Technological Innovation for the Next Ecosystem Transition: From a High-Tech to Low-Tech Intensity—High Efficiency Environment

Abstract

Technological innovation is the driver of the progress of the material culture of human civilization. A new balance between development and ecosystem requires the revision of the innovation drivers, in terms of efficiency and transformations of the anthropic environment to reduce the great divides. Sustainability and decarbonization of all production sectors are based on process management skills and optimization of technical knowledge and technologies, to move from a highly technological anthropic ecosystem to a low intensity and high efficiency managed environment. The frontier of innovation is marked by the reduction of the impact of technology and its remodelling, enhancing intangible resources and the design abilities of transformation of the built environment. It is therefore urgent to focus on the R&D models and project strategies for a low-tech environment and highly advanced carbon neutral building/plant integration, the regeneration policies of the built environment with low intensity and high energy and environmental efficiency, with the aim the recovery and inclusion of marginal contexts of energy poverty and economic, where digital and technology divide represent barriers to development and inclusion. The traumatic awareness of the material “limit” of the availability of resources involves a paradigm shift in the global system of the supply chain and resource management on which we have based the development of the “technosphere” and perhaps represents the definitive culture shock necessary to redefine a new relationship between man and the environment.