Let the truth be told
During the 2020s, greater demands are placed on businesses and organisations to communicate how they approach sustainability. As a result, there is a focus on environmental data that is made available in real time so stakeholders and the public can easily see gaps in impact accounting. By the end of the 2020s, big money primarily finances the green transition, and there is a greater focus on investing in social sustainability.
With increasingly complex data sets, we can better visualise—or create digital twins of—what is happening in our physical world. For example, in 2022, the European Commission launched Destination Earth (DestinE), an initiative that aims to develop a highly accurate digital model of Earth to monitor, model and predict natural and human activity as well as predict the effects and build resilience to climate change. Scientists, researchers, public institutions, companies and NGOs use data to monitor ecosystem changes, such as oil spills, desertification and species loss and human poverty and displacement trends1 . Data has also become a must for sustainability reporting accuracy. A burgeoning of services offer companies the means to gather and analyse information on their impact across such parameters as carbon emissions, water use and waste throughout supply chains.
These models and services hold up a stark and often unflattering mirror to the reality of our changing world. But, they also have the potential, if shared and acted upon, to help eradicate corporate and institutional greenwashing by providing a picture of what is done versus what is said. At the same time, we can question the validity and limits of data—how well can machines, fed by our instructions, really understand the intricacies of ecosystems and nuances in human behaviour?
Despite efforts in the previous decade, global resource scarcity worsens in the 2030s : there is greater awareness of the need to save and share resources. The development of circular systems is fast-tracked and cross-sectoral organisations are forced to collaborate to meet the global population’s needs. The operational scope of corporations is increasingly determined by the Sustainable Development Goals and the planetary boundaries.
Demands for transparency and regulation around what we deem sustainable are also mounting in the financial sector, with significant and well-channelled financing urgently needed to sustain life within the Earth’s means. In 2022, 13 NGOs petitioned the Swedish Minister of Finance2 for tougher requirements on pension funds to divest from harmful sectors, such as weapons and fossil fuels. In the EU, the Taxonomy regulation3, which entered into force in 2020, provides a tool to understand and encourage the flow of capital to significant environmental contributors in six areas: climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, water and marine resources, the circular economy, pollution and biodiversity and ecosystems. Businesses can use it to better calculate and communicate their contribution and impact, as well as create strategies for change.
By the 2050s, political pressure, anti-colonial sentiment and a recognition that the elements of sustainability are interconnected lead to a universal recognition of the rights of nature. Those who violate them are held accountable by law. During the same decade, stricter global agreements and AI-enhanced environmental and social reporting have eradicated the possibility of greenwashing.
Where all parts are equal
There is a growing recognition that people once had a more intuitive and astute knowledge and comprehension of the Earth and its systems and that to remain within the planetary boundaries, we must reconnect with and draw on ancient, traditional and indigenous wisdom. This includes seeing nature as an entity with rights; for example, in 2008, Ecuador became the first country to recognise and implement the ‘rights of nature’. These provisions reject the modern idea of nature as property in favour of indigenous principles that give people the legal right to protect and restore the environment. In 2017, four rivers in Colombia, India and New Zealand gained legal standing. In New Zealand, the long-term efforts of the Maori tribes to save the Whanganui River led to the recognised ‘personhood’ of the waterway, allowing its guardians to defend it in court. Nature-rights laws4 now exist in over 20 countries, including Uganda, Canada and Bolivia.
By 2032, AI has helped us see the mindset and structural changes needed by showing us the causal effects of our behaviour for a planet in balance. Contextual and interconnected AI systems are powered by knowledge, philosophy and robust transparency. They provide complex information about ecosystems and how our actions can affect them so we can adjust. Companies integrate the Inner Development Goals5 , and because of AI’s increased role in society, people have more time to focus on their growth through meditation, yoga, dance, exercise, journaling and creativity.
Transparency is the norm in organisations and nature is protected by law. Sharing is embraced and accepted with a focus on reusing, mending and repurposing. Consumption is on the decline with a shift towards purpose over profit.
In 2042, AI has given the natural world a voice proportional to the human voice, which helps us better empathise and understand it. AI allows us to zoom out of the here and now, giving us a broader temporal and geographical perspective. Together with big data sets, we can regenerate and even develop new thriving ecosystems. We are concerned with balance instead of growth, and new global development goals focus on interconnectedness where, like puzzle pieces, we need each one for the well-being of the whole.
The assumptions at play for the futures here to hold true suppose that companies, capitalism, neoliberalism and a monetary system will endure, that we have countries or similar divisions, that we will live in homes, that people will continue to pursue sustainability and a green transition and that we have a common understanding of what it means to be transparent. There are also assumptions around the value of data, that it leads to better decisions, that we cannot make good decisions without the missing knowledge, and that knowledge is equivalent to data. We assume AI’s capabilities—that it can read implicit signals, that we will have devices to access information and that we can turn them on and off at will.
What if we placed greater value on qualitative knowledge?
In 2042, people have lost faith in quantifiable and measurable data. We make decisions and strategies through stories, feelings, emotions, relationships and intuition. Indigenous, spiritual and ancient wisdom is valued and followed across the globe. AI’s role is to tell stories and produce, identify, analyse and weave together ideologies to result in a globally accepted belief system. It takes the role of philosopher or spiritual leader, and rather than making predictions, it takes a bionic form. A new post-capitalist economic system has begun.
If we don’t have quantifiable data can we have AI? Do we need AI or can we achieve sustainability with human intelligence? What if AI feels instead of sees? Can AI reach experienced and embodied knowledge? If we don’t measure and only observe, will further assumptions come into play?
