Everyone who has passed through the Sustainable Development module since 2011 has been required to engage with the work of Venezuelan economist Carlota Perez on long-waves of techno-industrial expansion and decline. Perez’s work influenced the understanding of transition that Eve Annecke and I wrote about in Just Transitions. I recently re-tweeted a tweet sent out by my friend Maarten Hajer that provided a link to a ppt presentation recently delivered by Perez in The Netherlands. Two things struck me: she remains optimistic that the post-crisis phase of the ICT-based techno-industrial surge will result in another golden age, with investments aimed at greening the economy acting as game changers. It is also interesting that she still disagrees with the notion that the installation phase of the 6th techno-industrial surge has already begun and that it is driven by green-tech investors who realise that repairing the future is the driver of the next long-wave development cycle – see https://twitter.com/maartenhajer/status/561110778770894849
