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The World in 2030: Four scenarios for long-term planning and strategy

Ross Dawson, August 3, 2009 2:21 AM US PT

This morning I did the opening keynote to the top executive team of a major organization.at their strategy offsite. It's not appropriate to share the full presentation, however I can share the rough scenarios I presented for the world to 2030. The scenarios were presented after having examined the driving forces and critical uncertainties for the company. (See also my post on The best visuals to explain the Singularity to senior executives)

As always, a strong disclaimer comes with any generic set of scenarios like these - scenarios really must be created by the users themselves for specific decisions and in context (for the full disclaimer as well as a brief background on using scenarios in the strategy process see my scenarios for the future of financial services).

SCENARIO FRAMEWORK FOR THE WORLD IN 2030
A traditional scenario process identifies two dimensions to uncertainty, that when combined produce a matrix of four scenarios. Once the framework is created, the full richness of trends and uncertainties uncovered in the research process are integrated into the scenarios. Here the two dimensions selected are:

RESOURCES AVAILABILITY: Resource Poverty TO Resource Affluence
Availability and real cost of key resources including energy, food, water, and environmental stability.

COHESION: Cohesion TO Fragmentation
Cohesion of society, government, nations, and institutions.

Together these dimensions yield:

SCENARIOS FOR THE WORLD IN 2030

FOUR SCENARIOS FOR THE WORLD IN 2030

SCENARIO: SHOCK TREATMENT

Economic divergence: developed world stagnation

Protectionism rises and markets localise

Little global action on climate amid massive impact of global warming

China and India fragment

High-impact terrorism: bio, nuclear, radiation

Infrastructure becomes primarily private

Inexpensive and highly mobile labour

Immigration tensions and rioting

UrbaniZation accelerates, often in squalor

SCENARIO: NEW HORIZONS

Economic shift to East

Billions become middle class

New energy sources/ planetary engineering

Innovation yields food and health to the poorest

Artificial intelligence applied to real-world issues

Robotics attenuates impact of aging workforce

Life extension for the wealthy, retirement age rises

Remote work leads to more distributed living

Affluence drives tourism and travel

SCENARIO: HUMANITY MATURING

Climate becomes extreme and volatile

Food and water shortages, famine and pandemics

Global coordinated action on climate

Trade liberalisation accelerates, EU extends

Corporate activity driven by triple bottom line

Social entrepreneurs invest $100 billion and seed a billion enterprises

Cities become compact and resource efficient

Rise of public/ shared transport

SCENARIO: AGENT ECONOMY

Fluid global economy

International outsourcing of most functions

Mega-corporations become lean and micro-business rises

Market solutions for environment

Governments lose control and ability to tax

Agents seek best price for everything/ customer loyalty is zero/ commoditisation of everything

Distributed energy and manufacturing

New capital markets, volatile financial markets

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3 Comments

Stephan H. Wissel said:

Very impressive visuals. Though provoking scenarios (I'd like to see new horizons happen). "Humanity maturing" reminded me of Doris Lessing's "Shikasta" from the "Canopus in Argos" cycle.

August 4, 2009 9:06 AM

Paul Roberts said:

Thanks for sharing Ross. I love your choice of images and the snappy way that each scenario is summarised.

I have to say that I’m fascinated with the dichotomy between cohesion and fragmentation and the role of the market, which seems to be dominant under the Agent Economy scenario. Public interest seem to be better served under New Horizons where social, economic and environmental performance is best. Does that imply that the market has figured out how to be collaborative and therefore innovative, profitable and sustainable by 2030?

August 12, 2009 12:31 AM

mutuelle said:

i should be dead in this date , thanks ross

September 21, 2009 10:37 AM

Ross Dawson is globally recognized as a leading futurist, entrepreneur, keynote speaker, strategy advisor, and bestselling author. He is Founding Chairman of four companies: professional services and venture firm Advanced Human Technologies, future and strategy consulting group Future Exploration Network, leading events firm The Insight Exchange, and influence ratings start-up Repyoot.

Ross is author most recently of Implementing Enterprise 2.0, the prescient Living Networks, which anticipated the social network revolution, and the Amazon.com bestseller Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships (click on the links for free chapter downloads). He is based in Sydney and San Francisco with his wife jewellery designer Victoria Buckley and two beautiful young daughters.