The times they are a-changing: Making the transition toward a sustainable economy

Significant changes are ahead of us: most notably, the world's population is projected to increase by almost one billion people within the next decade and the global middle class is expected to nearly triple by 2030. These trends add pressure to the world economic system and environment: greenhouse gas emissions keep growing at global scale, materials and energy sources are fast approaching their physical limits, and the amount of waste produced under the current system seems to be reaching a new peak. Against this background, a transition from a society heavily based on mass consumption, uncontrolled waste generation, and heavy fossil-fuels exploitation toward one based on resource-efficiency, new production and consumption behaviours, waste reduction, reuse, and valorization, seems a desirable and much-needed feat. This change involves a paradigm shift, which goes beyond technological change - it involves big societal and institutional changes as much as the development of radically new technologies and would give rise, in a long-term perspective, to the beginning of a new long wave of sustained (and sustainable) growth. (c) 2016 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd