We live in an exciting and contradictory, but also energetic and promising, society that is increasingly ‘ramshackled’ with a confusing number of developments reinforcing and simultaneously counteracting each other. The corona pandemic and geopolitical conflicts have resulted in rapidly...

In 1972, the Club of Rome published The Limits to Growth report. In this chapter, I argue not that limits to growth are the root cause of many contemporary global issues, but that economic growtheconomicgrowth is. Staying within the limits entails that we need to degrow. I also argue that...

This chapter aims to provide an overview of the different perspectives and related discourses on digital technology, and the use of it in organizations and society at large. In academia and practice, the normative discourse is the most dominant and most used discourse. Despite its emphasis on...

This chapter addresses the historical, conceptual, and theoretical development of the concept of the circular economycircular economy (CE). The essence of the CE is value preservationvaluepreservation as the economic basis of value creationvaluecreation, organised in material loops. The CE is no...

Bioeconomybioeconomy is receiving increasing attention as an alternative to a global transition to sustainable fossil-free development. The sustainable and circular bioeconomy bioeconomy has a major role to play here in aligning the economy with the biosphere as it responds to the environmental...

The terms collaborative and sharing economy hold the promise of more sustainable and social societies, where resources are better utilised, strangers get acquainted and new collaborations emerge. Collaboration is motivated by a shift to values seeking to go beyond an overcompetitive,...

The Self-Production Economyeconomyself-production self-production economyas a trend is based on the availability and accessibility of digital design digitaldesignand manufacturing technology to a wide range of individuals. Such technology allows them to create their own products with the quality...

This chapter discusses the Internet of Things (IoT) Internet of Things (IOT)and the Internet of Services (IoS) Internet of Services (IoS) in the context of socio-economic transition economictransitionsocio-economic transitionsbeginning with a brief background and development of the current...

This final chapter provides a critical analysis of the six discussed trends by means of ontologicalontological, epistemologicalepistemological and methodological considerations. To determine the state of our world, we should start with a reconsideration of actors, including non-human actors, and...