Forum for the Future is one of eight finalists for the Food Planet Prize 2023

Thursday, 18 May 2023, Singapore — Forum for the Future has been announced as one of eight finalists for the Curt Bergfors Foundation's Food Planet Prize, for our work on the Protein Challenge Southeast Asia. Read their announcement here.

Statement from Sumi Dhanarajan, Managing Director, Southeast Asia, Forum for the Future

“Forum is humbled to be one of eight finalists of over 1,000 nominated for the Food Planet Prize 2023. There is a huge, untapped potential in Southeast Asia’s protein innovations to steward transformation in the wider food system, particularly in a region that is highly vulnerable to climate change and entrenched inequalities. To realise this potential however, will require the range of actors to intervene in ways that ensure that future protein production happens in an ecologically safe and socially just manner, contributes towards equitable access to nutritious food for all, and creates resiliency and future-fitness for the food system.

Hitting all these marks together should be the ambition of all those involved in ideating, creating, financing, and bringing to market new ways of growing and eating protein. Doing so requires an unwavering commitment to creating systemic impact through tackling root causes in an un-siloed, collaborative, future-led manner. Protein Challenge Southeast Asia is designed to equip individuals and organisations to pick up this mantle. We are grateful for the recognition of the Curt Bergfors Foundation, and the attention our nomination will draw to the value of bringing system-change and futures practices into the important work of transforming the food system.”

About Protein Challenge Southeast Asia

Protein Challenge Southeast Asia, launched by Forum for the Future in 2021, is designed to equip individuals and organisations involved in the protein transition innovations to discover and take systemic, futures-led approaches to achieve change. Through the creation of a collaborative 'learning and doing' platform, we aim to be in service to a cohort of 'Protein Visionaries' who will think and act systemically in tackling complex challenges, using futures-thinking capabilities to identify what can be done to build a resilient, regenerative future food system through protein innovations.

About Forum for the Future

Forum for the Future is a leading international sustainability non-profit. For more than 25 years we’ve been working in partnership with business, governments and civil society to accelerate the shift towards a just and regenerative future in which both people and the planet thrive.

As our environmental, social and economic crises intensify, the world is rapidly changing, with multiple transitions already reshaping how we all live and work. But will we go far enough, and fast enough? Forum is focused on enabling deep transformation in three game-changing areas: how we think about, produce, consume and value both food and energy, and the purpose of business in society and the economy. We’re working with ambitious and diverse change-makers to shift how they feel, think, act and collaborate to drive systemic change for sustainability.

Useful links

Protein Challenge Southeast Asia

Case for Action: The Future of Protein in a Changing Region (published 2021)
Action Sprint 1 – From Vision to Innovative Action: New Pathways to a Just and Regenerative Protein System in Southeast Asia (published 2023)

Food Planet Prize 2023 – announcement of nominees (17 May 2023)
Feature on Protein Challenge Southeast Asia (17 May 2023)

For media inquiries on Forum for the Future and Protein Challenge Southeast Asia

Fern Yu [email protected]

Communications and Marketing Manager, Asia

Forum for the Future

For media inquiries on the Food Planet Prize

Lina Engler [email protected]

General Manager

Food Planet Prize & Curt Bergfors Foundation

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