Recipes for Systemic Change - Helsinki Design Lab

Finland 2050 – Immaterial individualismGlobalization has taken new forms compared to 2010, since the costs oftravel and transportation have been raised to compensate for the environmentalimpacts. Global trade in goods has diminished but global exchangecontinues strongly via highly developed virtual channels. Many productshave become immaterial: newspapers, books, music and games, for example,are sold only via the Internet in electronic format.The world economy has managed to accommodate the economic setbackscaused by the impacts of climate change and most EU countries havepositive GDP growth. China has taken the lead in the world market, andthe economic centre of the world has moved to Asia. Finland has succeededto have 3-6% GDP growth for the last decade. The main exports are biomedicinesand intelligent textiles; both successes rely on the intelligent use ofwood fibres and cellulose, resources that Finnish forests produce plenty of.Finland gains advantage within the EU from its close location to Russia.Contacts and exchange with Russia have increased significantly comparedto the beginning of the century. Most Finnish exports are sold to Russia.Many Finns work in Russian companies and commute daily from Helsinkito St. Petersburg with fast, environmentally friendly trains that cover thedistance in ninety minutes —a journey that took over three hours with thenew fast train connection opened in 2010.The service sector continues to be the main employer, although thepublic sector has diminished. Some of the universality principles of a welfarestate have been altered; for example, citizens are now encouraged totake better care of their health and well-being by providing better pensionsand social benefits to those who commit themselves to certain healthprogrammes related to obesity, coronary diseases, alcohol overuse, etc.Services and medical innovations related to keeping people healthy form anotable part of business sector.There have been radical changes in production and consumption patternsglobally, due to environmental concerns. All citizens now have anatural resource consumption quota, which limits the amount of naturalresources they can consume per year. Excess quotas can be sold, and thetrade in quotas is managed by the Stock Exchange. The introduction of apersonal quota system has caused a redistribution of income: less wealthypeople who have consumed fewer natural resources are in a position to sellpart of their quotas and increase their consumption, whereas wealthy peoplewho want to maintain at least part of their previous lifestyle have beenforced to buy quotas. Personal mitigation strategies have reflected the valuesof individuals—the diversification of lifestyles has decreased in materialrespects but increased in immaterial ones.263