Imagine the lines of population growth, resource depletion and accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere going up, up and up.
Despite many NGOs wagging their fingers at corporate leaders and the known facts about population growth, resource scarcity and depleting water tables - those 30 executives concluded sustainability currently ranked as "important" but "not critical" to their companies' strategies.
"If current trends in population growth, resource depletion, climate change, terrorism, organised crime, and disease continue and converge over the next 50 to 100 years, it is easy to imagine an unstable world with catastrophic results".
The key theme of the report by the MoD's Development, Concept and Doctrines Centre (DCDC) is that the world "is likely to face the reality of a changing climate, rapid population growth, resource scarcity, resurgence in ideology, and shifts in global power from West to East" out to 2040.
But Will.i.am, founder of the hugely successful band Black Eyed Peas and the director of creative innovation at Intel, is on a mission after recognising that the world is threatened by a combination of population growth, resource scarcity, climate change and over-consumption.
Literature and debate on sustainable development has concentrated mainly on physical and tangible issues and assets: population growth, resource depletion, environmental impact, climate change, poverty, and illiteracy.
