What if your bathroom acted as a GP service – discreetly screening your urine and saliva, connecting to a microchip inside you to measure vital signs against your DNA, and then creating personalised health and dietary recommendations?
A great idea, but it seems a long way away. Or so we think. Actually, the beginnings of this technology already exist and by 2030 it could be a reality.
Long-range projections of economic, social and environmental trends are regularly used by businesses and political institutions, but consumers themselves are frequently left out of the conversation. The ‘bathroom GP’ is just one of five imagined products and services that Forum for the Future came up with in collaboration with consumer body Which? for a recent report called ‘Consumers in 2030’.
By looking at detailed historical analysis of consumer trends from the mid-1950s to the present and modelling these trends forwards to 2030, the report predicts that UK consumers in 2030 will be living in a world where resource scarcity and rising commodity prices have become the norm. In particular, this is most likely to affect those in the lower to middle-income earning brackets: 65.3% of household income will be spent on essentials by 2025, which is higher than in 1964 when comparable records began.
Other concepts include a ‘rechargeable kids system’, a molecular modeller, crowd-house mortgages and the waterless washing machine.
Consumer Futures 2020
We live in a world of consumption; for our economy to grow it requires consumers to buy more, but we are already using more than the planet can replenish. Add to this the unprecedented challenges that we face today – such as climate change, loss in biodiversity, rapid population growth and rising social inequalities – and it is clear we need to adopt more sustainable economic methods to continue to grow.
When planning for the future, scenarios are an invaluable resource. Consumer Futures, developed by Forum for the Future, Unilever and Sainsbury’s created four scenarios of potential consumer behaviour in 2020. These were not predictions or desired futures, but were entirely plausible scenarios designed to show opportunities where businesses can adapt to grow or start acting now to create a more desirable future.
These scenarios are influenced by future factors including those which seem to be the most unpredictable yet have great impact on consumers, how prosperous the economy will be and how much control consumers would want. They were based on UK consumption patterns, but with strong input from global trends and are therefore relevant to Europe and the USA.
Amanda Sourry, Chairman of Unilever UK & Ireland said: “The old model of ever greater consumption, with growth at any price, is broken. Companies that succeed in the future will be those that reduce their environmental impact whilst increasing their social and economic impacts.”
There is also an accompanying toolkit which includes six sketched-up products and services for each scenario and a set of personas which can be used to analyse the scenarios from different consumer perspectives. These can be used by businesses to help engage their teams, clients and value chains on strategy and innovation for sustainability.
For more information, search for ‘Consumer Futures’ at: www.forumforthefuture.org
