07 August 2026 – There are moments in history when one era has not quite faded away and another has not yet fully emerged. Ours is one such moment. We sense it in the accelerating pace of life, in the uncertainty pervading our societies, in the fragility of democracy, in the bloody conflicts we wake up to every day, in the progressive decline of nature, in climate change, which has ceased to be a warning and has become an increasingly ruthless scourge.
And we also feel it on a deeper level: in the ever-increasing difficulty of finding meaning.
We are living in strange times: never before have we attained such knowledge, and yet never has it been so urgent to ask ourselves why we want to know.
AI is learning at an extraordinary rate; science can modify matter, prolong life, transform our bodies, and profoundly alter our relationship with nature. We have exponentially increased our capacity to act.
But the essential question remains the same: what for?
We have more information at our disposal than ever before, and yet we are immersed in confusion. The truth is called into question; lies are held up as truth.
We can communicate instantly with any part of the planet, and yet we find it increasingly difficult to listen to one another.
We have created machines capable of learning and reasoning independently, but we do not know how to teach our societies to live together.
What does progress mean, when growth can jeopardise the very conditions that make life possible?
What does freedom mean, when our decisions are increasingly shaped by technological systems that we do not fully understand?
And, above all: what kind of humanity do we want to project into the future?
The moment foretold by Aurelio Peccei back in the 1970s has arrived: the moment to consider and reflect on the human condition.
The new humanism heralded by Aurelio Peccei arises precisely there: in that space between the power we have attained and the responsibility required of us.
It is not a question of returning to the past, but of reclaiming something that the future must not lose: the awareness that humanity is not separate from the Earth. Nor is it above it. We are nature, we are community, we are memory. And we are also possibility.
The time has come to consider, and urgently so, a new idea of progress. An idea of progress that does not merely measure how much we produce, nor how much we accumulate, nor how much we accelerate our actions. But rather, how much we are capable of caring for, regenerating, including and creating meaning.
For this reason, the new humanism that Aurelio Peccei regarded as an indispensable mission for the Club of Rome in a future he envisaged as not too distant is not merely a reflection to be considered, nor a school of thought, nor an abstract theory. It is an invitation to change the way we inhabit the world.
Listening to one another; reviving the dialogue between science and the humanities; recognising the value of the arts as pathways to knowledge, and that of the imagination as a power to create new worlds. Incorporating a child’s perspective as a contribution to transformation; discovering that children are not merely the citizens of the future: they are humanity itself, arriving with the promise of the future. Granting nature the status of a legal person.
Perhaps the great transformation of our time, towards a new era that transcends this one which is fading away, does not lie in creating ever more intelligent machines and technologies, but in educating and strengthening human beings and societies capable of using intelligence and knowledge wisely. To reclaim the notion of wisdom: that uniquely human quality that unites the rational with the spiritual.
For decades, the Club of Rome has warned of the limits of a development model that threatens the very foundations of our existence.
Today, we need to take a further step: to move from warning to responsibility; from the limits to growth to regeneration; from fragmented approaches to systemic interconnectivity; from fear of uncertainty to imagining the future.
Aurelio Peccei came to regard new humanism as the philosophical heart of the Club of Rome; without this approach, the institution’s objective – an environmentally and socially sustainable reality – cannot be achieved. For one cannot be achieved without the other.
Unlike traditional humanism, which is eminently anthropocentric, new humanism places life itself, in all its dimensions, at its centre: it proposes an alliance between humanity, nature, science, culture and consciousness. It recognises that what urgently needs to be saved, at this critical juncture, is the ultimate architect of either tomorrow or collapse: the human being.
A few key ideas can guide us in our approach:
First and foremost, as the Club of Rome, we must think in terms of systems rather than fragmented sectors: the economy, ecology, technology and culture must not be understood in isolation. They are interconnected.
Recognise planetary boundaries as a prerequisite for a future; as a framework for balance and sustainable living.
Direct economic growth towards wellbeing. Measure progress beyond GDP, incorporating health, equity, education, environmental quality and peace. Happiness.
Promote a regenerative economy. Restore ecosystems, social ties and natural capital.
Strengthening long-term governance.
Promoting education for complexity. Nurturing citizens capable of understanding interdependencies, diversity, uncertainties and global responsibility.
As Aurelio Peccei said: “The transformation we urgently need to undertake is that of human beings themselves.” To save humanity from ourselves, in order to open up the prospect of a more dignified and liveable world, understanding that the future is not something that simply happens, but a time that we create together and which requires our present responsibility to find, within it, the meaning of all our knowledge.
This is the task that concerns us today, as the Club of Rome.
