About
Explore the benefits of working with applied futures, the purpose of the Futures Centre and the story behind the Future of Sustainability report series. You can also find out about our Partners and Sponsors and discover how you can build your futures and systems change capacity.
The world is on a dangerously unsustainable path and action to ensure long-term planetary and human health is long overdue. Now more than ever, we must each act decisively at scale and at pace to transform the ways we live and work.
We are rapidly running out of time to avert the worst of the climate and biodiversity crises, but as conversations gather pace on how to ‘build back better’ post COVID-19, we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reimagine how the world works.
As we all grapple with 'what next?', it's vital we understand how the world around us is changing right now, and what that might mean for the years ahead. What if we reimagine our future? What do we want it to look like? And how do we get there?
Created in 2015 and powered by Forum for the Future, the Futures Centre is an open, participatory futures platform, using futures practice to help organisations and individuals grapple with uncertainty and change.
By revealing the complex interplay of dynamic trends around us, and identifying risks, opportunities and powerful innovations, futures work helps identify where to act for long-term success.
Governments, business and communities are recognising the importance of long-term thinking.
Why work
with Futures?
Futures is a process of analysing what’s happening now and thinking about how trends might play out in the future. It helps us to anticipate plausible possibilities for what the future might be like, and use those insights to make better decisions today.
A futures process is a laboratory where business leaders, strategists, policy makers and more can experiment with ideas, ask “what if?” and test the impact and consequences of their decisions.
Futures is a process which confronts people
with the question “what if?”
Futures practice is integral to system thinking and system innovation.
School of System Change addresses the fact that in the face of global challenges, there are not enough people operating with the capacity to shift systems. Become a change agent
Learn to apply futures for system changeIt is used to:
- Address long-term issues that strategies often ignore
- Unearth hidden connections between diverse issues
- Generate new risks and opportunities
- Avoid ‘green’ stigma and build understanding of sustainable development
- Build consensus on what strategy must address
- Create a mandate for change
- Build strategic capacity, creating ‘prepared minds’, ready to embrace change.
„As a result of our work with Forum for the Future, there was
- Simon Large, Former Commercial Director, Finlays
a fundamental shift in our approach. We have... acknowledgement
that developing sustainably had to be central to the brand
– it is the single thing that would hold the business together.”
What is the
Future of Sustainability?
The more we know about the dynamic changes and trends that shape our world, the more we can identify risks and opportunities on the horizon, plan for the future, and understand our respective roles in driving greater sustainability.
Since 2018, Forum for the Future has used the insights generated by the Futures Centre to publish an annual Future of Sustainability report, which provides a guide to navigating dynamic areas of change, helps map the ways they interact and identify potential implications.
The Future of Sustainability is one of our most significant opportunities to help inform and influence the sustainability movement. It is a key tool to raise awareness of sustainability issues with wide-ranging audiences across multiple markets and sectors.
Circulated to business leaders, futurists, change-makers, the media, our online community and more, it has become a landmark publication.
Read the latest reportForum for the Future and our partners
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The Futures Centre is owned and run by Forum for the Future – an international sustainability non-profit, working in partnership with business, governments and civil society to accelerate the shift toward a sustainable future.
Visit Forum for the Future -
The Futures Centre is sponsored by our partner, Omidyar Network.
Real change requires reimagining what is possible.
Visit Omidyar Network
Work with us
Do you need to strengthen long-term strategic planning? Do you want to understand
how you can ‘build back better’ while being prepared for emerging trends? Or would
you like to inspire transformational change in your organization?
We can help you run Live Research projects to identify answers to specific questions
or provide a full futures-based strategic consultation.
