Urban 95 Evening – And A Dalek En Route

If the Triple Bottom Line was designed to capture value creation (and destruction) in economic, social and environmental terms, then a key part of our rapidly evolving Tomorrow’s Capitalism Inquiry involves taking our ‘trinoculars’ and turning them on the future—specifically the next deca

With the Inquiry still in exploratory mode, we are keeping all channels open. But three key themes are emerging: (1) doing business in the Anthropocene; (2) making sense of the shift in the centre of gravity of the global economy to Asia; and, (3), something of a wild card, how Adolescence—the stressful period where the world’s children will love into adulthood in the context of growing global challenges.

Some 1.8 billion people worldwide are now aged between 10 and 24. With adolescence turbulent enough in its own terms, how do we help these young people cope with wider turbulence—and help prepare them to drive more sustainable forms of development?

And in that context, thanks to a long-standing friend and colleague Patrin Watanatada, I was thrilled to take part in a fascinating event hosted by the Bernard van Leer Foundation and Arup this evening. The theme of the event is summarised in the slide below. A crucial question—and one that we will extend to the world’s adolescents, on whose shoulders the future will increasingly ride.