Humanity’s race with itself involving possible dematerialisation is a strategically essential contest to understand for management of the environmental consequences of consumption.

In this lecture, technological change expert and materials scientist, Chris Magee, Professor at the Institute for Data, Systems and Society at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will discuss the current evidence about how this race is unfolding. He also discusses an explicit model for technological change that shows a “double-edged sword” behaviour for technology. The synthesis considers both the economic and technological aspects of environmental impact over time and suggests possible avenues for policy.