CEOs envision 2050 world

High-calibre participants came to talk about their vision for the world in 2050 at this year's annual meeting at the European School of Management and Technology in Berlin on Thursday (3.7.2014).

"There isn't going to be any final recipe for what 2050 will be like," said ESMT President Jörg Rocholl, in an effort to lower expectations. But he hoped that at least some broad outline of the coming world might be sketched.

Refugee streams and natural disasters

Michael Diekmann, CEO of giant financial conglomerate Allianz, put forward two scenarios. In one possible future mid-century world, everyone would have access to education, energy, food, and health servcies. That would be a better world than today's.

In Diekmann's other scenario, the world would suffer worse from natural disasters, streams of refugees displaced by war or climate changes, and poverty than it does today.

Insurance is a major line of business for Allianz, and when he looks at the two scenarios from his professional perspective, Diekmann tends toward the view that the pessimistic scenario is more realistic. Privately, however, he says he sees things "more positively".

BASF CEO Bock puts in a good word for plastics

The term 'sustainability' has seen so much use in recent years that it has almost fallen out of fashion. Yet it came up with great frequency at ESMT's conference.

Kurt Bock, CEO of German chemical industry leader BASF, said that sustainability "not only refers to environmental health, but also social and economic aspects".

In his view, BASF has already achieved the goal of "climate-friendly" operations. He also argued that plastic wrapping is often environmentally better than other options, such as glass, though he acknowledged that much of the public doesn't see it that way.

Bock was critical of the German public's fear of allowing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into the food supply. Genetically modified maize and grains, he said, are more robust and result in higher yields at harvesttime.

Peter Bakker, president of WBCSD, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, chimed in that higher yields could help overcome the problem that a child dies every six seconds.

"Too much food is thrown away, like here today at the buffet, because there's more than we can eat," he said. Bakker, whose organization helps companies develop sustainable development initiatives, challenged the audience to "rethink capitalism".

He added that students at ESMT and elsewhere should not only be taught how a corporation's stock market value can be increased, but also how companies can avoid damaging the environment. "Today's world is not sustainable," he said.

Agriculture will get even more important

Good environmental performance isn't a concern separate from the main business for corporations - it's a normal part of the business model. That's self-evident, in the view of Theo Freye, CEO of the German agricultural machinery manufacturing company Claas.

"Today's farmer is a manager who is responsible for controlling, marketing, and new technology adoption, as well as farm operations," he said. Given a projected population of nine billion people by mid-century, it's clear to Freye that agriculture is an industry with a great future.

He envisions a near-term future in which GPS-enabled machines out in the farm fields communicate with each other electronically by smartphone and satellite, and high-resolution sensors monitor crops, resulting in improved productivity and efficiency.

There were quite a few Chinese in the audience, many of them at ESMT to take part in management courses. China's population, estimated at 1.4 billion, grew by more than 36 million people in 2013 - more than the entire population of Canada. They may have found the discussion about agricultural productivity improvements particularly relevant.