4.4 Know your classics: the limits to growth

4.4 Know your classics: the limits to growth

Key points

• The limits to growth archetype was named after a report of the same name on the limits to population growth published by the Club of Rome’s in the 1970s.
• In a limits to growth archetype, growth slows, stops and even collapses.
• A growing stock uses an increasing amount of a resource. When the the resource reaches a given level, it exerts a slowing action on the growth of the stock.
• If the stock continues consuming the resource, both the stock and the resource may collapse.
• Nothing can grow infinitely in a finite world.
• Leverage: identify the limits, anticipate their slowing or limiting actions and address them early, before they gain momentum.

1. Watch the video

2. Do the exercise

Find an archetype in the news. Now its your turn 🙂 Look through the online press and see if you can identify an archetypal systems structure at work. When you find one, post the link to the article together with a description of the archetype to the discussion below.

Additional materials

• The limits to growth – Insightmaker model. The complete working simulation model of the limits to growth archetype.
• Video sources and bibliography. The web sites, attributions and sources cited in the video “Know your classics: the limits to growth”.
• The video transcript.