the

Institute for Political and Economic Governance, University of Manchester. Her latest book is called ‘The Soulful Science’ and is

about what economists really do and why it matters. The book surveys key developments in economics during the past 20 years,

advances which have revolutionised economists' ability to analyse society and improve policies. Her previous bestseller was ‘Sex,

Drugs and Economic’ which takes a fun look at the application of economics to all sorts of subjects. Earlier books including

'Paradoxes of Prosperity' and 'The Weightless World' address the economic and social impacts of new technologies.

Choice - Professor José Luis Nueno

José is a Professor in the Marketing department at IESE. He received his Doctorate of Business Administration (Marketing) at

Harvard University, Master of Business Administration at IESE and Degree in Law at the Universidad de Barcelona. His areas of

interest include the media and entertainment industry and retail and distribution strategy. He has published articles on globalization,

marketing of consumer goods and luxury goods and relationship marketing. He has taught at a several business schools, including

the elective course of Industrial Marketing at INSEAD, France as well as other management programs. He was a visiting professor

at the University of Michigan and in joint programs with the University of Michigan and IESE in Vevey, Switzerland and Shanghai,

China. In 2003 he was part of the faculty team for the Harvard Business School AMP Middle East Program and the Strategic

Program for Retail Managers. He is a member of the Boards of Directors of a number of leading international companies. He is

also a corporate consultant and advises national and international corporations in the area of marketing and strategy.

Cities - Professor Richard Burdett

Ricky is Centennial Professor in Architecture and Urbanism at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Director

of the Urban Age Programme and founding director of the LSE Cities Programme. He recently co-curated the Global Cities

exhibition at the Tate Modern in London. His latest appointment is as Principal Design Adviser for the London 2012 Olympics.

Previously he was architectural adviser to the Mayor of London from 2001 - 2006, a member of the Greater London Authority's

Architecture + Urbanism Unit and sat on the City of Barcelona's Quality Committee. Ricky was founder of the 9H Gallery and

the Architecture Foundation in London and has been a key player in promoting design excellence amongst public and private sector

organisations in the UK and Europe. He was Director of the 2006 Architecture Biennale in Venice on the subject of ‘Cities:

architecture and society’ and was chairman of the Jury for the 2007 Mies van der Rohe Prize.

Connectivity - Jan Färjh

Jan is Vice President and Head of Ericsson Research. He received his MSc in telecommunications at the Royal Institute of

Technology in Stockholm in 1985. After his graduation he developed signal processing algorithms for airborne radar systems. In

1990 he joined Ericsson and started to work with radio access technologies. He was part of Ericsson's first activities in WCDMA

and became manager of the unit responsible for radio access research in 1996. The research performed in this unit has

contributed to the evolution of WCDMA, HSPA and 3G LTE. In 2007 he became Head of Ericsson Research.

Currency - Dr. Rajiv Kumar

Rajiv is Chief Executive of ICRIER, the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations. He is also on the Central

Board of Directors of the State bank of India, a former member of the India National Security Advisory Board and a member of

the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Previously he has held the positions of Chief Economist at the Confederation of Indian

Industry, Economic Advisor at the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance and Senior Consultants in the Ministry of

Industry in the Government of India. Rajiv as a PhD in Economics from Lucknow University, a DPhil in Economics from Oxford

University, has written several books and publications and contributes regularly to newspapers and journals.

Data - D J Collins

D J is Head of Corporate Communications for Google Europe. He has spent more than 10 years working in public relations and

before Google worked with a wide array of clients, including one of the UK’s largest trade unions. He became one of the youngest

ever Heads of News whilst working for the British Government.

Biographies

Energy - Leo Roodhart

Leo is the 2009 President of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. Prior to this he coordinated GameChanger - Shell’s corporate

Strategic Innovation program that identifies and sponsors the development of new breakthrough technologies in the context of

the various technology futures for the oil industry. Several new businesses and a multitude of new technologies have been created

in this new process. Leo holds an MSc in chemistry and a PhD in Mathematics and Physics from the University of Amsterdam.

He is an Associate Fellow on Strategic Innovation at Templeton College and Said Business School, University of Oxford. Leo has

worked for Shell for 29 years in various functions including research and development, exploration and production, business

development and innovation in The Netherlands, Canada and the UK.

Food - Jim Kirkwood

Jim is Vice President R&D at the Center for Technology Creation at General Mills where he leads the Corporate R&D function in

the development and/or acquisition of food product, process, package and Health & Wellness technologies in support of all GMI

business units. Previously he led R&D for the General Mills Snacks Division, driving growth through innovation in the Granola Bar,

Salty Snack, Popcorn and Fruit Snacks categories. Before that he was Director of R&D for Refrigerated and Frozen Baked Goods

for the Pillsbury Company. In his food career he has also worked with HJ Heinz, Kellogg and Quaker Oats. Jim has an MBA from

the University of Chicago and a BSc in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University.

Health - Dr Jack Lord

Jack is CEO of California-based Navigenics Inc., and was previously with Humana, Inc., where, as Chief Innovation Officer and

Chief Executive of Humana Europe, he led the development of new products and services to transform the healthcare system

and support personal health needs. Before Humana, Jack was president of Health Dialog, where he helped pioneer e-enabled

health care and promoted shared decision making between doctors and patients. His earlier career included executive positions

with the American Hospital Association, the Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, and Sun Health in Charlotte, NC. Jack

is a board-certified forensic pathologist with more than three decades of experience in medical practice. After receieving his

medical degree from the University of Miami in 1978, he launched his medical career with the U.S. Navy, where he served in

leadership positions for the Navy’s Surgeon General and Secretary of the Navy. He is currently on the Advisory Board to the

Director of the CDC, the National Biosurveillance Committee, and the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Chronic

Disease and Malnutrition. He is also a director for Stericycle and Dexcom.

