cover image: Update to Limits to Growth - Comparing the World3 model with empirical data

20.500.12592/7t8mc3

Update to Limits to Growth - Comparing the World3 model with empirical data

3 Nov 2020

With Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria top of mind for companies and stakeholders around the world, Gaya Herrington, an advisor to the Club of Rome and a KPMG Director, published this paper in the Yale Journal of Industrial Ecology comparing the World3 model created in the ‘70’s by MIT scientists - and published as Limits to Growth - with empirical data. What happens if humanity keeps pursuing economic growth without regard for environmental and social costs? In this day and age of data abundance, can we create an optimal scenario or are the impacts of the past few decades too late to change now? Read further to understand if there is a window of opportunity and what we can do. "Given the unappealing prospect of collapse, I was curious to see which scenarios were aligning most closely with empirical data today. After all, the book that featured this world model was a bestseller in the 70s, and by now we’d have several decades of empirical data which would make a comparison meaningful. But to my surprise I could not find recent attempts for this. So I decided to do it myself."
collapse world3 industrial ecology systems thinking limits to growth system dynamics modeling club of rome

Authors

Gaya Herrington

Published in
Switzerland

Tables