GDI Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute

Electric cars, home automation, civilian space travel: the innovations of the past few years have been aimed at improving our lives, but they consume enormous amounts of resources to do so. Frugal innovations are quite different. How? We explain in this video – and at the upcoming European Trend Day.

"We can't have infinite growth on a finite planet." With this statement, economic anthropologist Jason Hickel makes an urgent plea for system change in a video. At the GDI Trend Day on March 9 2022, he will describe alternatives to our current economic system.

Making more food from fewer resources – that is the challenge for the agriculture of the future. Digitalisation and the analysis of big data could be the key to success in this regard.

While exchange platforms for clothes, flats or tools are booming in private, Lieke van Kerkhoven's idea for companies is new. On her B2B sharing platform Floow2, companies swap excavators, medicines or shop items. Lieke van Kerkhoven will explain how her platform works at the 18th European Trend Day on 9 March 2022.

The ecosystem in our gut has changed so much over time that some researchers are already talking in terms of an "industrial microbiome". Following a few basic rules can help restore biodiversity inside us.

It has been seven years since Navi Radjou, in an impressive Ted Talk, presented Frugal Innovation as a solution to many of our problems. The author of "Frugal Innovation: How To Do Better With Less" coined the term and has popularised it worldwide. Now that we are in the middle of a climate crisis and a pandemic, his ideas are more relevant than ever, as he will demonstrate at the 18th European Trend Day on 9 March 2022.

If we want to exercise more, eat healthier, spend less time watching Netflix, self-regulation is crucial. This ability also depends on our social environment and our economic security, as the GDI study "Prevention in Transition" shows.