Our history

Forum for the Future was founded in 1996 by Paul Ekins, Sara Parkin and Jonathon Porritt as a charity with a mission to accelerate change to a sustainable way of life. Peter Madden joined as chief executive in 2005.

Throughout its existence, Forum has led thinking and pioneered practice in sustainable development, from founding the London Sustainability Exchange to running the multi-award winning Farming Futures programme.

We have worked with some of the best-known brands in the world, changing the debate about sustainable business and altering the way leading companies operate, from Aviva and AkzoNobel to Unilever and O2. Click on the video below to hear Ronan Dunne, CEO of Telefonica O2 UK, talk about working with Forum.

With our partners in local and regional government, we have worked on high-level future-proofing strategies and brought together ‘clusters’ of local partners to address the relevance of issues such as climate change and sustainable construction to their organisations, often through practical projects.

From ‘Digital Futures’ to ‘Climate Futures’, our projects have promoted long-term thinking and created shared, positive visions of tomorrow with businesses, government, professions and NGOs. We have also sparked innovation in new products, services and professional standards that make the way we live more sustainable.

Our ground-breaking Masters in Leadership for Sustainable Development shows how we should be educating future leaders. We have trained thousands more leaders across society, so they are knowledgeable about sustainable development and equipped to face the big global challenges.

We launched Green Futures magazine in 1996. Fifteen years on, it stays true to its mission to lead the debate on environmental solutions and sustainable futures, and provide a lively snapshot of the latest news and opinion, along with cutting edge examples of good practice.

Forum for the Future deals with global issues, our partners operate in many countries and the international side of our work has grown steadily. Opening a US office in New York early in 2011 was a logical next step for Forum for the Future. We now intend to work globally to help transform the critical systems that we all depend on, such as food, energy and finance, to make them fit for the challenges of the 21st century.