A new initiative to help harness Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies to transform how the world tackles environmental issues has been launched this week at the World Economic Forum's first Sustainable Development Impact Summit. 

The 4IR for the Earth initiative to identify, fund and scale innovative new ventures, partnerships and business models is a collaboration between the World Economic Forum, Stanford University and PwC, with funding from the Mava Foundation.

This includes identifying the investment opportunities for commercial, impact and blended finance; supporting governments to develop policies; and assisting entrepreneurs to implement innovative solutions at scale.

Dr Celine Herweijer, partner, sustainability & climate change, PwC UK, commented:

“Companies are still in the early stages of grappling with what the 4th industrial revolution’s technological advances means for their business.”

“The challenge for investors, entrepreneurs and governments is not just to help unlock technology breakthroughs for urgent challenges like climate change, but to mainstream the environmental and social impact considerations into wider technological advances. This means the positive impacts on people and the planet can be maximised.”

The initiative comes as technology companies come under increasing scrutiny and the realization that some advances could also have unintended negative consequences for the environment and society.

These include e-waste, the energy consumption of the vast and rapidly growing network of energy-consuming devices, and unsustainable demand for materials like cobalt, nickel, and lithium, through to the impacts of automation on jobs, data privacy, cyber security, and bio-technology.

“The Fourth Industrial Revolution provides an opportunity to fix the world’s burgeoning environmental challenges – but they need to be tackled by design,” said Dominic Waughray, Head of Public-Private Partnerships and Member of the Executive Committee, World Economic Forum. 

“It is possible that a tipping point of widespread innovation to tackle some of the Earth’s most urgent challenges is within humanity’s grasp. There is great potential – and increasing interest – in exploring how innovations could also be applied to improve our environmental and natural resource security, including through technology and system innovations that we might not yet be able to even imagine.”

In the coming months the 4IR for the Earth team will produce a series of Insight reports to highlight specific opportunities for applying 4IR innovations to environmental solutions in climate change, oceans, biodiversity, cities, air pollution, food systems, water resources and sanitation.

The PwC report Innovation for the Earth published earlier this year examined how ten technological innovations including artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, robots, Internet of Things (IoT), cloud technology and advanced materials could come together to enable the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions; clean power, smart transport systems, sustainable production and consumption, sustainable land use, smart cities and homes.

The 4IR Initiative will also facilitate new networks of practitioners to co-design and innovate for action on the environment in each of these areas, together with developing a public-private accelerator for action to identify and accelerate a portfolio of innovative ventures, partnerships and finance instruments.

Click here to download Innovation for the Earth