Club of Rome
The Club of Rome is a nonprofit, informal organization of intellectuals and business leaders whose goal is a critical discussion of pressing global issues. The Club of Rome was founded in 1968 at Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, Italy. At least until the early 2000s, the 'main club' has allegedly been limited to one hundred members, often selected from current and former heads of state and government, UN administrators, high-level politicians, diplomats, scientists, economists, and business leaders from around the globe. It stimulated considerable public attention in 1972 with the first report to the Club of Rome, The Limits to Growth. Since 1 July 2008, the organization has been based in Winterthur, Switzerland.
History
Origins
In 1965, the Italian industrialist Aurelio Peccei gave a speech about the dramatic scientific and technological changes happening in the world. The speech was noticed by Alexander King, a British scientist who had advised the British government, and who was currently serving as Director-General for Scientific Affairs at the OECD. King arranged a meeting with Peccei. The pair shared a lack of confidence that the problems faced by the world could be solved by development and technological progress.In April 1968, Peccei and King convened a small international group of people from the fields of academia, civil society, diplomacy, and industry met at Villa Farnesina in Rome. The background paper to set the tone of the meeting was entitled "A tentative framework for initiating system wide planning of world scope", by Austrian OECD consultant Erich Jantsch. However, the meeting was described as a "monumental flop", with discussions becoming bogged down in technical and semantic debates.
After the meeting, Peccei, King, Jantsch, and Hugo Thiemann decided to form the Club of Rome, named for the city of their meeting.
First steps
Central to the formation of the club was Peccei's concept of the problematic. It was his opinion that viewing the problems of humankind—environmental deterioration, poverty, endemic ill-health, urban blight, criminality—individually, in isolation or as "problems capable of being solved in their own terms", was doomed to failure. All are interrelated. "It is this generalized meta-problem which we have called and shall continue to call the 'problematic' that inheres in our situation."In October 1968, the OECD held a symposium in Bellagio, Italy, in collaboration with the Rockefeller Foundation, at which several new members joined the club. The symposium focused on the dangers of exponential growth—which by its nature cannot continue forever—and ended with participants signing "The Bellagio Declaration on Planning", which emphasized the need to overcome global problems through coordination.
For a brief period, the club's ideas held sway within the OECD, thanks to King's efforts in promoting the group's work. When Secretary General Thorkil Kristensen formed a group of ten science and economic experts in 1969 to study problems for modern societies, four of the ten were members of the Club of Rome.
In 1970, Peccei's vision was laid out in a document written by Hasan Özbekhan, Erich Jantsch, and Alexander Christakis. Entitled, The Predicament of Mankind; Quest for Structured Responses to Growing Worldwide Complexities and Uncertainties: A PROPOSAL. The document would serve as the roadmap for the Limits to Growth project.
''The Limits to Growth''
The Club of Rome stimulated considerable public attention with the first report to the club, The Limits to Growth. Published in 1972, its computer simulations suggested that growth of production and consumption could not continue indefinitely because of either resource depletion or unmanageable levels of pollution. The 1973 oil crisis increased public concern about this problem. The report went on to sell 30 million copies in more than 30 languages, making it the best-selling environmental book in history.Although the Club of Rome had enjoyed some influence at the OECD, their questioning of the value of growth "deepened the internal fractures within the OECD and provoked hostile reactions, leading to a revitalization of the strong pro-growth position." A 1973 booklet on the OECD's approach to environmental issues stated that the role of governments in "an acceptable human environment must now be developed in the framework of policies for economic growth". The OECD had given up on the Club of Rome, and set its course on a trajectory of unfettered growth.
1974–present
Even before The Limits to Growth was published, Eduard Pestel and Mihajlo Mesarovic of Case Western Reserve University had begun work on a far more elaborate model. The research had the full support of the club and its final publication, Mankind at the Turning Point, was accepted as the official "second report" to the Club of Rome in 1974. In addition to providing a more refined regional breakdown, Pestel and Mesarovic had succeeded in integrating social as well as technical data. The second report revised the scenarios of the original Limits to Growth and gave a more optimistic prognosis for the future of the environment, noting that many of the factors involved were within human control and therefore that environmental and economic catastrophe were preventable or avoidable.In 1991, the club published The First Global Revolution. It analyses the problems of humanity, calling these collectively or in essence the "problematique". It notes that, historically, social or political unity has normally been motivated by common enemies:
In 2001, the Club of Rome established a think tank, called tt30, consisting of about 30 men and women, ages 25–35. It aimed to identify problems in the world and suggest approaches to addressing them, from the perspective of youth.
In 2008, the club moved its headquarters from Hamburg to Winterthur in Switzerland.
In 2018, the Club of Rome appointed its first female co-presidents. The same year, co-presidents Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker and Anders Wijkman collaborated with over 30 members to publish "Come On! Capitalism, Short-termism, Population and the Destruction of the Planet". This publication advocated for profound changes in the interactions between governments, businesses, financial systems, innovators, and families to foster sustainable planetary stewardship.
Four years later, in 2022, the Club of Rome introduced "Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity", released fifty years after the pioneering "Limits to Growth". This new publication, unveiled at events including the closing of the New York Stock Exchange, stems from the Earth4All initiative—a collaborative effort among institutions such as the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the Stockholm Resilience Centre.
Organization
According to its website, the Club of Rome is composed of "notable scientists, economists, business leaders, high level civil servants and former heads of state from around the world."The Club of Rome is a membership organization and has different membership categories. Full members engage in the research activities, projects, and contribute to decision-making processes during the club's annual general assembly. Of the full members, 12 are elected to form the executive committee, which sets the general direction and the agenda. Of the executive committee, two are elected as co-presidents. The secretary-general is appointed by the executive committee and is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the club. Aside from full members there are associate members, who participate in research and projects, but have no vote in the general assembly. The club has a satellite office in Brussels.
The club also has honorary members. Notable honorary members include Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands, Orio Giarini, Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Mikhail Gorbachev, King Juan Carlos I of Spain, Horst Köhler, and Manmohan Singh.
National associations
The club has national associations in 35 countries and territories. The mission of the national associations is to spread the ideas and vision in their respective countries, to offer solutions and to lobby for a more sustainable and just economy in their nations, and to support the international secretariat of the club with the organization of events, such as the annual general assembly.Current activities
As of 2025, there have been 55 reports to the club. These are internally reviewed studies commissioned by the executive committee, or suggested by a member or group of members, or by outside individuals and institutions. The most recent report, published in 2025, is titled "Enduring peace in the Anthropocene".On 14 March 2019, the Club of Rome issued an official statement in support of Greta Thunberg and the school strikes for climate, urging governments across the world to respond to this call for action and cut global carbon emissions.
In 2020, the Earth4All initiative was launched at the UNFCCC Race-to-Zero Dialogues session on Transformational Leadership to explore potential transformational political and economic solutions for the 21st century. Led by the Club of Rome, the BI Norwegian Business School and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, a group of researchers and policymakers assessed global risks and identified five pathways to catalyze transformation and systemic change towards sustainability: energy, food, poverty, inequality and population. The results are published in the book "Earth for All" in 2022 alongside the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Summit in Stockholm and the initial publication of the Limits to Growth in 1972.