The digital shift creates threats and opportunities.
Information technology, artificial intelligence and big data have the ability to greatly accelerate business-as-usual, which could mean more inequality, surveillance and overconsumption. But the intelligent use of digital technology can also coordinate, mobilise and speed up progressive change.
Big issues are who owns and controls the digital economy, what its priorities are and who has access to it. The potential of ‘open source’ software and hardware, and whether the technologies and sector themselves are environmentally sustainable, are just two of the big questions. But there are communities, groups and enterprises around the world who are taking the best that the technology has to offer and turning it to the task of rapid transition.
Story of change
Making waves: Electric ships are sailing aheadQuietly, at the tail-end of 2021, the Yara Birkeland set sail from Porsgrunn, a town in the south-east of Norway. The 80-metre, 3200-tonne ship is the first...
Story of change
Keeping cool without costing the earthIn May 2022 temperatures in India and Pakistan reached 50°C. Heat this fierce causes chaos to infrastructure, water security and also triggers irreversible...
Story of change
European sleeper trains are waking upAfter a slow and steady decline, the sleeper train – a vital link to more sustainable, connected transport systems – is waking-up and getting back on...
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Story of change
Badvertising – is changing the advertising industry the next step in speeding transition?As many look to ‘build back better’ from the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, there are competing voices arguing on the one hand to restart...
Resource
Journal article: the business of rapid transitionAs long as there have been attempts to develop policy on climate change at national, regional and international levels, businesses have been involved in...
Story of change
Upward spiral: how circular economies break the cycle of overconsumptionThe climate emergency is a result of the sheer weight of human economic activity on the biosphere. Extraction of resources and the production of waste is...
Story of change
From passive consumers to active producers – how crisis restrictions open opportunities for creative culture shiftsAs the global pandemic continues to reshape whole economies and the lives of populations, normal consumer behaviour has been suddenly altered. The focus has...
Story of change
Converting industry – how rapid transition happens in crises and upheavalsA brewer of ‘craft’ beer starts making sanitising hand gel and a car manufacturer converts one of its factories so it can make medical face masks. Just...
Story of change
Rethinking work – the sudden end of the regular 9-to-5 working day?For millions of people around the world working lives have been suddenly turned upside down. As offices, shops and other workplaces close in the face of a...
Story of change
Pandemic lessons for the climate emergencyPandemics change business-as-usual overnight. Governments mobilise huge resources to tackle the problem and compensate for its impacts. At the same time,...
Commentary
The business of rapid transitionBusiness represents the great paradox of rapid transition. On the one hand, much is expected of business in terms of technological innovation, new models of...
Story of change
Transition Towns – the quiet, networked revolutionThe Transition Network began in 2006 in the small rural UK town of Totnes, Devon. It was initially a response to the twin threats of climate change and peak...
