The Club of Rome was initiated in 1968, as a series of meetings and the project “The Limits to Growth”. The leader of the project was professor Jay Forester with his group at the MIT, which was at that time developing the model of multicomponent development. The aim was to develop a model of the global development based on the GDP, food and energy consumption, population, etc… The Club of Rome was founded through this project; Aurelio Peccei, a CEO for many multinational companies, was elected as the first president, while Alex King, one of the OECD directors, was elected as vice-president. The members of the Clube of Rome include eminent world scientists, business leaders, and former politicians. The number of members is limited to 100, among which 20 are affiliated members. The Club has founded a number of national associations, with most active ones in the USA, Poland and Finland. The Club of Rome is an international organisation, with founders from 20 countries. The first member from the former SFRY, Ivo Šlaus, was elected in 1987.
The Club of Rome was founded to address the challenges and crises that mankind and our planet are facing. The Club utilises the knowledge and experience of its members to define solutions to complex and intertwined challenges of our world. Decades of exponential growth population and consumption have become a threat to the climate and life sustenance on the Earth, while simultaneously furthering social and economic inequalities and impoverishing billions of people worldwide.
As a network of the world’s most eminent intellectuals with vast knowledge and experience members of the Club of Rome are dedicated to initiating and guiding difficult discussions and taking bold action to face the state of emergency and confront the problems of the mankind and our common home – the planet Earth. The goal of the Club of Rome is to actively advocate paradigms and systems that will enable us to come out of the current state of crisis, by promoting new ways of human activity within more resilient biosphere. By relying on the thorough scientific analysis, the Club of Rome proposes holistic solutions to these interconnected problems through research, policy proposals, and high-level events – discussions, conferences, lectures, etc. The Club also publishes reviewed “Reports to the Club of Rome”. Very influential 1972 report “The Limits to Growth” warned the world about the consequences of the existing human systems for the health of our planet. Since then, more than 45 reports have supported and upgraded this intellectual foundation. Recently, the Club of Rome has defined five key priority areas: Emerging New Civilisations, Planetary Emergency, Reframing Economics, Rethinking Finance, and Youth Leadership with Intergenerational Dialogues.