Growth, innovation and singularities: are we sustainable?
Tuesday 18 March 2025 7pm to 8.30pm, Hong Kong Theatre.

Speaker: Professor Geoffrey West, Distinguished Professor and former President of the Santa Fe Institute
Chair: Professor Jean-Paul Faguet, Professor Political Economy of Development, LSE

Why do people and companies stop growing, age and then die, whereas cities keep growing with the pace of life continuing to accelerate? And how about the planet? Can the super-exponential growth of the anthroposphere be sustained or are we on the edge of some major transition? Is "the end of the world nigh”? And how is all of this related to the dynamics of innovation, wealth creation, social networks and urbanisation? 

These are among the questions that will be explored in this lecture. Although life is the most complex and diverse phenomenon in the Universe, almost all its characteristics from cells to cities obey surprisingly simple, “universal” scaling laws which constrain much of the organisation and dynamics of biological, ecological and socio-economic life. These include metabolism, growth, development, lifespans, energy, patents, pollution, roads, crime and disease. These coarse-grained laws originate in the generic underlying mathematical properties of social, infrastructural, resource and information networks that sustain life across all scales. They lead to dramatic consequences for long-term growth, development and sustainability, including the emergence of impending singularities and tipping points.

Can the resulting open-ended super-exponential growth, fueled by innovation and wealth creation, be sustained or does it sow the seeds for eventual collapse?

Hosted by the Department of International Development and the Global School of Sustainability