Now live! The Future of Sustainability: Reimagining the Way the World Works
For too long, the world’s responses to escalating social and environmental crises have fallen short of the transformational change we need.
But there’s hope. Bold social and climate initiatives are emerging with game-changing potential to reimagine how we live and work. Each ‘Bright Spot’ offers a glimpse of alternative futures and demonstrates that transformational change is not only possible, but already happening.
That’s why we’re putting Bright Spots centre stage. From November 2024 to November 2025, Forum for the Future’s Future of Sustainability campaign, Reimagining the Way the World Works, will showcase 30 Bright Spots by COP30.
In partnership with The Earthshot Prize, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, and Trane Technologies, we’re celebrating the hope these initiatives are giving a sustainability movement struggling with climate and social anxieties. We’re exploring what they teach us about how transformational change happens. And crucially, we’re considering what it all means for transitions in how and why businesses operate, and in how we produce and consume food and energy.
Here, Forum’s Chief Executive Dr Sally Uren sets the scene for a 12-month campaign and calls on each of us to embrace radical collaboration and bold imagination.
Comunidad y Biodiversidad builds resilient fisheries, livelihoods and ecosystems through community-led conservation Through participatory efforts with small-scale fishing communities in Mexico, Comunidad y Biodiversidad (COBI) is working to transform their fisheries into hubs of sustainable seafood and marine life conservation. As a Bright Spot, COBI exemplifies how local knowledge, diverse perspectives and community-driven innovation can build a food system that serves community livelihoods and ecosystem health. Read more.
Indigenous Carbon Industry Network advances climate resilience and cultural practices through self-determination
Indigenous Carbon Industry Network (ICIN) is reshaping carbon markets through Indigenous-led projects that restore ecosystems, empower communities and uphold cultural integrity. As a Bright Spot, this network supports Indigenous-led environmental solutions rooted in tradition, justice and resilience.Read more.
Husk Power’s solar minigrids bring clean energy to off-grid communities Husk Power is revolutionising energy access for rural communities in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia by deploying the world’s largest fleet of community solar minigrids. As a Bright Spot, they address energy poverty and catalyse local economic resilience, modelling a pathway to net-zero through community ownership and rural development. Read more.
Our Zero Selby: a community-led, resident driven contribution to a just transition Our Zero Selby is focused on reducing the North Yorkshire town’s carbon footprint whilst addressing issues of inclusivity, skills, jobs, health, and wellbeing. Rooted in the voices and aspirations of residents, the initiative offers practical ideas and support to make homes more energy-efficient, reduce waste and save residents money. Read more.
Ports for People charts a community-driven transition to zero emissions in shipping Pacific Environment’s Ports for People campaign tackles global shipping’s significant climate impact by empowering port communities to lead a shift toward zero-emission solutions, creating healthier, more sustainable economic opportunities. As a Bright Spot, they exemplify a reimagination of why and how heavy industries function. Read more.
Safi Organics improves farmer yields through carbon negative fertiliser
Safi Organics is a company that innovates and deploys small-scale, village-based fertiliser production in Kenya. Their product reduces dependence on expensive, imported, carbon intensive fertiliser and has increased farmers’ yields by 27%. Read more.
What Bright Spots are showing us...
As we each look to ensure our interventions have game-changing potential to create lasting change, there are lessons in each Bright Spot. Each of these initiatives offer us glimpses of alternative futures and are demonstrating one or more of six key characteristics of transformational change:
Shifting the goals of our social and economic systems.
Tackling the root cause(s) of sustainability challenges and the past imbalances that have helped create them.
Cultivating new ways of collaborating that embrace different perspectives on shared challenges, and that allow experimentation with new ways of doing things – from new business and governance models to new products and services.
Repatterning the power dynamics that for too long have held progress back.
Showing potential to make a difference at scale, and potentially in other geographies, within 5-10 years.
Enabling people to develop the skills and expertise as well as the agency needed to transform how things are done.
Here, Forum’s Futures Lead, Alisha Bhagat and Senior Futures Centre Strategist, Siddhi Ashar, talk to these six characteristics and consider how futures tools and long-term thinking can help us scale and amplify the social and climate initiatives giving us hope.
Taking inspiration from Bright Spots, where can we focus?
Bright Spots alone cannot change the world. The challenges we face are bigger than any one initiative or organisation and tackling them will need each of us to:
Embrace different thinking: Whether it’s seeing change as opportunity, not risk, or factoring in the whole versus focusing on silos, our mindset matters.
Engage wide-ranging perspectives and (too often) lesser-heard voices in the creation and scaling of systemic solutions.
Deepen our understanding: Ask yourself big questions, from what it means to create transformational change over incremental improvements, to where you really need to focus for maximum impact.
Challenge our assumptions about what change means, and how it happens. The world is a web of complex, deeply interconnected challenges, yet we often apply linear thinking and expect quick results.
Reframe our pathways: Moving beyond growth-centered frameworks, Bright Spots can offer us a blueprint of possible pathways that not only reduce harm but actively restore and replenish ecosystems, communities and economies.
From November 2024, Bright Spots are being revealed every month through to COP30 in November 2025. We’re keeping the focus on action and optimism, as well as what can be learned from the successes, challenges and innovations already shaking things up on the frontlines of sustainability.
Also look out for new analysis in Spring and Autumn on the implications of Bright Spots for ongoing transitions in how we produce and consume food and energy, and in how and why businesses operate.
Join us on this journey. We invite you to reimagine the way the world works with us. Which of the Bright Spots so far inspire you? What Bright Spots do you know of? Share your thoughts with us on LinkedIn.
With thanks to our partners, whose support is making the Future of Sustainability possible:
"Innovators hold the keys to tackling our environmental challenges. Whether they are start-up founders, city officials, NGOs, Indigenous leaders, or policymakers, we are continually amazed and inspired by these ingenious changemakers. It is incumbent on all of us to urgently find them, follow them, fund them and partner with them to protect and repair our planet."
Chris Large, Director of Prize and Portfolio, The Earthshot Prize
"The time has come for all of us to act faster, bigger, better, bolder. To do so, we must leverage the collective power of insights and ideas to become not just forward looking but futures focused. We have a responsibility to ensure that envisioning and creating positive, sustainable futures is not a luxury but a necessity. We need to envision transformative paths that center perspectives of the Global Majority; perspectives rooted in centuries of communal wisdom and tradition. The 'Bright Spots' enable us to do that - they will help us radically re-imagine and put resources behind not what will be but what could and should be."
Olga Tarasov, Vice President, Inquiry & Insights at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
"Companies around the world, across every sector, must drive innovation to accelerate decarbonisation through scalable, emissions-reducing solutions that will help enable a better future for all. Propelled by our purpose to boldly challenge what's possible for a sustainable world, we are proud to lead our industry in setting the pace for progress in addressing these global challenges as we continuously advance a net-zero tomorrow."
Scott Tew, Vice President of Sustainability, Trane Technologies
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