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
Giving rivers rights: a rapid solution to pollution?In March 2023, councillors in the picturesque town of Lewes in the south east of England successfully passed a motion that recognises the legal rights of...
Story of change
London’s ‘Great Stink’ of 1858: how a rapid policy response stopped the stenchIn 2022 raw human waste was pumped into the United Kingdom’s rivers and seas 825 times per day on average. Modern Britain has a big, steaming sewage...
Story of change
Accelerating recovery of wild European mammals brings hope of wider nature regenerationIn 2022, something happened in Britain for the first time in 6,000 years. Deep in the Kent countryside, a wild European bison calf was born as part of the...
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Report
How did we do that? The possibility of rapid transitionA booklet which collects stories of rapid transitions to show what we can learn from history and the present day about how people adapt to rapid change.
Report
Climate & Rapid Behaviour Change. What do we know so far?“We’ve shown in the past that surprising changes are possible in how people behave, in smoking, driving, antibiotics, and sexual health. We now know...
Story of change
When overnight, flying becomes impossible: the volcanic revelationAt the end of 2018 reported sightings of drones near a runway of the UK’s second most busy airport, Gatwick, led to the grounding or redirection of all...
Story of change
Make do and mend: the rise of repair cafesThe relationship with ‘stuff’ in high-consuming, wealthy economies is set to change. From the European Union to the United States new laws are being...
Story of change
From financial exclusion to financial revolution: the story of mobile moneyUpdate Since publishing this story of change, we have seen an interesting critique of the original paper that underpins much of the narrative, ‘The...
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...
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
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,...
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...