Identity - Professor Mike Hardy OBE

Mike leads the British Council’s work in intercultural dialogue - one of three programme areas which define British Council’s work

in cultural relations. Intercultural Dialogue combines interventions developing the capabilities of young people as leaders and

community participants, worldwide, with volunteering and schools exchanges projects. Between 2004 and 2008, Mike was

Country Director for the British Council in Indonesia where, among other activities he supported the development of the UK-

Indonesia Islamic Advisory Group and launched new programmes in community leadership following the Tsunami in North Sumatra.

Before Indonesia, Mike was a member of the British Council’s senior management team where he directed global contracts in

international development. Between 1997 and 2000 he directed regional project work for the Middle East from Cairo, Egypt. Prior

to the British Council, Mike was Head of Economics and Public Policy at Leeds Metropolitan University and Professor of

International Business at Central Lancashire.

Migration - Professor Richard Black

Richard is Head of the School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex, Co-Director of the Sussex Centre for Migration

Research, and Director of the Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty. His work focuses on the

study of international migration, including forced migration and post-conflict return, and related social and economic

transformations. He is presently researching and writing on the development of public policy on migration and development,

especially in poor countries, and on immigrant integration in the UK, particularly relating to recent East European and African

migrations. Richard is also co-editor of the Journal of Refugee Studies, the leading international interdisciplinary journal in refugee

studies, is currently serving on the Advisory Board of the Civil Society Days for the Global Forum on Migration and Development

104 Biographies

in Athens and is an advisor to the Global Development Network project 'Development on the Move'. Richard completed his

undergraduate degree in Geography in 1986, his PhD in 1990 and came to Sussex in 1995 from King's College London. He

has worked as a consultant for a number of international organisations including the United Nations High Commissioner for

Refugees and the European Training Foundation.

Money - Dave Birch

Dave is Founder of the Digital Money Forum and a co-Founder of Consult Hyperion, the IT management consultancy that

specialises in electronic transactions. He is currently the Visa Europe Research Fellow in Payments at the Centre for the Study

of Financial Innovation in London, who label him "one of the most user-friendly of the UK's uber-techies". He was also described

by The Independent newspaper as a "grade-A geek", and by Financial World magazine as "mad". Dave is a member of the

editorial board of the E-Finance & Payments Law and Policy Journal and a columnist for SPEED. He has lectured on the impact

of new information and communications technologies, contributed to publications ranging from the Parliamentary IT Review to

Grocery Trader and authored more than 100 Second Sight columns for The Guardian. He is a media commentator on electronic

business issues.

Transport - Mark Philips

Mark is Interior Design Manager working at Jaguar's Advanced Design Studio. He led the interior design of the critically acclaimed

new Jaguar XJ and his interior design for the 2001 R-Coupe concept car established Jaguar’s current design language. Mark’s

work also includes the interior designs of the XK8 and XJ Concept-8 show car. Between 2001 and 2003, he led Jaguar design

at Ford’s Ingeni Studio in Soho, London. Previously, Mark worked at Rover and Lincoln in Detroit.

Waste - Professor Ian Williams

Ian was the founder and Head of the Centre for Waste Management at the University of Central Lancashire and is now Director

of Education and Deputy Head of the School of Civil Engineering and the Environment at the University of Southampton. He is

a Chartered Chemist with a wide range of academic interests, including wastes minimisation and management; environmental

chemistry and pollution; and public perceptions of environmental issues and their implications for environmental protection, public

policy and society. Ian has an international reputation for research in two areas: urban environmental quality and wastes

management. He has published two books and over 60 peer-reviewed papers on waste and environmental issues, as well as over

80 commercial project reports. He has held positions on the scientific and organizing committees of several international

conferences and is a Trustee of the charity Waste Watch.

Water - Professor Stewart Burn

Stewart is Stream Leader of Infrastructure Technologies at CSIRO in Australia. His work includes fundamental research on the

deterioration and management of urban water networks and the development of asset management, planning, prioritisation and

risk assessment systems for these networks. He is also involved in developing methodologies to allow the transition of existing

systems to more sustainable states through the adoption of decentralised technologies and the development of water treatment

technologies to recover resources from wastewater. Stewart was instrumental in establishing CSIRO's Urban Water research area

where he has an interest in water, wastewater and storm-water research. He is an Adjunct Professor at the Institute of

Sustainability and Innovation, Victoria University, Victoria, Australia, is chairman of several Australian and international standards

committees and is also Editor for both Water Science and Technology and Water Asset Management International.

Work - Chris Meyer

Chris is Chief Executive of Monitor Networks. His mission is to anticipate and shape the future of business. He has pursued this goal

as entrepreneur, author, leader of a think tank, consultant, and executive. Products of this mission include three books: Blur: The Speed

of Change In the Connected Economy; Future Wealth; and It’s Alive: the Coming Convergence of Information, Biology, and Business

(all co-authored with Stan Davis) and articles in the Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Fast Company, Time, The

Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and others. In 2004, Chris joined the Monitor Group to lead Monitor Networks, a business based

on the ideas about human capital markets. Monitor Talent, founded by Monitor Networks, has now built a network of 75 thought leaders

in business, science, and public policy; Chris curates Now New Next, the Monitor Talent blog on Harvard Business Digital.

105Biographies

What do you think?Add your views to the global perspective on www.futureagenda.org

Future Agenda Initial Perspectives Full Text

Business

special drawing

global reserve

global financial

global co2

potable water

digital money

asian central

intellectual