• Considering the rapidly growing demand and consumption of resources in Asia, the generation of waste is expected to increase steeply at an unprecedented level.
• Reducing fish waste and losses will contribute significantly to increased availability of fish and seafood products worldwide while sustaining viable fisheries resources.
• The demand for electronic scrap recycling market is expected to soar significantly during the forecast period.
• The recycling of waste will reduce the use of raw materials in all developed countries on a regular basis and produce renewable energy.
• Europe could gain many benefits from treating waste as a resource including reducing environmental pressure.
• Technological developments making objects increasingly self-aware will lead to reduced resource losses before the end of a given use-cycle.

Design

• Less use will be made of wood and leather while innovative materials and the consequent new possibilities in design and production gradually come to the fore.
• The transition to a circular economy will bring dislocations, the more productive use of resources and materials should have a stabilizing effect on the economy, giving the world some 'breathing room' as it deals with the strains of expanding and ageing societies.
• The city of the future will be driven by the imperative to share and optimize resources.

Energy

• Newly discovered oil reserves do exist but tapping them will require heavy investment in infrastructure and new technology.
• Many future mining reserves are located in areas with high political risk.
• Energy consumption is predicted to rise steeply as a result of an estimated expansion of the world's population by 2.3 billion by 2050.
• ICT in 10 years could consume about 60 percent of the world's energy resources.
• BP predicts coal production will fall to an all-time low by 2035.

Government

• Countries with high GDP and large low water-using sectors (e.g. financial services) will perform better while countries with large agricultural and food manufacturing sectors will not perform as well.
• Water pricing could become an essential tool to help countries improve the management of their water resources in the future.
• Canada will likely agree to match the Obama administration's goal of reducing methane emissions from oil and gas operations by 40 to 45 percent by 2025.
• Many places will struggle to find the resources for good investment in strategic local planning, environmental services or effective management of crises.
• Water scarcity combined with rapidly increasing populations and the consistent growth in demand for food and energy will lead to competition between states over freshwater resources.
• Australia will no longer be known for being as dependent on the export of natural resources over the next half century as in 2012.
• The world will need to expand its infrastructure to get at harder-to-access resources.
• Local population growths will increase pressure on localized resources.
• With increasing urbanization and the corresponding demands for resources, wilderness and open spaces will come under even more pressure to yield to development.
• Economic and security concerns will raise the risk of increased competition between Arctic and non-Arctic nations over access to sea routes and resources.

Climate change

• Crops, livestock, forest trees and aquatic organisms that can survive and produce in future climates will be essential in future production.
• Informing stakeholders of the changing amounts of rainfall and the spatial distribution of precipitation will help them to better allocate resources for the management of water resources.
• Changes in temperature and precipitation will contribute to increase global food prices by 2050.

Vehicles

• Autonomous cars could have an impact on quality of life and the environment by optimizing the use of resources and time.

Energy

• Energy use within sectors like healthcare could become more significant and is ripe for technological innovation that focuses on energy conservation.
• If we had a hydrogen economy worldwide, every nation on earth could create its own energy source to support its economy, and the threat of war over diminishing resources would just evaporate.

Resource recovery

• The commercial value of materials and energy recovered from waste could be substantial.

Pricing and taxation

• Water pricing could become an essential tool to help countries improve the management of their water resources in the future.
• Shifting taxation away from labor to non-renewable resources could stimulate the shift to a circular economy.
  

DRIVERS

cities· population · energy · technologies · digital transformation · climate change

Athena's forecast (robot generated from verbatim forecasts)

• Start year: Ongoing
• Likely Tipping point: 2030
• Likely End year: 2060
• Likely Impact $: Trillions
• Likelihood: 90%
• Regions affected: Global
• Most affected sectors: Energy, Food, Environment, Government, Mining, Water, Health

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