
Net Zero Carbon Cities: An integrated approach
Systemic Efficiency aims to enable a decarbonized, highly electrified and resilient city ecosystem though ultra-efficient buildings and smart energy infrastructure.
Supporting business, governments and society in building resilience to today’s challenges while undertaking the transformations necessary to deliver on the energy, materials and infrastructure needed for the future.
Today’s global energy, materials and infrastructure sectors are characterized by significant shifts that are creating new opportunities. New trends and technologies are changing energy production, delivery and consumption. In parallel, and under the current production-consumption model, world demand for raw materials could double by 2060.
Investment, innovation and public-private collaboration are needed to accelerate the transition to a more sustainable, secure and affordable energy system while optimizing the net social and economic value delivered by materials and infrastructure. Strong partnerships and commitments throughout value chains are essential for those sectors to power the systemic changes needed to deliver on the promise of a net-zero world.
Our Platform is focused on accelerating the effective transition of the energy, materials and infrastructure that build the foundations of a sustainable, resilient, and inclusive society. We bring together leaders from the electricity, oil and gas, mining and metals, chemicals, and construction industries.
Systemic Efficiency aims to enable a decarbonized, highly electrified and resilient city ecosystem though ultra-efficient buildings and smart energy infrastructure.
As technology develops at an accelerated pace, cognitive abilities and tasks that were once thought to be reserved for humans are increasingly being automated. There is a window of opport...
Africa has the world’s highest population growth, and a number of its countries are experiencing high rates of economic growth. Yet, the continent has the lowest growth in infrastructure ...
Due to global population growth and expansion of the middle class, it is expected that demand for chemicals and materials will quadruple by 2050. At the same time, achievement of the Pari...
Risk allocation and risk management are critical issues in the infrastructure delivery lifecycle. Imbalances in risk sharing in current contract structures pose a significant challenge to...
Innovation and Clean Energy is one of the challenges identified by the World Economic Forum Platform for Shaping the Future of Energy and Materials.The pace of innovation in energy has ne...
Materials Value and Productivity is one of the challenges identified by the World Economic Forum Platform for Shaping the Future of Energy and Materials.Minerals, metals, chemicals and ad...
Accelerating clean energy transitions is a global imperative for the world to address the climate emergency. The decarbonization of energy production and use will require trillions of dol...
Trillions of dollars in investment will be required to transition the global economy to net-zero emissions and avert a climate catastrophe. This represents a massive opportunity for capit...
Climate change, technological transformations, rapidly urbanizing societies and increasing political polarization are just a few of the many trends shaping the future of infrastructure. I...
Manufacturing industries are on the verge of a data-driven revolution. In the near future, they will collaborate in hyperconnected value networks employing a large variety of data‑and‑ana...
The Circular Cars Initiative (CCI) is a private/public sector collaboration focused on leveraging new technologies and business models to align the automotive industry with a 1.5C climate...
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, an international task force of designers, engineers, medical professionals, and military experts have joined forces to launch CURA, an open-source project ai...
Country Transition and Benchmarking is one of the challenges identified by the World Economic Forum Platform for Shaping the Future of Energy and Materials.The world’s transition to secur...
The Challenge The Fourth Industrial Revolution brings with it a rapidly growing need for energy to sustain global digitalization and interconnectivity, including a proliferation of connec...
Hydrogen is increasingly identified as a critical success factor for the transition to a net-zero world by 2050. However, clean hydrogen is currently not scaling fast enough to deliver on...
The Mission Possible Platform is a coalition of public and private partners working on the industry transition to set heavy industry and mobility sectors on the pathway towards net-zero e...
Challenge Ensuring effective cyber resilience across the Oil & Gas sector requires a combined and aligned multidisciplinary effort to achieve a cohesive business and digital enablemen...
Infrastructure 4.0 is an initiative of the World Economic Forum supported by the Global Infrastructure Hub (GI Hub), a G20 organization focused on driving an ambitious agenda on sustainab...
Decades of exposure to toxic air have worsened the health of communities globally. Millions have been left with respiratory and other health problems which leave them predisposed to the m...
With special thanks to Henrik Andersen, CEO of Vestas and Chair of the World Economic Forum's Electricity Industry community for leading this work in collaboration with CEOs from electric...
The power of infrastructure to shape economies and societies is enormous. Infrastructure underpins commercial life, provides vital social services and supports human interaction around th...
This paper, from the World Economic Forum’s International Energy Community in China, presents an opportunity to reflect on some of the energy industry’s successful innovations since 2010.
Two new reports from the team behind the annual Global Risks Report identify the headline risks, challenges and, encouragingly, the opportunities the world is facing as a result of the CO...
Our new guidebook exploring major questions about how to bring the Fourth Industrial Revolution to infrastructure.
The energy industry is complex, and understanding the major trends changing the industry can be challenging. Investors, policy-makers, business people and other interested stakeholders re...
Fostering Effective Energy Transition report is part of the World Economic Forum’s System Initiative on Shaping the Future of Energy. The report summarizes insights from the “Energy Trans...
Many governments are finding it difficult to finance the growing demand for essential infrastructure through public funding alone. With the significant increase of debt in many countries ...
Cyber resilience is a challenge for all organisations, but, due to its vital role as a societal backbone, it is of particular importance for the electricity ecosystem. The power grid is ...
The Forum’s National Infrastructure Acceleration (NIA) project, using a model developed and tested across its various national workstreams, designed a standardized governance structure – ...
Despite significant achievements in sustainable energy innovation and market scaling of technologies such as solar, wind energy storage and others, the rate of change is not fast enough. ...
In 2016, the World Economic Forum examined three major trends transforming the energy system: decentralization, digitalization and electrification. Building on this work, in 2017 a genera...
The first edition of the Fostering Effective Energy Transition report, prepared with analytical support from McKinsey & Company, is part of the World Economic Forum System Initiative ...
Global investment in clean energy amounted to more than 333 billion dollars in 2017 and households, businesses and governments are increasingly seeking new energy solutions due to the rea...
As an integral part of the World Economic Forum System Initiative on Shaping the Future of Energy, the Global Future Council on Energy provides vision and thought leadership. Since 2016, ...
This report examines the major trends affecting the transformation of energy and mobility systems, with a special focus on cities. Topics addressed include: electrification, decentralizat...
"Recycling our Infrastructure for Future Generations" takes a closer look at an emerging approach to financing new infrastructure, which is known as “Asset Recycling”.
· The Global Energy Architecture Performance Index Report 2017 ranks 127 countries on their ability to deliver secure, affordable, sustainable energy
The electricity landscape is a prime example of the Fourth Industrial Revolution as it undergoes a transformation, becoming more complex than ever before with rapidly evolving technologie...
In the next two decades, three game-changing themes have significant potential to impact the energy system: advanced energy acceleration, mobility revolution and energy system fragmentation.
The report shows that current instruments are too complex, lack adequate standardization and are too costly for the private sector to use. The report identifies four key areas of action –...
The Global Energy Architecture Performance Index Report 2016 ranks 126 countries on their ability to deliver secure, affordable and sustainable energy.
Wind, hydropower and the other renewable sources must match solar power's innovation curve over the past decade if they are to scale up and help us beat climate change.
Passive houses harness natural energy sources to generate – and capture – heat, reducing the need for bought-in energy.