More about our futures work

We can’t predict the future, but we can think more about the sort of future we want, and how to achieve it. In fact, it is vital that we do just that. We help organisations understand the system they operate in and the potential impacts of global trends like climate change, population growth and emerging technologies. We use a range of techniques to help them think in a useful and structured way about the future, to challenge their assumptions about the world, and to navigate risk and seize opportunity.

Diagnosing the situation

The starting point for system innovation is understanding the current situation: what makes it unsustainable, what is holding back change, and where the opportunities for change might lie.

Our analysis of the engineering profession in 2003 told us that education was the key to transforming the profession, and led to sustainable development becoming part of the degree curriculum. It also led us to set up our Engineers for the 21st Century programme. Our project Overcoming the Barriers to Long Term Thinking analyses the finance sector and identifies what is stopping progress towards sustainability.

All of our work in our target systems of food, finance and energy is rooted in a detailed analysis of the current situation and what sort of interventions will have the most impact.

Analysing trends

The world is changing rapidly. Climate change is altering ecosystems and economies, new powers are emerging and new technologies continually being developed. Global megatrends like these will shape our future. Lower-level trends, for example in business or policy, will have more specific impacts. And all the time new ideas are emerging which may or may not develop into significant trends - ‘weak signals’ which give clues to what the future may hold.

We track all sorts of trends and use them to stimulate innovation, build strategies or develop scenarios. For example, in our Sustainable Shipping Initiative we worked with partners drawn from across the maritime sector to identify the most important trends that the industry will face in the next 30 years. We presented them as a compelling case for action to make the industry more sustainable

Building scenarios

Scenarios are plausible, coherent and challenging descriptions of possible future worlds. We use them as tools to communicate the impacts of global trends, to help organisations develop more resilient strategies, and to innovate sustainable products, services and processes. The process of developing scenarios is best done within a group, as the conversations that result can have far-reaching impacts in themselves.

In Climate Futures, produced jointly with HP Labs, we explored the political, economic, social and psychological impacts of climate change. It led the company to set up a new sustainable innovation team and has earned a global reputation.

Our Dairy 2020 project is using scenarios to help key players in the UK dairy industry develop a shared understanding of the risks and opportunities it may face in the next decade, as a starting point for a vision and joint sustainability strategy.

Our scenarios projects include:

Creating visions

We create powerful visions of the future that demonstrate solutions and galvanise action. In our Tourism 2023 project project we helped leading travel companies create a vision of a sustainable industry, which benefits communities in tourism destinations and protects the environment. British Airways, TUI Travel and Thomas Cook are among nine organisations that have pledged to make to this vision a reality.

Low Carbon Living is a vision of future lifestyles where people and planet are healthier and happier. The Health System in 2025 is a vision of a sustainable health system for the UK.