Resource revolution
Can innovation help meet ever-growing demand for resources?
Circular Economy
Article
How impact investing can reach the mainstream
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Clear measurement standards, high-grade operations, specialized products, and more training for entrepreneurs can make impact...
Article
Developing products for a circular economy
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Cross-functional collaboration and customer-focused design thinking can help companies reap more value from the energy and resources...
Podcast
Why the circular economy is all about retaining value
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By reassessing where waste is most prevalent in their value chains, companies can learn to close those loops to get more from...
Energy
Article - McKinsey Quarterly
Three game changers for energy
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New sources, mobility, and industry fragmentation are set to disrupt the system.
Article
The future of second-generation biomass
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To make bioconversion commercially competitive, the industry needs swift advances.
Article
Energy 2050: Insights from the ground up
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How will the world satisfy its need for energy? McKinsey research offers a perspective.
Food & Water
Article
How big data will revolutionize the global food chain
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Advanced analytics opens vast untapped potential for farmers, investors, and emerging economies to reduce the cost of goods sold....
Article
Pursuing the global opportunity in food and agribusiness
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Satisfying the world’s food needs opens the door to investment throughout the value chain.
Article
Rethinking the water cycle
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How moving to a circular economy can preserve our most vital resource.
Mobility
Report
An integrated perspective on the future of mobility
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A number of social, economic, and technological trends will work together to disrupt mobility, potentially creating three new...
Interview
Rolling along: Bicycles, mobility, and the future of cities
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In an interview, Jay Walder of Motivate discusses how new services and technology are changing how city residents are getting...
Article
Urban mobility at a tipping point
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As more of the world’s cities become congested and polluted, new business models and technologies are emerging to solve...
Waste
Article
Rethinking the future of plastics
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A new report finds that applying circular-economy principles could dramatically reshape the economics of this workhorse of the...
Article
Managing waste in emerging markets
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Growing economic prosperity is rapidly increasing waste volumes in emerging countries. We discuss how governments can react to...
Report
Saving the ocean from plastic waste
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Editor’s note: The 2015 Stemming the Tide report you are looking for is no longer available, following the Ocean...
Expert perspectives
Commentary
Short-termism and the threat from climate change
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By not acting now, we’re allowing the future costs of the greenhouse-gas crisis to compound. Eventually, the consequences...
Book Excerpt - McKinsey Quarterly
Perspectives on the long term
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What will it take to shift markets and companies away from a short-term way of thinking?
Interview
Navigating the circular economy: A conversation with Dame Ellen MacArthur
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The yachtswoman and founder of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation discusses her vision for a global economy in which scarce resources...
From our archives
Article
Mobilizing for a resource revolution
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Over the next quarter century, the rise of three billion more middle-class consumers will strain natural resources.
Interview
How resource scarcity is driving the third Industrial Revolution
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The authors of the new book Resource Revolution argue that high resource prices are spurring innovations powerful enough...
Article - McKinsey Quarterly
Are you ready for the resource revolution?
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Meeting increasing global demand requires dramatically improving resource productivity. Yet technological advances mean companies...
Article - McKinsey Quarterly
Mobilizing for a resource revolution
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Over the next quarter century, the rise of three billion more middle-class consumers will strain natural resources.
Interview - McKinsey Quarterly
Voices on the resource revolution
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Historian Niall Ferguson, the CEO of a water services company, and Boeing’s lead environmental executive reflect on the resource...
Featured publications
Issue
The circular economy: Moving from theory to practice
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A special collection of articles about the transition taking place as companies use circular-economy concepts to capture more...
Issue
McKinsey on Sustainability & Resource Productivity, Number 4
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This publication offers some ideas about whether—and how—the global economy can be nudged onto a less resource-intensive...