The World in 2030 — If We Get There

Six Future Scenarios by the House of Beautiful Business in collaboration with Indeed Innovation

Marizanne Knoesen
Journal of Beautiful Business

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Photo: Werner du Plessis on Unsplash

In his poem “The Second Coming,” W. B. Yeats wrote:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

It certainly feels like reality rather than poetry: It’s the third month of COVID-19, and the spread is expected to widen. There’s a polarizing quest for power in the U.S. with many questions arising in terms of billionaires in politics, inequality, and real, authentic leadership. Then there’s the climate crisis we have to address, or it will compound everything else.

What once appeared unimaginable or occurring comfortably in the future has come really close, really fast. That’s what has always drawn me to scenarios: as powerful thought experiments they help us feel and imagine the good, the bad, and the ugly, before it arrives on our doorstep. Most importantly, by holding the future we desire in mind, we can move proactively to start creating it now.

As our world is crying out for us to consider where we’re going and what we can do about it, the House team and I have created a six-part series of scenarios: “The World in 2030”, with support from our partners at Indeed Innovation. Part one, “Big City Life,” is out today and explores how urban life could evolve in the coming years.

Which part of the scenario makes you feel that it’s too late, there’s no use in trying?

Maybe more importantly, which part moves you enough to contemplate doing something differently?

I would really love to know.

The danger lies in viewing these kinds of future scenarios as inevitable, in assuming that they will merely happen to us, and that we have no agency. I would argue that instead, they are immensely powerful because they offer us a way to visualize the impact of our choices and behaviors. They give us a reference point to consider what will happen if we simply continue on our current trajectory without changing anything — and what might happen if we do.

One of the best examples that I always like to share is how the residents of the Cape Town region (full disclosure: I am one!) successfully avoided “Day Zero.” The 2015–2018 drought — the worst on record — led to the very likely scenario that municipal taps were about to run dry. Avoiding that meant that everyone had to do their part, e.g. only doing laundry once a week, showering for two minutes once a day; and not flushing the toilet every single time. Was Day Zero a real threat? Yes. Did we, by working together, change that future? Yes.

On the one hand we need to accept, give in, and surrender to The Great Wave of changes that are already in motion. But rather than passively letting the waves roll over us, we must also find ways to use the elemental power that’s been “loosed” to imagine and shape the future we want.

I hope you’ll use “The World in 2030” scenarios to do just that.

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Marizanne Knoesen is the community manager at The Business Romantic Society.

The Journal is a production of The Business Romantic Society, hosts of the House of Beautiful Business.

The House can be found on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and Instagram, and in Lisbon, Portugal from October 31– November 3, 2020. Please apply for House Residency here.

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