System change collaborations

Collaboration works. We help build sustainable sectors and value networks, prototype innovations and new systems, and scale up existing activities for more impact.

One thing we've learned over the years is that complex, interconnected challenges like poverty, water scarcity and climate change must be tackled systemically – and that's only possible when the 'unusual suspects' work together to solve common problems.

As a convener, dialogue instigator and guide to practical solutions, we identify and assemble stakeholders from right across the value chain and develop areas where they can collaborate to transform not only their own operations, but entire systems.

Maintaining these powerful collaborations draws on our ability to translate the need for system change across sectors, cultures and personal perspectives. It can be challenging work at times, but the impact it has on vital systems like food and energy is undeniable.

Change systems with us

We have a 25 year track-record of solving complex sustainability challenges on a global scale. To find out how we can help you, contact our team of change agents.

Growing our Future UK

Working together to accelerate the transition to regenerative food and agriculture in the UK Read more

Responsible Energy Initiative

Harnessing the power of investors and buyers to ensure the scaling of the RE sector is ecologically safe, rights-respecting, and socially just. Read more

Circular Leap Asia

A new Forum report shines a light on the huge untapped potential of fashion manufacturers to contribute to the fashion sector’s circular transformation and highlights the opportunity to recalibrate industry power dynamics as the industry emerges from the COVID-19 crisis. Read more

Growing our Future US

Working together to accelerate the transition to a just and regenerative agriculture system in the United States. Read more

Edible Fats and Oils Collaboration

A collaborative, open-innovation initiative aiming to shift the edible fats and oils sector onto a sustainable footing. Explore its work so far. Read more

#OneLess

The #OneLess campaign has been leading the charge against ocean plastic pollution since 2016, focusing on the pervasive single-use plastic water bottle. Because everything we do touches the ocean. Read more

Tea 2030

Tea 2030 was set up in 2013 to help deliver a sustainable tea industry, from crop to cup. To do that, we needed the cooperation and collaboration across the tea industry, from pickers and packers to producers and purchasers. Read more

Cotton 2040

Cotton 2040 aims to create a resilient cotton industry in an increasingly climate-disrupted world by bringing together stakeholders across the value chain. Read more

Beauty and Personal Care Sustainability Project

Demand for sustainable products is growing, and calls for safe and sustainable products, with transparent and clear ingredient lists, are increasing. So, how do we get more sustainable products on retailers’ shelves? Read more

Latest

Sustainability’s secret weapon: Procurement approaches as a way of creating environmental, social and economic value

Business is changing, and procurement is emerging as a secret weapon. Forum's Principal Change Designer, Felicity Butler, discusses the need to rethink procurement processes and buying strategies that are primarily focused on cost-savings and risk mitigation. What’s our alternative and how can we get there?
Step up or step back? Hero or villain? Will business go far enough, fast enough in this decisive decade?

Here, Forum’s Global Strategic Lead for Business, James Payne, hones in on the opportunity for businesses in transition, highlighting four key unlocks: visionary leadership, rethinking supply chains, reimagining consumption and creating an enabling context.
Creating an Enabling Context

Change is possible if businesses step up to help influence, rethink and reshape our economic structures. This includes intellectual property rights, corporate tax regimes, limited liability legal entities, the global financial structure and more. Forum is collaborating with key stakeholders throughout the market ecosystem, such as financial institutions, regulators and civil society organisations, who influence the actions, goals and incentives of businesses.
Transforming Consumption

The true cost of our purchases goes beyond the price tag and can have significant social and environmental consequences. Transforming Consumption aims to engage influencers, media, brands, consumers, and other actors in envisioning and exploring more sustainable ways of consuming and living that are aspirational, affordable, and actionable.

The Five Capitals - a framework for sustainability

The Five Capitals Model provides a basis for understanding sustainability in terms of the economic concept of wealth creation or ‘capital’. Any organisation will use five types of capital to deliver its products or services. A sustainable organisation will maintain and where possible enhance these stocks of capital assets, rather than deplete or degrade them.
For a just and regenerative future

Forum for the Future is a leading international sustainability non-profit running out of offices in the UK, US, India and Singapore.
Jobs

We are a growing organisation and we are regularly on the look out for new recruits to join our teams around the world.
Growing our Future US

Working together to accelerate the transition to a just and regenerative agriculture system in the United States.
Sustainability and system change

Climate change, malnutrition, inequality, poverty, ecological degradation. The global challenges we face are so urgent and tricky that we need a solution to match their scale and complexity. This is where system change comes in. We use systems thinking to understand the web of interrelations that create complex problems, anticipate unintended consequences, and identify how and where to take action to meet the SDG goals.
What is Net Positive?

We reinvent strategies for a 1.5°C world. Our Net Positive approach helps business put back more into society and environment than it takes out. Unilever’s pioneering commitment to eliminate fossil fuels from its operations and directly support the generation of more renewable energy than they consume was driven behind the scenes by Forum.
Become a system change agent

Learn more about upcoming system change programmes and express your interest.
Trailblazing sustainability strategies

Leadership in the 2020s is about your organisation’s ability to positively influence its operating context. We help you to understand the opportunities, and then how to unlock them.
Cotton 2040

Cotton 2040 aims to create a resilient cotton industry in an increasingly climate-disrupted world by bringing together stakeholders across the value chain.
6 ways Unilever has achieved success through sustainability - and how your business can too

A year ago this week, Unilever launched its Sustainable Living Plan (USLP), one of the most ambitious strategies that a global company has ever embarked on. Pioneering a bold new business model, the company pledged to double in size at the same time as halving its environmental footprint.