Beyond the supercycle: how technology is reshaping resources
Technological innovations, along with macroeconomic trends and changing consumer behavior, are transforming the way resources are consumed and produced. A new report by McKinsey, Beyond the Supercycle: How Technology is Reshaping Resources, finds that these trends have the potential to unlock roughly $900 billion to $1.6 trillion in savings throughout the global economy in 2035, an amount equivalent to the current GDP of Canada or Indonesia. At least two-thirds of this total value is derived from reduced demand for energy as a result of greater energy productivity, while the remaining one-third comes from productivity savings captured by resource producers. Demand for a range of commodities, particularly oil, could peak in the next two decades, and prices may diverge widely. How large this opportunity ends up being depends not only on the rate of technological adoption but also on the way resource producers and policymakers adapt to their new environment.