Do We Need an Urgent Fit for Purpose Assessment of AllIndustries and Systems?

A discussion article. Part of The Thinking Upgrade.

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If we want to create a brighter, fairer, more prosperous, joyful, united and sustainable future, should we urgently examine whether the industries and systems shaping our lives are equipped to help us get there?

We regularly assess the performance of people, products and organisations. But how often do we step back far enough to question the purpose and overall contribution of an entire industry, profession or system?

Does it meet a worthwhile human need? Does it do so fairly and sustainably? What benefits does it create, and for whom? What harm does it cause, enable or pass on to others? Is it helping us build the future we want, or making that future harder to achieve?

And if we were designing it today, knowing what we know and imagining what could become possible, would we create it in its current form?

These questions deserve a place in public life. The arrangements we inherit should be open to examination, however familiar, powerful or established they have become.

Our time, talent, money, materials, land and energy are precious. How we organise their use shapes the lives we can lead and the world future generations will inherit.

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Perhaps an urgent fit for purpose assessment should become a shared endeavour across countries and across the world.

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The starting point would be to agree what ‘fit for purpose’ means. Financial performance, employment and output matter, but they cannot tell us everything we need to know. We would also need to consider wellbeing, fairness, freedom, trust, resilience, ecological sustainability and the quality of everyday life.

Does an industry help people live healthier, more fulfilling lives? Does a system make it easier to contribute, belong, learn and flourish? Does it protect people who need support? Does it leave room for joy, creativity, relationships and rest?

We will disagree about some priorities. Those differences should be part of the assessment, with choices and trade-offs made visible. A shared commitment to human dignity and a habitable planet can still leave considerable room for different beliefs and ways of living.

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The scope should be ambitious. A practical starting map of major industry categories could include:

Agriculture, horticulture, forestry, fishing and aquaculture.

Food and drink production, processing and distribution.

Mining, quarrying and other resource extraction.

Energy production, storage and distribution.

Water, sanitation, waste management, recycling and environmental services.

Manufacturing, including chemicals, materials, machinery, electronics, vehicles, clothing and consumer goods.

Construction, infrastructure, housing, property and real estate.

Transport, logistics, shipping, aviation and postal services.

Wholesale, retail and online commerce.

Banking, payments, lending, investment, insurance and pensions.

Technology, artificial intelligence, software, data and telecommunications.

Healthcare, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and medical devices.

Social care, childcare and other personal support services.

Education, training, research and development.

Professional and business services, including law, accountancy, consulting, recruitment and outsourcing.

Media, publishing, advertising, marketing and public relations.

Arts, culture, entertainment, gaming and gambling.

Sport, fitness, leisure and wellbeing services.

Tourism, hospitality and events.

Defence, aerospace, security and surveillance.

Public administration and public services.

Charitable, voluntary, community and membership organisations.

These are broad, overlapping categories rather than a definitive classification. Within each sit activities with very different purposes, practices and impacts. Any serious assessment would need to distinguish between them.

For each, we could ask: what useful contribution should this industry make to the future? Which parts already make that contribution exceptionally well? Which fall short? Which create avoidable harm? And which activities would we struggle to justify if their full consequences were visible?

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The same scrutiny should extend to professions and occupations: political leaders and public officials; teachers and researchers; doctors, nurses and care workers; engineers and trades people; farmers and drivers; lawyers and accountants; investors and managers; journalists and marketers; technologists, artists and many others.

This would require looking at the work itself, the competence it demands, the standards that guide it and the conditions under which people perform it.

Are people equipped to fulfil the purpose of their roles? Are their incentives aligned with that purpose? How much of their time goes into valuable work, and how much into avoidable administration, duplication, conflict or correcting problems created elsewhere?

How should roles evolve as knowledge, technology and human needs change? Where could AI and other tools improve quality, accessibility and safety? Where are human judgement, care, accountability and relationships essential? What valuable work might become possible if people were freed from unnecessary tasks?

A finding that a role needs to change says nothing about the worth of the person doing it. People deserve dignity, recognition and support through change. Many already understand the weaknesses of the systems they work within and have ideas that deserve to be heard.

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Then there are the national and global systems that connect these activities and shape their behaviour. The assessment should encompass:

Governance, democracy, public administration and international cooperation.

Trade, supply chains and cross-border economic relationships.

Law, justice, policing, regulation and access to redress.

Education, lifelong learning, research and the development of knowledge.

Employment, labour rights, skills, migration and recognition of qualifications.

Welfare, social security, disability support, pensions andcare.

Defence, diplomacy, peacebuilding and collective security.

Wealth creation, ownership, competition and the distribution of opportunity.

Taxation, public spending, procurement and public investment.

Money, finance, credit, insurance and investment.

Food production, nutrition, distribution and food security.

Energy, water, sanitation, communications and other utilities.

Healthcare, public health, prevention and emergency preparedness.

Housing, land use, planning, transport and infrastructure.

Information, journalism, digital platforms, data and AI governance.

Environmental protection, resource use, biodiversity and climate action.

Disaster response, humanitarian assistance and support across generations.

These systems need to be examined together. Decisions about housing affect health, family life and access to work. Education influences economic opportunity and participation in democracy. Taxation and investment influence which businesses grow. Trade rules influence production, working conditions and environmental impacts across borders.

