The future of sustainability

Sustainability is continually evolving, shaping our future in meaningful ways.

Progress towards sustainability can sometimes feel slow, especially when faced with seemingly daily news of climate disasters and the back and forth of political rhetoric and inaction. But when we take the wider view of deep time, step back and look at the trends over the last several decades (and millennia of indigenous practice worldwide) we can see that we are creating (or returning to) lasting deep generational and cultural change; where human beings live in genuine reciprocity with the planet, and reach new heights of human wellbeing and prosperity.

Human population dynamics and planetary change

Human impact across the entire planet is a relatively new phenomenon when we take the long view of human history. Only in recent centuries has our human population become so large and physically interconnected through global migration and transport that we have begun to impact the environment on a planetary level.

At the time of writing (December 2024), we have 8.17 billion human beings on the planet, with 9.7 billion expected by 2050, and 10.5 billion by 2100 (WorldOMeters 2024). By 2050, the percentage of the world’s people living in urban areas could be almost 70% (Miller and Spoolman 2015), requiring our cities to become even more dense. This means governments, industry, and community need to reconsider how we accommodate such population growth while increasing wellbeing, a sense of community, and living within the limitations of the planet.

We know that public awareness of climate change and sustainability has dramatically shifted in recent years; from a niche issue rarely discussed outside of environmental circles, to concern for the wellbeing of the planet being at the forefront of popular culture and political debate (see step 1.5). We are in a new era where we are starting to see the intersection of technological advancements, changing public awareness, and shifting social norms.

The S-Curve (or “plotting hope”)

The ‘S Curve’ is a theory which describes how any major technological or societal change takes place. At the start of any change we are trying to implement, we will come up against barriers; the status quo, the standard ways of doing things, or even industries or policies working against change. We might manage to get a breakthrough, like the price of a product drops so that people start adopting it, but we are only really going to accelerate to society wide change once social norms start to change, once structures and systems, policies, and subsidies, all work together to create the new normal.

One of the reasons why economies are so linear right now is that, it is often cheaper to extract, use, and dump materials (particularly with government and industry subsidies). It is often cheaper to produce single use plastics than it is to reclaim and reprocess them, or to invest in metal ones.

Shifting to a circular economy, takes time, as well as several components of change working together. At any of these stages in the transformation, things can fail, and things go wrong – prices can go up and down, technologies fail and succeed, and policies can accelerate change or stop it altogether.

_{The transformational process for the transition to a sustainable world through the achievement of the SDGs, Voulvoulis, N., et al. (2022) , © Licensed under CC BY 4.0
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Learn more about the S-curve of transformation, as outlined in the Global Sustainable Development Report 2023, which explores how innovations progress through three phases–emergence, acceleration, and stabilisation–ultimately becoming integrated into daily life.

Here’s one good news story: 2024 could be the first year that global emissions start to decline, marking a significant step forward in the fight against climate change!

So, with all this momentum building, where are we headed? What is the future of sustainability? How can we sustainably accommodate a growing population? What lifestyles do we have in mind? How do ethics play into our person considerations? What do we value culturally? Beaches, barbeques, and backyards? How does this look across different cities around the world? Who is designing our cities? What values, perhaps biases and overlooked spots, do they have? How will our values shape the future of sustainability?

We are building on the efforts of generations before us, and generations to come will build on our actions now. You are part of this movement. Thank you for being here.

What do you think sustainability will look like in the future?

What will our cities and local communities look like?

What will work look like?

What will the future of food be?

What might recreation, play, and entertainment feel like?

Your creative task

Take a photo of an object or idea around you that represents your hope for sustainability in the future and upload it to this Padlet wall.

Check the Padlet guide for assistance with using the tool, and be sure to comment on the posts made by others on the Padlet wall.