BUSINESS111 Chap.1 Megatrends and the Sustainable Development Goals
Megatrends and the Sustainable Development Goals
Long-run forces, local consequences
The opening week introduces megatrends as long-term global changes that reshape societies, industries and individual careers.
The mini-lecture covers climate change, globalisation, technology, the knowledge and service economy, resource scarcity, societal change, the gig economy and the COVID-19 pandemic, with Industry 4.0 technologies cutting across them all.
Linking trends to the global goals
The chapter then connects those trends to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and their economic, social and environmental pillars, showing how one trend can advance a goal while undermining another, and what that means for businesses in Aotearoa.
How this week shows up in assessment
Megatrends were part of the Weeks 1 to 5 material for the mid-semester test, and they return whenever a later question asks why an organisation must change.
In the individual SWOT assignment, trends like these can supply opportunities and threats. In the final exam, which draws on Weeks 7 to 10, they are context rather than the core concept, so use them to explain pressure on a team, a structure or a leader rather than as the answer itself.
What this chapter covers
- 01
What makes a change a megatrend
- 02
Eight megatrends from the Week 1 mini-lecture
- 03
Industry 4.0 as the cross-cutting accelerator
- 04
The knowledge and service economy and its drivers
- 05
The SDGs and their three pillars
- 06
Threats and opportunities for New Zealand businesses
Worked example · free
Turn one megatrend into a threat and an opportunity
- 2Name each megatrend and state the change it brings.
- 2Apply each change to the exporter's costs, yields or customers.
- 2Link the opportunity to a named SDG and its pillar.
Key terms
- Megatrend
- A long-term global change that affects individuals, organisations and society as a whole.
- Industry 4.0
- The wave of technologies such as AI, big data, robotics and cloud computing that cuts across every megatrend.
- Gig Economy
- A labour market in which self-employed workers are paid by the task and hold short-term client relationships.
- Sustainable Development Goals
- Seventeen connected United Nations goals, agreed in 2015, that target poverty, the planet, peace and prosperity by 2030.
- Knowledge Economy
- An economy in which value rests on knowledge, skills and services more than on raw materials.
Megatrends and the Sustainable Development Goals FAQ
Is the COVID-19 pandemic really a megatrend?
The Week 1 mini-lecture treats it as one, listing changes such as remote work, online meetings and shifts toward online retail. It also asks whether the pandemic alone produced those changes, which invites you to show how it accelerated trends already under way.
How are megatrends connected to the SDGs?
Megatrends can push the goals forward or hold them back. Data analytics used in climate monitoring can support climate action, while automation can threaten decent work. A strong answer names the trend, the goal and the direction of the effect.
Why does Week 1 put technology at the centre?
Canvas describes Industry 4.0 technologies as intersecting with every other megatrend, changing how organisations operate, compete and organise jobs. Treating technology as a separate item on a list misses that cross-cutting role.
What are the three SDG pillars?
Canvas groups the goals into an economic pillar of prosperity, including decent work and innovation; a social pillar of people, including no poverty, health and quality education; and an environmental pillar of planet, including climate action, life below water and life on land.
What is the gig economy?
The Week 1 lecture describes gig workers as self-employed, paid by the task rather than for contracted hours, and in short-term relationships with clients. It sorts them into free agents, casual earners, reluctants and the financially strapped, and notes that gig work has both advantages and disadvantages.
Which megatrends affect New Zealand businesses most?
Canvas gives climate change and globalisation as clear threats, citing drought, shifting rainfall and pests in horticulture and competition from low-cost producers abroad. It pairs them with an opportunity: using data analytics to raise yields while cutting waste and emissions, which supports climate action.
Exam move
Build a two-column page for the eight megatrends: the change on the left, a business consequence on the right. Add one New Zealand example of your own beside each row. Then pick three SDGs from different pillars and, for each, write one sentence on a trend that helps it and one on a trend that harms it.
Finish by explaining Industry 4.0 aloud in under a minute, naming at least four of its technologies and one risk such as job displacement. As a final check, explain to a friend why the same technology can help one SDG and harm another, using an example you have not seen in the course. Keep the page short enough to reread in five minutes before any test. Test yourself by naming the pillar for each SDG you mention.
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