Collective Awareness Platforms: Engines for Sustainability and Ethics

The world´s wealth, as measured by GDP, has been steadily growing for the last 100 years or so. But today there is more and more evidence of crisis in our world, in all areas: finance, environment, society. The causes are related to the lack of sustainability of our current model for growth and development. Simply put, the natural resources of this planet (Fig. 1) cannot sustain a population of 7+ billion people, on the basis of current modes of living. Infinite and unsustainable growth (economic as well as demographic), which often has been sought to boost the power and near-term prosperity of nations, is now at the root of the multi-faceted crisis of our “knowledge society.” Is there a way to turn this weakness back into an opportunity?