Global consumption of almost every commodity has increased dramatically over the past century, and this trend looks set to continue aggressively into the foreseeable future.

Demands of a growing and richer global population, especially in emerging economies, depletes increasingly scarce natural resources.

With anticipated supply challenges, the general contention is that the world has entered a period of intensified resource stress.

Concerns around energy security and price, growing food challenges – security, gene modification - and water scarcity create new risks and opportunities.

Customer awareness and stakeholder expectations are steeply rising with regards to sustainable sourcing and efficient use of resources.

The global middle class will double in size by 2020. The vast majority of new entrants will be Asia-Pacific residents, leading to increased spending on nonessential goods which may lead to rapid economic growth.

Globally, the 20% of the world’s population in the highest-income countries account for 86% of the consumption; the poorest 20% just 1.3%.

A greater share of GDP must be allocated to solve the problems created by resource depletion, pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss and inequality.

If we continue business as usual, global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are expected to rise up to 20% by 2020.

The next 10 years are considered to be crucial to obtain lasting emission reductions at a reasonable cost and to prevent the tipping point for an irreversible development.

The use of big data will become a key basis of competition and growth for individual firms. While collecting massive amounts of data, the revolution is that now we can do something it. 

In most industries, established companies and new entrants alike will leverage data-driven strategies to innovate, compete and capture value from deep, real-time information.

Analytics and social media reach every aspect of organizations, increasing transparency, but also posing new security and privacy threats.

Safeguarding data is a major concern as the privacy implications can be intense.

Flat organizational structures and cross-functional project teams will be driven by creativity, flexibility and reciprocity.

A workplace will require integration of flexible rules to function within existing formal structures and to provide a framework for conflict prevention and conflict resolution.

There is a new expectation of a diversified workforce able to work remotely. 

People will be more connected to each other with advanced devices. Expectations for 2020: 50 billion connected devices, meaning 6.58 devices per person!

Globalization, population and economic growth require high interdependency and complexity, leading to global challenges and systemic risks.

The global-scale challenges require new forms of international cooperation, governance and enforcement.

Decision-making lacks transparency and stakeholder engagement is rarely systematic and tends not to take into account all necessary sustainability issues and interests.

We will be 9.6 billion people in 2050, and 95 % of future population growth is expected to occur in the emerging economies.

People aged 60 years or more are expected to increase 21%, and over 360 million workers are set to retire from the workforce by 2050.

70% of us are likely to live in cities, many in mega-cities with more than 10 million inhabitants.

The mega-cities will face great social and economic risk from climate change as they are located in environmentally fragile locations, vulnerable to flooding, typhoons and earthquakes.