Age of Transformation is your signal intelligence platform for navigating the most profound tipping point in human history: the demise of the fossil-fueled industrial order, and the birth of a post-carbon, post-materialist civilisation.
We don’t just report the noise. We synthesize the system signals that matter — from energy, climate and AI to soil, logistics, and sovereignty.
We track the civilizational rewiring of everything.
Our Edge: Systems Science Meets Foresight
Founded by investigative systems theorist Dr Nafeez Ahmed, Age of Transformation distills a 25-year track record of accurate anticipatory reporting and global forecasting into high-impact intelligence.
Nafeez predicted:
- The 2008 financial crash (two years in advance)
- The mainstreaming of far-right populism and democratic backsliding (before 2015)
- The 2001 invasion of Afghanistan
- The 2018 stock market dive
- The 2021 drought crisis across Asia
- The inevitability of exponential growth of renewable energy technologies
- And now, the macroeconomic and ecological trajectory behind the transition to a post-carbon world
All grounded in peer-reviewed systems theory, not clickbait headlines or industry spin.
Our Thesis: The Planetary Phase Shift
We’re not just living through a crisis. We are moving through a planetary phase shift.
This is an evolutionary leap — or collapse — as global systems breakdown and reorganize. The old economy is dying. A new and different economic paradigm is bursting through.
We are experiencing a ‘polycrisis’ as all our systems blink red, and a ‘metacrisis’ as the ways we see and make sense of the world, our prevailing norms and values, lose meaning and break down.
Yet civilisational crisis is only one side of the equation. When we deeply study how systems work through history, how the life-cycles of natural systems at all scales evolve, we realise that these breakdowns are fundamentally symptoms of a great transition. The new system is not merely breaking down. It’s making way for something else to break through.
We can track these phase shifts across five critical material frontiers:
- Energy: Fossil fuels are experiencing rapidly declining Energy Return On Investment (EROI), as solar, wind, and storage scale toward superabundance
- Transport: EVs, autonomy, and new logistics are displacing car-centric, oil-based mobility
- Food: Precision fermentation, alt proteins, and regenerative farming are unseating industrial agriculture
- Information: AI and robotics are disrupting knowledge creation, communication and labour
- Materials: Linear consumption is giving way to circular economies and intelligent manufacturing
And we can also see phase shifts across the following critical cultural frontiers:
- Culture: While polarisation grabs headlines, a growing global majority is demanding a future rooted in care, connection and collective well-being.
- Politics: As traditional parties unravel and authoritarianism rises, grassroots democratic experiments—like citizens’ assemblies—are lighting the way to a new politics.
- Economy: Neoliberal capitalism is stalling. In its place, new models are rising fast — degrowth, circular economy, post-growth, stakeholder capitalism—fuelled by movements measuring value beyond GDP.
- Worldview: The mechanistic, reductionist lens is collapsing. In its place, a new paradigm is taking root: one that sees the world as interconnected, dynamic, and alive—echoed across science, philosophy and systems thinking.
- Values: People across the planet are turning away from consumerism. The shift is on: from profit to purpose, from extraction to regeneration.
These different phase shifts are not separate. They are entangled — and we help you make sense of how they connect.
