Related papers: The Prosumer Economy -- Being Like a Forest

Automation and industrial mass production, particularly in sectors with low wages, have harmful consequences that contribute to widening wealth disparities, excessive pollution, and worsened working conditions. Coupled with a mass…

This study explores the potential of the cybernetic method of inquiry for the problem of natural resource governance. The systems way of thinking has already enabled scientists to gain considerable headway in framing global environmental…

While there has been substantial empirical work identifying factors that influence the contribution to, and use of open source software, we have as yet little theory that identifies the key constructs and relationships that would allow us…

We introduce the logistic model of consumption growth, which captures a negative feedback loop preventing an unlimited growth of consumption due to finite biophysical resources of our planet. This simple dynamic model allows for derivation…

We make a case for "planetary computing" -- infrastructure to handle the ingestion, transformation, analysis and publication of global data products for furthering environmental science and enabling better informed policy-making. We draw on…

In recent years environmental and energy conservation issues have taken the central theme in the global business arena. The reality of rising energy cost and their impact on international affairs coupled with the different kinds of…

Explaining biodiversity in nature is a fundamental problem in ecology. An outstanding challenge is embodied in the so-called Competitive Exclusion Principle: two species competing for one limiting resource cannot coexist at constant…

The transition to a circular economy is pivotal for industrial decarbonization, particularly in the energy-intensive steel sector. While recycling scrap via electric arc furnaces offers a low-carbon alternative to primary production, the…

Sharing economy is a transformative socio-economic phenomenon built around the idea of sharing underused resources and services, e.g. transportation and housing, thereby reducing costs and extracting value. Anticipating continued reduction…

Overpopulation and environmental degradation due to inadequate resource-use are outcomes of human's ecosystem engineering that has profoundly modified the world's landscape. Despite the age-old concern that unchecked population and economic…

Sustainable consumption aims to minimize the environmental and societal impact of the use of services and products. Over-consumption of services and products leads to potential natural resource exhaustion and societal inequalities as access…

Economic growth is often associated with diversification of economic activities. Making a product in a country is dependent on having, and acquiring, the capabilities needed to make the product, making the process path-dependent. We derive…

Ecosystems are complex systems, currently experiencing several threats associated with global warming, intensive exploitation, and human-driven habitat degradation. Such threats are pushing ecosystems to the brink of collapse. Because of a…

Complex systems with nonreciprocal interactions are often stratified into layers. Ecosystems are a prime example, where species at one trophic level grow by consuming those at another. Yet the dynamical consequences of such stratified…

Persistent economic competition is often justified as a mechanism of innovation, efficiency, and welfare maximization. Yet empirical evidence across disciplines reveals that competition systematically generates fragility, inequality, and…

Humans are increasingly stressing ecosystems via habitat destruction, climate change and global population movements leading to the widespread loss of biodiversity and the disruption of key ecological services. Ecosystems characterized…

Not too long ago, offshoring was considered a panacea for many U.S. companies to achieve economic sustainability. Offshoring also created an unnecessary movement of goods between the point of consumption and the point of sourcing and hence…

We examine a green transition policy involving a tax on brown goods in an economy where preferences for green consumption consist of a constant intrinsic individual component and an evolving social component. We analyse equilibrium dynamics…

Modelling how populations respond to habitat loss is crucial for understanding ecosystem stability, especially when positive interactions among resource species, such as plant-plant facilitation, play a key role. Habitat loss not only…

While the benefits of common and public goods are shared, they tend to be scarce when contributions are provided voluntarily. Failure to cooperate in the provision or preservation of these goods is fundamental to sustainability challenges,…