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The 6th Annual Fast 50

• Business 3.0
• Q&A: C.K. Prahalad - Pyramid Schemer
• Q&A: Pierre Omidyar - Empower Seller
• Q&A: Arnold Schwarzenegger - The Germinator
• 2007 Readers Favorites

You don't actually have to wait for biomimetic technologies to make it to market, though--they're already here. Early examples range from the "self-cleaning" Lotusan Paint, which is modeled on the surface properties of a lotus leaf that cause dirt and water to bead and roll off, to BAE Systems' recently invented Synthetic Gecko, inspired by the material on a gecko's foot. One square meter of this glueless material can easily suspend thousands of pounds.

Countless equally ingenious materials, products, and processes are in the pipeline. Researchers are exploring everything from a biomimetic approach to hydrogen production to coatings that neutralize noxious chemicals using sunlight, to an ultralight metallic material based on the abalone shell that's as strong as steel and only half as dense. In the future, such a material could "demassify" our planes, trains, and automobiles and deliver huge fuel savings.

These products share one trait: They will win in the marketplace. Not because they're eco-friendly or warm and fuzzy or have a Ben & Jerry's seal of approval. They'll win because they deliver better, cheaper, and more profitable results.

Massively Decentralized Production

Over the horizon are new approaches to solving planetary problems based on technologies that are still on the drawing boards. One of the most promising is desktop manufacturing: using a 3-D object fabricator about the size of a large copy machine that lays down and laser-cuts layers of successive materials to instantly produce--à la the Star Trek replicator--products and parts in precisely the configurations, quantities, and places that they're needed. In such a world, much of the physical supply chain, and all of the energy required to power it, would simply disappear. Products would be kept as digital blueprints, downloaded and transformed to atoms only when needed--the logical extension of the "buy it, then build it" manufacturing pioneered by companies like Dell. As with many technologies, though, it's not downloading but uploading that will produce the real revolution: Fabricators will allow people to produce hypercustomized variants of products and objects that are specific to their needs, and the network will allow them to share these innovations with the world.

Early versions of this technology--used in rapid prototyping for industrial design--already exist; products made with it, jewelry and furniture, to name two, are being sold to consumers today. Prices have already dropped to under $25,000 from as much as $500,000 in the late '80s. Look for the first consumer trials of fabricator technology to arrive within a decade.

These are just a few of the conceptual tools and approaches that will be a part of the Eco-Innovation Revolution. As in all revolutions, the best stuff will surprise us with its power and, in hindsight, obviousness. Many encouraging examples are already in the pipeline, as the following pages make amply clear. What's needed to catalyze the revolution now is not just more innovative ideas--we humans have a seemingly endless supply of those--but more time, better leadership and policymaking, and a little luck. If we get all three, this century will see someone win a Nobel Prize for solving a grand social problem that made her a trillionaire along the way.

Futurist Andrew Zolli, founder of Z + Partners, a foresight and strategy firm, is curator of the annual Pop!Tech conference.