A system can appear successful within its own boundaries while creating costs elsewhere. An assessment therefore needs to follow consequences beyond the institution, industry, country or budget where a decision begins.

Consider food. A useful examination would ask whether the combined system makes nourishing food accessible and affordable, supports viable livelihoods, treats workers and animals responsibly, protects ecosystems and minimises waste. It would look at how farming, manufacturing, retail, advertising, education and healthcare interact.

Consider housing. Would we judge success principally by the value of property, or also by whether people can find secure, suitable homes near the relationships, services and opportunities that matter to them? Where those goals conflict, whose interests should carry weight?

Consider finance. How well does it help people manage uncertainty and direct resources towards useful activity? Which practices create lasting value? Which might increase vulnerability or reward gains that depend on passing costs to someone else?

These questions invite investigation. They should not predetermine a verdict against an entire sector.

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A credible assessment would begin by making purpose explicit.

What need is being served? Is the stated purpose reflected in everyday decisions? Does the underlying need remain important, even if the current way of meeting it has become inadequate?

It would then examine benefits: their scale, quality, durability and distribution. Who gains? Who remains excluded? What valuable expertise, infrastructure and relationships must be protected?

Alongside those benefits, it would examine direct and indirect harm across the full life of an activity: from sourcing materials and designing products to their use, disposal and longer-term consequences. That could include damage to health, exploitation, pollution, exclusion, misinformation, dependency, insecurity or the erosion of trust.

Intent would matter, but good intentions would not remove the need to address harmful outcomes. Equally, an assessment would need to distinguish evidence of causation from an assumed connection, acknowledge uncertainty and avoid counting the same harm several times.

We should also ask about opportunity cost. What else could those people, resources and capabilities help achieve? What worthwhile innovations struggle to emerge because existing arrangements absorb resources or obstruct alternatives?

Then comes future suitability. Could this industry or system serve us well under different technological, demographic, environmental and economic conditions? Would it remain dependable during disruption? Could its model be extended fairly to more people without exceeding ecological limits?

Finally, we would need to examine power. Who sets the rules? Who benefits from keeping them? Who carries the risk? Who can challenge a decision, obtain an explanation and secure a remedy?

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The assessment itself must be open to assessment.

Who would define the criteria, appoint the assessors and decide what follows? Governments, industry leaders or technical experts acting alone would bring only part of the understanding required.

We would need the knowledge of practitioners, independent researchers, workers, customers, citizens and affected communities. Young people should help shape systems they will live with longest. People with disabilities and those routinely excluded from decision-making must have meaningful influence. Global assessments must include people whose countries bear consequences of decisions made elsewhere.

Evidence, assumptions, funding and conflicts of interest should be visible. Findings should be open to challenge. Different views should be recorded where disagreement remains. AI could help examine information and explore alternatives, with its outputs checked and its limitations recognised.

A single score would rarely be sufficient. Financial value, freedom, health and ecological damage cannot always be reduced to one number without concealing important choices.

The purpose would be to make better decisions and take useful action. We should be wary of creating an expensive assessment industry that consumes attention while little improves.

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That means working on two timescales.

We could act urgently where serious harm is well evidenced and practical improvements are available: correcting damaging incentives, removing unnecessary barriers, strengthening safeguards, improving access and spreading effective practices. We should not require a complete redesign before addressing a clear failure.

At the same time, we could undertake deeper reimagination. If we began with the human need and the future we wanted, what different arrangements might we design? Could prevention reduce the demand for expensive repair? Could a simpler system achieve more? Could new forms of ownership, cooperation, technology or service delivery improve outcomes?

The possible conclusions should remain open. Some activities may deserve expansion. Others may need reform, a narrower role, combination with other services or a fundamentally different model. Some may warrant a managed phase-out because their purpose has disappeared, their harms cannot be adequately reduced, or a better alternative can meet the need.

Where replacement is proposed, it must earn confidence. What evidence suggests it will work? What new harms could it introduce? Can it be tested? What essential services must remain available throughout the transition?

Employees, families, communities and pension holders can depend on arrangements that need to change. A responsible transition would address retraining, income security, regional investment and the movement of skills into valuable work. Its costs should be explicit, including who pays them.

Preserving people’s security and enabling change should be designed together.

An assessment of everything need not mean assessing everything at once. We could start where potential harm, urgency and opportunity are greatest, and where change would improve several connected systems. Each review could produce a public account of what to strengthen, what to improve immediately, what to test and what to reconsider, with named responsibility and dates for checking progress.

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Over time, this could become a living practice: a society becoming better at noticing when its arrangements no longer serve its aspirations, and better at creating alternatives.

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Imagine if every industry could clearly explain the future it is helping to build. If every profession could show how its standards and capabilities were evolving to serve people well. If every major system had an honest account of its benefits, shortcomings and opportunities for improvement.

How much human potential could that release? How much suffering, wasted effort and environmental damage could we prevent? How much more trust might we build if institutions welcomed scrutiny and acted on what they learned?

If we are serious about a brighter, fairer, more prosperous, joyful, united and sustainable future, should we make a fit for purpose assessment of the industries and systems shaping that future an urgent shared priority?

And for each of us: what part of the world do we know well enough to help examine, improve and reimagine?

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Thanks for reading.

Best,

Rob

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Developed by Rob Frost from his thinking and ideas, with drafting and refinement support from his AI Partner.

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