Reports and Publications

A partial list in chronological order – the most recent first. Additional papers can be found on Academia.edu (Academia-HardinTibbs) and ResearchGate.net (ResearchGate-HardinTibbs).

The Global Cyber Game

This report was published by the Defence Academy of the UK in 2013. It offers a systematic way of thinking about cyberpower and its use by a range of global players. It emphasizes the value of the civilian Internet, and its critical contribution to economic growth and social development, as key things that Internet militarization should aim to protect. The report is also available for download from the UK Defence Academy website. Here is a one page summary of the key innovation described in the report: the Cyber Gameboard.

The Emergence of the Transmodern City

This speculative article for in-house architecture magazine D&A issue 17 in 2012 looks at the future adaptation and evolution of the city towards sustainability as a function of global cultural change. Two waves of change based on shifting values could shape architecture and urban design far into the future.

Changing Cultural Values

Modernity is in decline, and is being eclipsed by the new values of transmodernity. This paper, which forecasts an imminent tipping point in cultural values, was published in the March 2011 edition of the Journal of Futures Studies (Vol 15, No 3).

What Kind of Crisis is it?

A paper co-authored with Andrew Curry of The Futures Company, exploring the global financial crisis as a ‘crisis of crises’, published in the March 2010 edition of the Journal of Futures Studies (Vol 14, No 3).

Thinking About the Future of Food

A set of scenarios developed for the Chatham House Food Supply Project in 2008 that helped to reframe government and industry thinking about the future UK food supply during the 2008 reversal of a 30-year downtrend in food prices.
Thinking About the Future of Food, scenario report, May 2008
Food Futures – Rethinking UK Strategy, the full report, January 2009.

A Return to Being Human

A 2009 white paper that explores a shift of perspective on what it means to be human. This paper also appeared as an article in the online publication Reality Sandwich.

The Value Loop

The Value Loop is a proposed ecologically-inspired concept for business value-creation. This appeared as a chapter contributed to The International Handbook on Environmental Technology Management (Edward Elgar 2006), edited by Dora Marinova, Head of the Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy at Murdoch University in Australia. The value loop idea also appeared in simplified form in a piece published by Strategy+Business in 2007.

A Modern Day Moses

This is an enthusiastic review of a presentation on global prospects given by Hardin Tibbs in Johannesburg in 2007. The reviewer, a magazine columnist, compares Hardin not only to Moses but even Al Gore. It appeared in the July 2007 edition of AutoInsight magazine.

Interactivity and the Open Society

A July 2004 article in the online publication PlaNetwork Journal that explores the importance of interactivity as a principle of online participation. It includes a set of scenarios for the future of the digital commons.

The Augmented Social Network

This 2003 paper exploring the need for persistent digital identity, to build trust into the next generation internet, is the result of a two-year process involving an interdisciplinary group of 25 professionals, the Link Tank, who met in California between 2000 and 2002 (see page 75 of the report for the list of participants).

Saving the World Slowly

A first-hand impression of the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) that took place in Johannesburg, South Africa, from August 26 to September 4, 2002.

Global Storm Warning

Transcript of a presentation delivered in Auckland to the New Zealand Public Service Senior Management Conference in October 2001, one month after 9/11. This was one of a number of similar presentations I made internationally in the years just before and after 2000 on the theme of a coming global crisis and where it could lead.

The Technology Strategy of the Sustainable Corporation

A chapter contributed to Sustainability, The Corporate Challenge of the 21st Century (Allen & Unwin Australia, 2000), edited by Dexter Dunphy, Director of the AGSM Centre for Corporate Change at the University of New South Wales.

Towards an Optimistic Future

An exploratory piece written in 2000 and posted online by The Arlington Institute, that explores the idea of a normative global objective and strategy. This definition of an optimistic outcome for the world future was tested with a number of audiences worldwide and appears to have international appeal.

Global Scenarios for the Millennium

An article originally published in Yes! Magazine in the spring of 1998, in anticipation of the year 2000. The online version lacks the figures that appear in the original printed edition, and in the PDF that can be downloaded here.

Making the Future Visible

A paper presented in September 1999 to the Australian Public Service Futures Group in Canberra, exploring the idea that when we think about the future we are essentially dealing with a psychological space.

Sustainability

A review of the concept of sustainability through a future oriented lens. Different paths of transition to sustainability and various scenarios for future sustainability are explored. A study commissioned by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) in Palo Alto, California in the mid-1990s and released in this public version by Global Business Network in January 1999 as one of their Deeper News publications.

The Future of the Transport System

A paper on the future of transport presented to the ARRB (formerly the Australian Road Research Board) 1998 transport conference, drawing on a number of scenario studies carried out for Australian state transport departments in the late 1990s, plus some blue-sky thinking about the future of transport. A similar paper, ‘Global change and the future of transport’ was published in Road & Transport Research, Volume 7, Number 2, June 1998

Human Ecostructure

An article published in the Whole Earth Review in the Summer 1998 issue, guest edited by ecologist Peter Warshall. (See printed page 61, or page 63 in the viewer.)

Pierre Wack

A description of Pierre Wack’s approach to scenario development in this commemorative publication produced by GBN after Pierre’s death in 1997. Pierre was the analyst who introduced scenario-based planning to the Royal Dutch/Shell group in the 1970s. (See PDF page 9 or print page 5)

Quantum Weirdness

This thought-leadership piece was commissioned from GBN by Japanese advertising company Dentsu. It was published in Japanese translation in their in-house journal in 1992.

How Many 'Amorys' Does it Take to Save the World?

A report about a March 1992 GBN Worldview meeting in Aspen, Colorado to discuss sustainability. In attendance were Amory and Hunter Lovins, Donella Meadows, Anders Wijkman, Joel Garreau, Danny Hillis, William Joy, Kevin Kelly, Art Kleiner, and Joseph Romm among others, plus GBN’s founders and a cross-section of its corporate members.

Industrial Ecology: An Environmental Agenda for Industry

A seminal white paper on industrial ecology originally published by Arthur D. Little Inc. (ADL) based on work in the late 1980s, and republished by Global Business Network (GBN) in 1993.

Industrial Ecology: An Agenda for Environmental Management

A 1992 paper introducing the concept of industrial ecology, which involves the redesign of industrial infrastructure to make it compatible with natural ecological functioning. This paper was based on a 1991 Arthur D. Little white paper on industrial ecology.