Addressing the impact from Covid on youth health and issues around the growing demand for lithium are two of the hot topics for the year ahead according to Kearney’s annual predictions.

Global management consulting firm Kearney has made its annual predictions for the year ahead, and several of them could have a sizeable impact on businesses in Australia. There is a notable shift in the tenor of the predictions from just two years ago – which zoomed in on geopolitical discord and environmental crises – with the focus now more squarely on base tech resources and governmental action in the wake of the global pandemic.

Having shaved its list by a half last year, Kearney’s predictions (an annual exercise conducted by the consultancy’s think-tank the Global Business Policy Council) for the trends and events that will most shape the operating environment in 2022 boil down to five main points: ongoing ESG pressure on governments and companies; the boom in virtual healthcare, a tipping point in demand for lithium, and the scramble for semiconductors.