John Elkington
As I have been working on an end-of-year essay, I have also been working my way through a stack of books accumulated in recent months—and through social media posts that I would normally have skimmed or ignored. And there are two posts I came across this morning that tie in with my ongoing quest for an answer to the question: what comes next?
Sensing that a fair few of us are now asking the same question, I’m keen to share several insights I gleaned from two posts about how and in which direction to drive change—at a time when the world seems increasingly inclined to crash into reverse gear.
The first post, by Anna Branten, focuses on what she calls “wayfinders.” She explains:
“There are those who hear a shift in the air before chaos breaks out. Who sense a room, see patterns, and connect threads before others do. Who feel when something is about to go right, or very, very wrong. In the best of worlds, they are called visionary, inspiring, engaging, and unexpected. In the worst: vague, intense, unrealistic, too sensitive, or unpredictable.”
She concludes that wayfinding is partly the domain of individual pathfinders, but also argues that it is a critical function in our economies and societies. Unfortunately, she observes:
“Today, this function is scattered, fragmented, and often misunderstood. Many wayfinders are trying to find their purpose. Others gather with like-minded people, or search for ways to explain themselves clearly enough for the world to listen.”
She goes on to say:
“Psychologists, anthropologists, and neuroscientists have long shown that some people have greater systemic sensitivity, stronger pattern recognition, more permeable nervous systems, and intuitive access to complex information. A kind of early radar for the group.”
The wayfinder, she points out, “has always existed—in every culture, every era, every story of human change. Often unnamed, but always described in similar terms: the one who sees too early. The one who pays a price. The one who stands outside the community while being crucial to its survival.”
Like others who commented on Anna’s post, I felt I was looking into a mirror. And at a time when I am in the throes of trying to work out where I should be directing my energies in the future.
A theme that cuts to the heart of that where-next question was amplified in my brain this morning when I came across a post by the memorably named Darryl J. Nicke II, a documentary filmmaker and regenerative systems designer. His conclusion is that:
“We’ve been measuring civilizational progress wrong.
“The Kardashev Scale ranks civilisations by energy consumption. It was designed for detecting alien civilisations, not guiding our own development. But somewhere along the way, we internalised a dangerous assumption: more energy = more advanced = better.
Here’s the problem. Earth receives abundant solar energy, but its biological infrastructure—soil, forests, biodiversity—regenerates slowly. When technology consumes energy faster than living systems can process it, we discharge the ‘Earth-Space Battery’ without recharging it. That’s not progress. That’s liquidation.”
This is why he came up with what he calls the “Neo-Kardashev Scale.”
On it, as the diagram below shows, “we’re currently Type 0-Bio: burning through inherited biological capital. The original Kardashev trajectory points toward thermodynamic collapse – one candidate for Fermi’s Great Filter. The alternative is Type I-Bio: measuring advancement by our capacity to route energy through living systems rather than around them. Not just GDP, but Soil Carbon Depth, Biodiversity Index, and Ecosystem Function.”
Energy, Nicke notes, “is the input. Life is the processor.” Nothing wildly novel here, in that I recall reading the Odum brothers’ work on related themes back in the 1970s, but in my current state of mind I find this focus on energy flows profoundly provocative and helpful.
It also links to the longstanding discussion of the tensions between entropy, flagged beneath the x-axis of the diagram, and what Erwin Schrödinger and others have dubbed negentropy.
For a sustainability wayfinder, a deep understanding of energy flows—through both natural systems and industrial systems—can be not just helpful but transformative. Potentially, it can help turn sustainability from a predominantly moral stance into a navigational skill. And, god only knows, we need navigational skills of a radically higher order these days.
Energy literacy can reveal what drives outcomes. Once you see where energy comes from, how it’s transformed, and where it’s lost, you can predict impacts, spot leverage points, and avoid well-intended but counterproductive solutions.
Money, policy, and intentions matter, of course—but energy never lies. Every system obeys thermodynamics, regardless of ideology or strategy. Energy accounting cuts through greenwashing and surface-level metrics. And if a potential solution requires more energy (or higher-quality energy) than it delivers, it cannot scale sustainably
Viewed from this angle, the world looks very different. Would-be wayfinders can distinguish symbolic sustainability from structural sustainability.
Most sustainability efforts have focused on visible outputs. Structural sustainability—based on energy and material flow thinking—means looking way upstream. Reducing demand, for example, often outperforms greening supply.
Likewise, efficiency gains at early energy conversion stages can cascade through entire systems. And low-grade waste heat can be more valuable than new generation. Which is one reason why I find ATS Energy, one of the winners of the 2024 Earthshot Prize, so interesting.
As they explain:
“On average, 60% of the energy used to power the world’s industry is lost as waste heat. This staggering amount of waste is equivalent to the energy used by 4 billion homes, twice the number of homes on the entire planet…
… At the heart of our technology is a proprietary thermoelectric cartridge. Imagine two plates: one hot, one cold. Our cartridge, built with advanced semiconductor pellets, is sandwiched between them. When industrial waste heat is applied to the hot side, this temperature difference drives a flow of electrons, generating a direct current (DC) of electricity with no moving parts, emissions, or noise.
For decades, this process was too inefficient for commercial use. Our breakthrough is a monumental leap in material science and engineering, achieving 14% thermal efficiency. This 5x improvement over previous attempts for the first time unlocks the vast, untapped energy potential of moderate-temperature waste heat (150-500°C), making its recovery not just possible, but highly profitable.”