Eco Tech

Book excerpt: The book is a seminal contribution from a leading futurist who, over the past three decades, has explored each of the most disruptive forces shaping our world today, including emerging technologies, entrepreneurship, venture investments, and industrial manufacturing. Eco Tech brings all this thinking together, fusing insight from thought leaders with the author’s own considerable experience, to explore scenarios for 2050 and discuss eco-effectiveness as an established practice for governments, corporations, startups, and individuals. Trond Arne Undheim begins by providing a brief history of sustainability and provides simple definitions for key terms including eco-efficiency, life cycle analysis, industrial ecology, cleantech, net zero, climate change, biodiversity, and carbon capture, which will enable the reader to engage confidently in eco-discussions. Undheim also explores the ambitions of regeneration and offers a new conceptual framework to facilitate future discussion around sustainable innovation. He applies this framework to green, ambitious startups and examines the way these ventures will lead the way towards an eco-effective society, drawing on stories from exciting founders who are already changing the world. Finally, the book takes a deep dive into emerging eco-innovations, including batteries, bioplastics, distributed energy, space tech, and futuristic megaprojects. The book contains clear directions on how to progress through adversity and avoid returning to the status quo. The book will be an essential guide for executives, sustainability professionals, and energy tech investors who are deeply concerned with the future and are prepared to both significantly invest in it and make behavioral changes to foster regenerative development. It will also be a great resource for students and scholars of sustainable investing and innovation.