There is now scientifically-driven consensus on the salient fact that current human consumption requires approximately 1.5 planets to sustain it. Nearly half of the world’s population consists of developing nations aspiring to the living standards of the West, which combined with surging global population growth, can only intensify the ecological pressure on the globe. Framing things in perspective, it took 18 centuries for the world’s population to reach 1 billion and only 200 years to grow from 1 billion to 6 billion. By the middle of the 21st century, world population is projected to reach nearly 10 billion.

The global population explosion and rapid advancement of developing nations is very real and poses serious and broad implications for, amongst other things, energy security, sustainable food supply, clean water supply, waste, health and climate change. We are now undertaking significant investments in the fields of renewable energy, clean technology and energy efficiency which could prove disruptive to current economic and business models as we “green” the globe. This investment focus coupled with the accelerating development of rapidly advancing technologies could provide for solutions to our most pressing challenges, and in doing so, sharply increase the exponent of economic growth that could dwarf that of the industrial revolution.

We believe many of the innovations that will trigger this technological revolution will be conceived not by large established corporations but by the ingenuity, resourcefulness and leadership of entrepreneurs.