Megatrends 2022+ – What Matters in the 2020s

Roaring 20s! With the megatrends of digitalization, sustainability and neo-ecology, New Health and knowledge culture, we're in for a new upswing in culture and science. In a short overview, we want to introduce you to the five most important megatrends of the 2020s.

Whether metaverse or green tech, next-gen AI or edutainment, we at FUTURE CANDY are looking forward to the next steps toward the future!

Megatrends: avalanches in slow motion

What are megatrends compared to the trend movements we already know? As the term suggests, this is a higher-level category. Megatrends are especially lasting and far-reaching trends that drive social and technological change. They shape all social and economic areas and reshape entire societies.

The term was coined in 1982 by the US futurist John Naisbitt, who set the long-lived currents, mostly spanning several decades, apart from short-lived, general trends. Alongside globalization, which has shaped us since the mid-1970s, digitalization and sustainability are two megatrends that are currently driving major, tangible change in our environment.

The Zukunftsinstitut defines megatrends as avalanches in slow motion. These long-term, global changes of epochal character become the blockbuster of transformation.

5 megatrends that are changing our future

Digitalization

One of the most important megatrends, impossible to ignore in the media for years and transforming our daily lives, is digitalization. Unstoppably, it drives the transformation process and makes it possible to implement innovative processes that were largely unimaginable a decade ago.

Digitalization is also classified as the 5th Kondratieff cycle. First described in 1926, this global economic wave cycle is based on the observation that a new, disruptive technology triggers profound economic change. That puts digitalization on the same innovation level as the steam engine or the railway.

Digitalization is one of the most far-reaching social and economic changes of the past decades and is a key driver of change. Under its umbrella, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, data analytics or self-tracking and New Health technologies develop, as well as many new mobility trends like autonomous driving, last-mile concepts or new logistics solutions in the IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things).

The Internet of Things is undoubtedly becoming an ever more important part of our lives. The technical components needed for connectivity, sensors, software, APIs, artificial intelligence and machine learning or big data tools, are slowly reaching mass-market maturity. In our smart homes, in the energy and transport sectors, the data-driven new world plays an ever more dominant role.

A close interplay of people, machines, software and sensors. The visionary and technology thought leader Tim O'Reilly puts it this way: "The Internet of Things is about extending human capabilities. Pushing hardware and software into all kinds of areas of life and creating previously unimagined feedback loops between devices and people." The new technological possibilities can change the world for the better. In any case, they change the world rapidly. The digital transformation is gaining enormous momentum through ever more powerful digital technologies, and the profound change processes in economy and society are a global challenge. Flexibility and transparency vs. questions of fairness or monopoly power: in times of great change lie the greatest opportunities too. Algorithms and AI, open source and innovation, it's in our hands to shape our future positively!

Reminder: you can find out which tech trends of 2022 were already presented at CES here.

Sustainability & neo-ecology

Ecological values are claiming a prominent place on the international agenda. A sustainable mindset is taking hold worldwide and creating a new global identity. Resource-efficient and sustainable business is moving from a niche idea to the center of a new green idea of prosperity. In the future, economic stability means neo-ecology.

This fundamental shift isn't only visible in the steadily growing green energy market. Whether food, clothing or cosmetics, without a sustainable eco-label brands drop noticeably in the ranking. Organic is booming: supermarkets and specialty stores set a clear market signal here too, continuously expanding their range of organic products and thus growing their revenue by 20% a year.

Zero waste! This has been a central demand on the path to a resource-friendly future not just since the Fridays for Future initiative. The focus is on recycling and upcycling processes. Even though the EU directive from 2018 aims to raise the recycling rate to 70% by 2030, that says nothing yet about the recyclate share in new production. Reusable materials require separability, something industry has to prepare for in initial production, but this process is still in its infancy.

What's urgently needed are new, ecologically sustainable materials, and innovation is in demand. It's coming from young entrepreneurs and researchers. Plastics from coffee grounds or plant residues form the basis for biodegradable packaging that breaks down within a few weeks without polluting nature. These future companies are also winning over the growing FinTech market.

Like the Hamburg startup Traceless, which closed a 2.2 million euro investment round in 2021. The compostable (and edible!) deep-tech solution developed by the founding team around Anne Lamp offers a sustainable, holistic packaging alternative to plastic.

