Digitisation

The term digitization covers all forms of technically networked digital communication such as broadband communication, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, Big Data, e-commerce, smart home or Industry 4.0.

Climate & Energy

The megatrend climate and energy is one of the most omnipresent trends of our time. The last time the global temperature was as high as it is today was 100.000 years ago. The concentration of CO2 was last at today's level three to four million years ago.

Resource Scarcity

We humans consume more natural resources than are available to us. They include finite materials (e.g. minerals, ores for industrial metals, phosphorus, sand, fossil groundwater, etc.), renewable resources (e.g. food raw materials, fish stocks), as well as the quality of the soil, the health of the plant and animal world and biodiversity.

Urbanisation

Urbanization is the spread of urban forms of life. On the one hand, this can be expressed in the growth of cities, on the other hand, by infrastructural development of rural regions comparable to urban standards and by changed social behaviour of the inhabitants of rural areas.

Automation

Automatization is the technology by which a process or procedure is performed with minimal human assistance. It is the use of various control systems for operating equipment such as machinery, processes in factories, boilers and heat treating ovens, switching on telephone networks, steering and stabilization of ships, aircraft and other applications and vehicles.

Consumer Society

In consumer societies the satisfaction of needs and pleasure is possible through consumption. This megatrend has numerous positive and negative interdependencies between economy, society and environment.