January 15th, 2021 by

As I like to say ‘Sustainable will become the Profitable‘. Here are some key trends and stats I often use in my talks.

From a recent interview: Futurist Gerd Leonhard, who is based in Zurich, says the threat of the pandemic has caused a “global reset” that he predicts will take two or three years to iron out. “The rules of capitalism are changing,” he says. “We cannot strictly apply only financial benefits to a relationship, and that’s become clear in the treatment of the virus.”

Leonhard predicts that prioritising human wellbeing over the prosperity of individual entities will reshape post-COVID economies. “Consumers will be closely examining company behaviour,” he says. “They will be asking, ‘What did this company do during the COVID crisis? Did they show solidarity? Could they be depended on? Did they bend the rules? Did they do something extra? Can they be trusted?’

“People are thinking that it’s more important for us to have a collective benefit – to have good health care and to be prepared – than to amass more money in big industry,” adds Leonhard. “That’s clearly not an open, Milton Friedman kind of place. That’s more like a place of social capitalism, which has been practised in Europe in various forms.”

Some related images below

Author: Gerd Leonhard

In the words of American poet John Berryman, “the possibility that has been overlooked is the future”. Most of us are far too busy coping with present challenges to explore the future in any depth – and when we do our own cravings and fears often run away with us, resulting in utopias or dystopias that are not very helpful in terms of planning and decisions. Today’s professionals, leaders and their organisations need a dedicated, passionate long-term understanding of the future if they are to successfully navigate the exponential waves of change. For countless individuals and organizations that intelligence is called Gerd Leonhard.

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