In Skellefteå in northern Sweden, Northvolt is being built, a good example of the emerging gold-rush mood. The battery cell factory for electric cars has put green and sustainable on its agenda. An investment of 2.75 billion dollars last year makes the company, three years after its founding, ready for its 2022 IPO. The hydrogen-powered production plant in northern Sweden manufactures cost-efficiently in Europe for Europe and thus drives change forward. Or, as the Swedes put it on their homepage: Make oil history!

Whether architecture and urban planning, automotive and textiles, food production or the expansion of renewable energy, sustainability is the new guiding principle. Pragmatism and efficiency are the keys to success, on both the production and the consumer side. Innovation and new technologies are important drivers on this path to a higher quality of life.

The digital revolution is creating a new, virtual world and fundamentally changing the old, real one. Every industry is in transition, new unicorns are conquering the global stage, fueled by billion-dollar investments, and the startup scene is growing massively. This new boom is economic AND sustainable.

Zero waste, green tech, consistent circular economy, regionalization, slow culture or urban farming. Neo-ecology looks to the future with optimism!

New Health

Our quality of life should keep improving, and innovative technology optimizes it.

The health trend, which has shaped our society since the 1970s, is taking on a new dimension thanks to new technologies, a holistic approach and, not least, the recent pandemic experience. A health-oriented lifestyle becomes a sustainable lifestyle. Health literacy, self-optimization, mindfulness philosophy, fitness and prevention are powerful facets of this complex web of effects.

Detoxing, femtech, pro-aging, medical fitness or self-tracking, New Health is female, mental and holistic. But above all, the new health trend is digital. Health apps, step counters or smartwatches are now part of our everyday lives. But the new developments in sensor technology are moving beyond fitness, further onto the psychological and physiological level. CES presented some of these innovations at the start of 2022. You can find new technologies worth knowing about in our article Tech Trends 2022.

Health is more than the absence of illness and is increasingly seen holistically. The health of the individual is directly linked to the health of our planet.

Through increased connectivity, digitalization in healthcare is becoming ever more normal. This is where change is visibly taking shape.

A holistic megatrend with great potential: New Health is on the rise.

Knowledge culture

Connectivity makes it possible: knowledge is available to everyone, everywhere, with little time spent. This new reality shapes the way we deal with knowledge. Education is decentralized, education is digital.

The amount of knowledge is enormous, innovations emerge faster from cooperative structures, and in general you could say that science is being socialized and slowly losing its elitist character. So far, so democratic and so positive.

But the challenges are already on the table. The questions of the coming years put the spotlight on how we handle information and its spread. A new awareness of this pool of knowledge is also profoundly changing the world of work. Lifelong learning and continuing education in new fields of competence become the norm, and flexibly handling complex change and crises becomes a future skill. Creativity and open knowledge will shape our working lives ever more strongly.

The social component also plays a decisive role in this development. General access to digital services and, of course, the corresponding hardware are the prerequisite for digital literacy, the basic competence urgently needed in the future.

Thanks to digitalization, knowledge culture becomes a megatrend that revolutionizes the working world and everyday social life. Virtual innovations and technological gadgets become available anytime, and knowledge can be acquired more easily than ever before. And this knowledge keeps being shared, on social networks, in media or specialist forums. According to a recent Statista analysis, 3.8 million searches are made on Google every minute, 800,000 files are shared via Dropbox, 4,000 hours of new video are uploaded to YouTube and 156 million emails are sent. The amount of new available information on this planet is growing exponentially, and rising.

Knowledge explodes, becomes outdated faster and is replaced by new knowledge. Education and knowledge become the anchor point for corporate success. Digital tools support talent management, analyze and further build teams' skills. The knowledge-culture trend fuels cooperative research projects and innovation and drives change forward. From industrial to knowledge culture.

Decade of change

The Zukunftsinstitut currently defines twelve megatrends: alongside globalization, connectivity, neo-ecology, health and knowledge culture, there are mobility, New Work, silver society, security, urbanization, individualization and gender shift on the social agenda. Megatrends bundle numerous sub-trends that all interact with one another. These microtrends are cross-industry sources of inspiration and information for new ideas or business models.

Digitalization has long run through all present and future change processes and fuels transformation. Megatrends affect society, economy, science and culture. They influence and reinforce one another and reveal currents that fundamentally change the world. Slowly, but for the long term.

We're in the middle of a sustainable transformation process. The 2020s will be exciting, so let's look forward to an inspiring decade of technological innovation!

Want to hear even more about technology trends 2022? Here is our Innovation Podcast #75.