10 Consumer Trends for Latin America

Using cultural observation, trend spotting, scenarios, design thinking, and other futures tools, the consulting firm –BAUTISTA– has identified 10 key trends that will affect companies doing business in Latin America in 2015:

1. Bubble Life: consumption habits focusing on the hyperlocal, or nearest surroundings.
2. Less Is More: a growing preference for smaller spaces, fewer objects, and more connectivity.
3. Freedom as Aspiration: rejection of restrictive schedules and spaces, demand for more decision-making power.

New Source for Tomorrow’s Biofuels

It’s plentiful, it doesn’t displace farmland for food crops, it can be converted to fuel far faster than petroleum, and it’s carbon neutral. Is seaweed the world’s answer to future energy shortages?

Using an experimental rapid-heating process called fast hydrothermal liquefaction, researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology converted an impressive 79% of kelp into bio-oil. A similar project in the U.K. using the same species yielded just 19%, claims energy engineering researcher Khanh-Quang Tran.

The global futures community was saddened to learn that futurist pioneer Joseph F. Coates (born January 3, 1929, in Brooklyn) died on October 16, 2014. He is survived by his wife of 62 years, Vary (nee Taylor) Coates, many children and grandchildren, and countless students and mentees.