Future Forces Disrupting Sustainable Business
Future Forces Disrupting Sustainable Business
A full-spectrum-thinking approach to building the future for your company’s sustainability, from 2019–2029
“In 2007, GEMI worked with IFTF to create a ten-year forecast of forces affecting sustainability. While that original map of the future served as a helpful guiding document in the past, GEMI’s member companies indicated that the global changes that have taken place since that original forecast demanded an updated outlook,” said Bill Gill, AVP Sustainability, Smithfield Foods and GEMI Chair.
In early 2019, GEMI and IFTF began a new ten-year forecast project to examine the challenge of doing business in a rapidly changing world, where the definition of ‘sustainability’ is broadening and every business wants to build and maintain a ‘sustainable’ business model.
The resulting report—Future Forces That will Disrupt Sustainable Business—examines four future forces that are external drivers of change that IFTF believes have the power to upend today’s business models over the coming ten years, including New Spectrums of Meaning, New Spectrums of Resources, New Spectrums of Time, and New Spectrums of Value Creation.
Each of the forces identified by IFTF in the report include several “signals of change”, or existing initiatives that provide examples from today and hints as to how these forces may play out into the future.
Future Forces Disrupting Sustainable Business Executive Summary >>
You can read the full report as a PDF here.>>
NEW SPECTRUMS OF meaning:
Full-spectrum natives will lead shifts toward more inclusive, diverse, and unusual values
NEW SPECTRUMS OF resources:
Materials and infrastructure will evolve through deep technology
NEW SPECTRUMS OF time:
Organizations will adapt to future back-strategy to navigate competing pressures
NEW SPECTRUMS OF value creation:
Businesses will operate in a world of distributed ecosystems
“GEMI appreciates the expertise IFTF brings in foresight – looking to the future through a systematic, plausible, and provocative lens. It is important to recognize that foresight is not a prediction, but that from foresight comes insight which can lead to action. It is up to each organization to decide how to take action based on newfound insights gained from the foresight IFTF has provided to GEMI,” said Gill.
Acknowledgements
IFTF:
Quinault Childs, Research Director
Daria Lamb, Ambassador to the Future
Robin Bogot, Art Director
Gabe Cervantes, Research Assistant
Mark Fraunfelder, Developmental Editor
Jean Hagan, Executive Producer
Tito Jankowski, IFTF Affiliate
Bob Johansen, Distinguished Fellow
Bradley Kreit, Research Director
GEMI:
Kellen Mahoney, Project Director
Steve Hellem, Executive Director
GEMI Sponsors:
American Forest & Paper Association
Carnival Corporation & PLC
CBRE Group, Inc.
ConocoPhillips
Dell
Dow
ExxonMobil
Chemical Company
FedEx Corporation
Gannett Fleming, Inc.
Ingersoll Rand Inc.
Lockheed Martin
Corporation
SABIC
Schlumberger Limited
Sealed Air Corporation
Smithfield Foods, Inc.
About GEMI
The Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI) is a global leader in developing insights, networking, and creating collaborative sustainability solutions for business. For over 25 years, GEMI has captured the vision and experience of global corporate environmental, health and safety, and sustainability leaders from diverse business sectors through the development of a wide range of publicly-available, solutions-based tools designed to help companies improve the environment and their operations, and add business value. www.gemi.org
About IFTF
The Institute for the Future (IFTF) is the world’s leading futures thinking organization. For over 50 years, businesses, governments, and social impact organizations have depended on IFTF’s global forecasts, custom research, and foresight training to navigate complex change and develop world-ready strategies. IFTF methodologies and toolsets yield uncommonly coherent views of transformative possibilities across all sectors that together support a more sustainable future. The Institute for the Future is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Palo Alto, California.
For more information contact:
Sean Ness | sness@iftf.org