Environment Papers
Complexity Energy Systems
Energy is truly the lifeblood of our economies, a critical infrastructure that affects all of our lives in virtually every activity. Throughout history one thing that has remained common for all...
Complexity Approach to Food Systems
Short video giving an overview to our food systems solutions paper. The global food system of today is truly complex in nature, crossing almost all areas from climate, water and energy, to...
Complexity Approach to: Water Systems
Water, being deeply interconnected with almost all aspects of economic development, is both one of the greatest opportunities and probably the greatest threat to global economic development in...
The Rise of Sustainability
Part two in our series "Age of Transition" this video explores the rise of the concept of sustainability as it has gone from the fringes to the mainstream within just a few short decades, driven...
Complexity Approach to: Basic Materials
Short video giving an overview to our circular economy solutions for businesses in the basic materials sector including mining, forestry, chemicals, and commodities...
Complexity Approach to: Environmental Management
A short video giving an overview to our environmental analysis paper. The environment represents the whole ecosystem that a society depends upon for various services: such as water, materials,...
Inclusive Economy
Inclusivity is an inherent part of achieving sustainability. To be sustainable a system has to be open to and harness all of the resources available to it. To effectively manage a complex system...
Service Dematerialization
At the heart of the challenge of sustainable development is the challenge of decoupling economic growth from an increased demand for more resources; doing this is called decoupling...
Full Cost Economy
Full cost accounting refers to accounting for the complete cost or benefit of some product or service in terms of its social, economic and environmental impacts. It represents an expansion of our...
Sustainability: From the Parts to the Whole
This is part one in a five-part series of papers on the rise of the paradigm of sustainability. In this paper, we look at what sustainability is and how our economies will be shaped along a...
Why Full Cost Accounting
In this video we explain the concept of full cost accounting and why it can be an effective method for managing common natural and social resources in a distributed fashion through the market...
Sustainable Development & Decoupling
The 20th Century, driven by scientific and technological advances, was a time of remarkable change for human civilization. But it was also a century when the extraction of many natural resources...
Water-Energy-Food Nexus
Food, water and energy are essential for economic development and the well-being of every society around the planet. When we talk about the "environment" it is to a large extent this nexus that...
Natural Capital Accounting
Since a number of decades now the unsustainable nature of our industrial economic infrastructure has been made acutely evident. It is becoming increasingly clear that the linear model to...
Environmental Management
Within the course of just a few decades we have transitioned from being a small world on a big planet to being a big world on a small planet, an extraordinary transformation. A switch from making...
Energy Disruption
With the rise of renewables and the smart grid our energy architecture is surely going to go through a profound transformation in the coming decades but is this transformation happening fast enough?...
Fueling China’s Future
China is a central element within the future of our global energy system because while the developing nations are winding down their energy consumption China is still increasing its energy...
Complexity Energy Systems
Energy systems are a central enabling and limiting factor to the development of an economy. As such, the level of technological, social and economic complexity...
Energy Systems Resilience
As economies develop they require a greater input of energy, and they become more dependent on the continuous input of that energy in order to maintain their basic structure and processes...
Food Platform Innovation
Our food supply chain is both incredibly efficient and inefficient all at the same time. The system is efficient in that it produces huge quantities of food at low prices and is able to move...
Conventional & Alternative Agriculture
In developed nations today there is growing demand from society for an agricultural system that is both scalable and sustainable, both able to deliver on quantity and quality. Unfortunately it...
Global Food System: In Numbers
Short video on the global food system shown in numbers. A large percentage of the 7.5 billion people on the planet receive an adequate diet in terms of calories but 770 million people are...
Integrated Water Management
Water flows through almost every part of our economies and everything we do. It connects, agriculture, health, energy, food, environment and conflict. Of all the domains to an economy it is...
The Value Of Water
Water which can easily be seen as the most valuable resource on Earth is in many places treated as if it did not have any value at all. But the scarcity of water globally - where and when it is...
Dematerialization: Explainer
Dematerialization refers to the absolute or relative reduction in the quantity of materials required to serve economic functions in society. The UNEP defines it as such”the reduction of total...
Towards A Nonlinear Economy
Humans design things, we build systems with the available resources, scientific knowledge and engineering know-how to make our lives better. We experiment test ideas and options keeping the ones...
Circular Business Models
As we shift from a linear to a nonlinear economic model the circular economy is enabling an ocean of new value opportunities. Value is shifting from forming part of a linear value chain to all of...
Food Systems: A Complexity Approach
Food systems are probably the most ancient human construct, we have been developing new methods, processes and techniques for the capturing and trans...
Complexity Approach to: Water Systems
Water is a religious ritual and entertainment, medicine and nourishment, energy and industry, conflict and social unrest, it crosses all borders between ecosystem, industry, economy and society...
Complexity Approach to: Basic Materials
Basic materials are the minerals extracted from the natural environment for usage in the production of tangible products, these materials provide the...
The Water Crisis In Numbers
Short image and text video explaining the water crisis through numbers. Earth has an estimated 1.4 billion cubic km of water. But most of it is in the oceans, less than 1 percent of it is liquid...
Dematerialization
What is an economy? Is it things, stuff like cars, houses, washing machines and computers? Or is it services? The function of those things, payment services, cleaning services, heating,...
The Social Dilemma: A third Way
The social dilemma - otherwise known as the tragedy of the commons - is at the heart of many of the21st-centuryy challenges from over fishing and environmental degradation to social inequality...