"MIPS and ecological rucksacks in designing the future"

Could technology provide goods and services that offer undiminished end-use satisfaction with substantially less natural resources than is the case today? The answer is yes. It can ! It is a question of engineering intelligence how much and what kind of energy and mass one invests for generating a certain quantity of value or utility. A service oriented knowledge society, supported by (dematerialized) information technology, can go a long way to replace mass and energy by brain-power. In fact, how else can growth be had on a planet with limited resources in the face of a growing population with increasing demands?