Moving towards the Infrastructure & Sustainability of 2050
Have you thought about how Infrastructure and Sustainability will look like by 2050? It might seem like a long time ahead, but we have collected some insights and a base for future thinking. Below we present how the future of cities, housing, and environment will be shaped based on long term key trends.
Firstly, we believe that there will be more urbanities and people will be living in more megacities. This means that megacities will form dense networks of connected people, systems and objects, ensuring security, services and a range of social and physical infrastructure. Thanks to smart networks, cities are going to be cleaner, quieter, and safer.
Cities will be managed using smart connected infrastructure that provide instant information about the state of infrastructure, need for new facilities, necessary repairs and investment, congestion, etc.
At the same time, advances in energy-efficiency, storage and waste management, mean that most buildings are resource autonomous, i.e. almost completely circular in their energy and water use.
However, the number of people living alone increases due to higher mobility, longer lifespans, and changing family structure. The demand for smaller living units, micro-housing, increases. But buildings will be designed for multi-generational use, becoming hubs where several generations live, learn and work, alone, in groups or as families.
What about transportation?
Smart city transport networks will seamlessly connect various travel modes, calculating routes and times to allowing people to avoid delay and missed connections. Routes, on the ground or in the air, will communicate with vehicles to keep traffic moving constantly. Vehicles communicate in real-time among one another allowing optimal spacing and slowing for pick-up and drop-off.
The same way as with buildings, transport infrastructure will be continuously monitored by embedded sensors, checking the condition of the structure. Defects are spotted and repairs triggered immediately.
Significantly, climate changes will increase tensions around access to natural resources. In the face of rising costs due to the increased frequency and impact of climate-related disasters — and to climate migration, countries step up efforts to improve sustainable resource management and adopt treaties to protect systemically important natural environments (e.g. rainforest, ice caps, glaciers, deep oceans).
As a result, improved climate modelling and costing will bring the impact home to governments. Companies are obliged to account for their impact and digitalisation enables the levying of micro-taxes on products and services, resulting in companies and consumers shifting to more sustainable production and consumption models.
It is expected that there will be no more single-use materials. More specifically, materials science evolves with nano- and biotechnologies enabling the substitution of sustainable, fully recyclable or re-usable elements throughout value chains. From products to packaging, building materials to medical supplies, almost nothing is single-use.
Notably, technology will improve food security. For instance, new agri-solutions drawing on biotech, genetics and AI, improve crop yields and the economics of urban and local farming techniques making food available anywhere, anytime.
Consequently, food value-chains will be made more efficient and safer. A combination of improved phyto-sanitary treatments and infrastructure; AI-driven inventory and supply chain management; and smart-sensors improves the shelf life of perishable foods and prompts consumers to use food.
Moreover, we will be reducing our “foodprint” on nature. More specifically, a shared global awareness of our “foodprint”, notably the implications of intensive meat and dairy production for water and arable land use, means more people shift to animal protein alternatives. The shift is driven by the young, urban population before trickling up to older or more traditional populations.
Hydroponic techniques enable homes and large buildings to grow their own fresh food supplies, cereals, fruit and vegetables, in addition to larger scale local farms beneath or around big centres of population. Locally produced fresh food contributes to healthier lifestyles and reduces environmental stresses.
What about “Lab grown” meat, insects and plant-based meat alternatives?
Meat alternatives and insect or plant-based proteins form a large part of the global diet. They can be produced hyper-locally with almost zero environmental impact. They also offer more health advantages over traditional animal-based diets.
Large crop producing regions return to greater crop diversity to reduce the risk of monocultures of staples such as rice and wheat. Greater crop diversity compliments agritech methods to manage pesticide and herbicide-resistant pests and disease strains.
Moreover, water gets a special treatment. Groundwater is monitored carefully, and new materials used in hard infrastructure ensure that rain and flood water can run off and be collected efficiently.
What’s more, all waste-water is recycled, buildings often run on closed loop-water systems, perpetually recycling water thanks to a combination of nano-treatment and synthetic biology to remove pathogens and impurities. The same technologies also Intelligent systems free from heavy metals, nitrates, hormones, fluoride and other chemicals.
