Our Story
The Club of Rome has always played the long game. Founded in 1968, this unlikely squad of scientists, economists, and thinkers assembled not to chase a ball, but to chase something far more elusive: a sustainable future for humanity.
In 1972, they fielded their most consequential starting lineup — Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jørgen Randers, Jay Forrester and William W. Behrens III — a five-person strike force backed by a team of 17 researchers at MIT. Together, they produced The Limits to Growth, a landmark report that used computer modelling to simulate the consequences of unchecked population growth, resource depletion, and pollution on a finite planet.
The results of that match were sobering. Running the numbers through their World3 model across multiple scenarios, the team found that if humanity continued on its current trajectory — burning through resources, expanding industry, and multiplying without restraint — the global system would likely collapse within a century. It wasn't a prediction so much as a warning shot: change the formation now, or face consequences no substitution could fix. More than fifty years on, with over 30 million copies sold in 30 languages, The Limits to Growth remains one of the most cited — and debated — studies in the history of environmental science.
The final whistle hasn't blown yet, but the clock is ticking.