It’s a small world. It’s also an increasingly hot, crowded and contentious one.

The combined effect of climate change and society’s impact on the earth is intensifying struggles over natural resources while also threatening our infrastructure, food systems and quality of life.

It’s increasingly clear that today’s environmental conditions are not sustainable. Over the past few decades, we have made huge progress fighting disease, poverty and illiteracy. Now we must apply that same ingenuity to the problem of global warming and other consequences of human activity.

Confronting these challenges requires political will, as well as a new approach to business–one that puts human welfare on an equal footing with profits. It also calls for innovative technology. We are already starting to see how the Internet of Things (IoT)—which connects everyday objects to the Internet—can help us transform our world for the better.

Along with advanced data analytics, IoT-enabled devices and sensors are helping us reduce air pollution in some of our world’s biggest cities, improve agriculture and our food supply, and even detect and contain deadly viruses.