Category Archives: forecasting
The climate crisis has made the idea of a better future impossible to imagine
5 Mega-Trends (World Economic Forum)
The environmental costs of iPhone culture (Probable, Possible and Preferable Futures)
By Lottie Limb • Updated: 22/09/2021 – 17:15
Millions of new iPhone 13s will be wending their way to excited customers this week, with the new model’s release on Friday.
Its new and improved features include a smaller carbon footprint: the iPhone 13 represents 64kg CO2e in greenhouse gases compared to 72kg CO2e for the equivalent iPhone 12.
But trading in your old smartphone for the newest model is the worst thing you could do. According to Apple’s own metrics, 81 per cent of the phone’s lifecycle carbon emissions are released during production.
The energy required to mine the rare materials for iPhones is huge. According to one report, “buying a new phone takes as much energy as recharging and operating a smartphone for an entire decade.”
Resisting the urge to own the latest iPhone won’t reverse emissions for the products hitting the shelves on Friday, but it will help to limit how many phones are made in the future.
730 hours of violence
730 hours of violence is an exhibition that aims to build critical discussions with people about how we collectively see and relate to new paradigms of violence.
Violence has always been a part of human history, but today it presents itself in ways we never could have imagined. Technology, capitalism, new urban lifestyles and the commodification of security have provided violence with a solid ground from which to flourish. It evolves with us, taking up new spaces wherever we go. If we want to tackle the challenges these new violences present we first need to understand how they have come to be normalised.
Sustainability in the Pandemic Age
We use applied semiotics and cultural anthropology to understand how meaning is changing. This report applies the method to understanding sustainability in the Pandemic Age, framing the words and trends we are seeing into meaning spaces. Each meaning space fuels the next. The interplay is critical because meaning thrives in layers. Our analysis demonstrates the diversity of schemes existing within each unique layer. Sustainability is a vast, complex topic. Design initiatives need to know where they live within the bigger story. Learn more about the report
United Nations #SDGMoment #UNGA
The SDG Moment serves to place an annual spotlight on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and will be held at the beginning of the United Nation’s General Assembly’s High-Level Week. It takes place as the world experiences a deeply uneven response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which risks creating a two-tier recovery with significant implications for the advancement of the SDGs, especially in developing countries.