Who It’s For
- Investors & Capital Allocators seeking asymmetric insight into the post-carbon economy
- Policymakers & Analysts grappling with systemic risk, resource collapse, and transition pathways
- Journalists & Researchers looking for credible, non-partisan, empirically grounded narratives
- Citizens & Movement Builders who want rigorous, hopeful, and actionable intelligence — beyond both doom and techno-hype
Why We’re Different
In a world saturated by newsletters chasing the latest microtrend, Age of Transformation offers:
✅ Unparalleled foresight: Powered by the first formal systems framework of the planetary phase shift, as published by Nafeez Ahmed in 2024 after development over two decades, and launched at UN summits
✅ Multi-system synthesis: We connect the dots others can’t — energy → agriculture → labour → financial risk → political regime instability → ecological thresholds
✅ Insider-grade macro intelligence: Our investor bulletins and scenario briefings give you a strategic edge months or years before Wall Street or the City of London catch on
✅ Built for the long emergency: We don’t do soundbites. We do systems. And we help you act ahead of the curve
Subscribe for Weekly Signal Intelligence
We offer two tracks:
🟢 Free Weekly Newsletter
- One weekly Planetary Intelligence Bulletin tracking key global system trends
- At least one piece offering systems foresight on issues around climate, energy, AI, food, geopolitics and beyond
- Links, data, and synthesis that connects the dots between breakdown and breakthrough
🟡 Premium Subscription
- Macro Reports on transition risk, stranded assets, and opportunity frontiers
- Exclusive White Papers offering technical deep dives into sectors and systems
These will cover
- Foresight Deep Dives – Using the framework to look deep into major emerging issues in global headlines
- Framework Deep Dives – Briefings on key system tools/concepts
- Scientific Studies – Deepening insight into the scientific basis of the planetary phase shift framework
- Investor Watchlists – Companies, funds, tech to watch aligned with the phase shift
- Sector Strategy Briefs – Focusing on how the planetary phase shift applies to specific sector issues
- Macro Scenario Briefs – Exploring future scenarios using phase shift theory
Be the Intelligence
If you're tired of doomscrolling and greenwashing — and ready to decode the planetary transition from the inside out — this is where you belong.
Praise for Nafeez Ahmed
"One of the most courageous and interesting investigative reporters of our time"
British Journalism Review
“Yes, yes, I know he is one of Them. But they often know things that we don’t – particularly about what we are up to”
Gore Vidal
“Lucid and persuasive"
Sunday Times
“Disturbing and clearly evidenced"
The Independent
"Forceful and well-sourced"
The Guardian
"Nafeez is developing a unique form of what he calls systems journalism, intended to throw light on the true scale of the planetary crisis, how this crisis demonstrates the inevitability of the demise of the prevailing system, and what true systems change inside and out might look like"
Tom Pegram, UCL Global Governance Institute
About Nafeez
"Nafeez is developing a unique form of what he calls systems journalism, intended to throw light on the true scale of the planetary crisis, how this crisis demonstrates the inevitability of the demise of the prevailing system, and what true systems change inside and out might look like" Tom Pegram, UCL Global Governance Institute
Nafeez Ahmed is a systems futurist and investigative theorist working at the global frontier of civilizational change. With over two decades of experience, he has become a leading analyst of deep, interconnected dynamics shaping global crises and transformation. Driven by the core insight that humanity is living through a planetary phase shift—a once-in-civilization transition between systemic breakdown and breakthrough—Nafeez unites science, journalism, policy, economics, and the arts in his work. He is known for developing a unique form of systems journalism, mapping how everything connects and exploring the pathways to a just and regenerative future.
Key Achievements and Roles:
- Developed and published the first peer-reviewed systems framework linking climate, energy, food, conflict, and collapse (A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization, 2010)
- Published major works on biophysical systems, political violence, and the clean energy transition for Springer Nature and the Club of Rome
- Introduced the “planetary phase shift” model in a 2024 peer-reviewed paper in Foresight, integrating two decades of research into a new science of civilization-scale change
- Award-winning investigative journalist with work appearing in VICE, The Guardian, Byline Times, The Atlantic, among others; his reporting has shaped public discourse and government inquiries
- Served as Global Head of Research & Communications at Unitas Global Advisory
- Former Director of Global Research Communications at RethinkX, where he was lead contributing research editor for Rethinking Climate Change and co-producer of Rethinking Humanity, the film adaptation of Tony Seba and James Arbib’s visionary book
Institutional, Strategic, and Media Partnerships:
- Advised and worked with leading organizations including:
- Aviva Investors
- Ubisoft
- International Security Management Association (Fortune 100/500 Chief Security Officers)
- UK Defence Academy
- Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
- Biodiversity Funders Group (representing the world’s largest philanthropies)
Affiliations and Honors:
- Full Member, Club of Rome
- Commissioner, Transformational Economics Commission (Club of Rome)
- Advisor, UN COP30 summit’s permanent Global Citizens’ Assembly
- Board Member, Biophysical Economics Institute
- Distinguished Fellow, Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Systems
- Fellow, Royal Society of Arts
Age of Transformation is where Nafeez Ahmed synthesizes this work, offering a platform to track the signals of global transformation, decode their meaning, and help society choose the path toward a more just, prosperous, and regenerative future.
You can find out more about Nafeez here.