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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Reset series
Pandemic epiphaniesEat, sleep, work, shop. Sometimes in consumer societies it seems there’s not much more to life. In pre-pandemic days, the old economic system wanted...
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
Large-tired and tested: how Europe’s cargo bike roll-out is deliveringAcross Europe, as cities get to grips with road congestion, air pollution and meeting climate targets, the manual and electric cargo bike is rapidly...
Resource
Journal article: the business of rapid transitionAs long as there have been attempts to develop policy on climate change at national, regional and international levels, businesses have been involved in...
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.
Story of change
From passive consumers to active producers – how crisis restrictions open opportunities for creative culture shiftsAs the global pandemic continues to reshape whole economies and the lives of populations, normal consumer behaviour has been suddenly altered. The focus has...
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
Converting industry – how rapid transition happens in crises and upheavalsA brewer of ‘craft’ beer starts making sanitising hand gel and a car manufacturer converts one of its factories so it can make medical face masks. Just...
Reset series
Commuting (not) to a healthier and happier futureThe global pandemic not only transformed how we work, but also where and how we get to work. For many people that were instructed to work from home, and...
