Industry in the Age of Nature: A Race Against Collapse?

Vincent Petit and Mike Rosenberg

Chapter 4 in The Next Industrial Revolution:A New Age for Innovation in Industry, 2023, pp 89-117 from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

Abstract: So far, I have reviewed two of the three key drivers of innovation I introduced earlier. I first described the massive opportunities for industry efficiency, stemming from a variety of possible optimizations in energy and material supplies, capital and labor productivity, supply chains, transport, and consumption. Energy and material supplies optimization appears to be a significant opportunity in most sectors, mostly in primary industries, which by nature are more energy- and resource-intensive. Capital productivity is another opportunity and a complex undertaking in a context of varying demand and the necessary flexibility that industrial operations must maintain as a result. And so is labor productivity, the development of which in the last decades was largely a result of offshoring industrial operations to countries with lower labor costs. Integrated supply chains also play a critical role, as industries are largely interconnected with one another. A final good is often the complex assembly of a variety of intermediary products, which have to be manufactured themselves. Transport systems are also unevenly optimized across regions. Finally, and maybe even more importantly, the biggest inefficiency in our industry is the way we consume goods, literally throwing away billions of dollars in landfills every year…

Keywords: Industry Revolution; Innovation; Decarbonization and Climate Change and Environment; Circularity; Productivity; Resiliency; Greenhouse Gas; Materials and Resources; Digital Technologies; Internet of Things; New Energy Technologies and Electrification; Nano- and Biotechnologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 O3 Q4 Q43 Q48 Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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