Giving Compass' Take:

• On GreenBiz, Sally Uren shares her take on preserving the planet with a cohesive visualization of various possible futures.

• Where does change start--who are the main contributors to collaborative action? Are you ready to offer support to outside-the-box climate change efforts? 

• Discover different collaborative strategies for grappling with climate change.

At Forum for the Future, we use futures — the systematic exploration of possible, probable and preferable future scenarios informed by trends emerging today — to help people and organizations create a shared vision of the future they want to see. We help them understand what their role would be in that world and make better decisions on how to achieve it.

Here are four ways futures can unlock a clear path for radical change.

  1. Creating shared visions of the future together not only can unite stakeholders in understanding threats to their supply chain; it also helps assess the barriers to change and informs concerted action to overcome these barriers.
  2. Imagining plausible versions of the future is a great way to spark ideas for new products and services that respond to real challenges and trends facing us today, such as water scarcity and new manufacturing methods. While we can’t predict the future, we can get imaginative and creative with what it could look like.
  3. It’s not enough to know what needs to change. Equally important is an understanding of what conditions will enable a particular future to be possible.
  4. The process of imagining different futures is as powerful as, if not more so than, the end result. Rather than talking about water scarcity and climate change as faraway possibilities, futures enable us to interact with problems as if they are happening now.

In its ability to bring people together, create a shared vision of a desired future and build support for the radical change that is needed, futures is second to none

Read the full article about visualizing futures together as a means for ensuring we have one by Sally Uren at GreenBiz.