It takes 3,781 litres of water to make a single pair of jeans.Circular production methods could trim the amount of water and other resources denim consumes.Many leading brands are backing a circular economy for jeans. For millions of people around the world, denim is a wardrobe staple. Yet a single pair of jeans uses 3,781 litres of water in its production lifecycle. Now top brands are having a rethink and backing a circular economy for denim. Bi...

One of my greatest concerns about modern society is that we view everything as separate. We see ourselves as divided not just by our individuality, but also by groupings such as politics, race, religion, sexuality, occupation, wealth, nationality, and geography. We also regard ourselves as separate from nature. Modern society tells us that we are superior to, and detached from, the natural world. As a result, many believe we can continue to ...

What if globally designed products could radically change how we work, produce and consume? Several examples across continents show the way we are producing and consuming goods could be improved by relying on globally shared digital resources, such as design, knowledge and software. Imagine a prosthetic hand designed by geographically dispersed communities of scientists, designers and enthusiasts in a collaborative manner via the web. All knowled...

This week the World Economic Forum is holding its Industry Strategy Meeting 2021.Leaders met to identify opportunities where sectors can collaborate on how industries can drive growth and put stakeholder capitalism into practice.Here are some of the takeaways from the four plenaries. More than 400 participants from the World Economic Forum's communities of Industry Strategy Officers, as well as senior deputies to the CEO Industry Action Groups, c...

Companies with better ESG ratings were in a better position than others in 2020.Only by measuring on common standards, will we be able to deliver a meaningful, quantifiable impact.It will take time for government agencies to fully adopt a unified system and may be difficult, and costly for some companies. 2021 doesn't yet feel that much different from 2020. Infection rates are spiking, healthcare systems are buckling, and people are suffering. Th...

It's hard to imagine navigating modern life without a mobile phone in hand. Computers, tablets and smartphones have transformed how we communicate, work, learn, share news and entertain ourselves. They became even more essential when the COVID-19 pandemic moved classes, meetings and social connections online. But few people realize that our reliance on electronics comes with steep environmental costs, from mining minerals to disposing of used dev...

We've probably all been there. We buy some new smart gadget and when we plug it in for the first time it requires an update to work. So we end up spending hours downloading and updating before we can even play with our new toy. But what happens when we can't update our gadgets any further? Vintage technology Every year vendors such as Apple and Google add to their list of vintage devices that no longer get operating system or security updates. Fo...

Mass unemployment will occur because of robotics and AI.Hospitality, management and creativity cannot be substituted by AI.We need to acquire and refine more sophisticated abilities in these areas. The COVID-19 crisis is going to accelerate a number of changes and transformations in human society. Notably, the pandemic is expected to significantly accelerate the Fourth Industrial Revolution.  This is because the coronavirus crisis forced peo...

Affluence is the biggest threat to our world, according to a new scientific report.True sustainability will only be achieved through drastic lifestyle changes, it argues.The World Economic Forum has called for a great reset of capitalism in the wake of the pandemic. A detailed analysis of environmental research has revealed the greatest threat to the world: affluence. That's one of the main conclusions of a team of scientists from Australia, Swit...

China's national emissions trading scheme (ETS) is expected to eclipse that of the European Union to become the world's largest carbon trading scheme.The scheme is designed to include all major industrial sectors, from construction to power generation.While first mentioned in 2015 ahead of the Paris climate agreement, technical problems have plagued the scheme, delaying it for a further 5 years. China is targeting the launch of a nationwide emiss...