Closing the year, opening a new chapter: Accelerating Forum for the Future's impact

At a time when social and environmental challenges are intensifying, bold leadership and collaboration are more crucial than ever. That’s why Forum for the Future is evolving. From January 2025, we’re doubling down on impact with a refreshed leadership structure designed to meet this moment.

Hannah Pathak, currently International Managing Director, will become our new Chief Executive Officer, holding Forum’s vision and strategy for a just and regenerative future. Dr Sally Uren, who has led Forum as CEO for over a decade, will transition to a new role as Chief Acceleration Officer and Executive Director, focused on driving external engagement and scaling our impact.

Together, they’ll build on Forum’s unique combination of futures thinking, systems change expertise, and transformative programmes—working with partners across food, energy, and business systems to catalyse deep and urgent transitions.

2024 highlights

As we reflect on 2024’s achievements and prepare for this next chapter, here’s a look back at some of this year’s highlights—moments that have shaped critical shifts in how the world produces and consumes food and energy, and in how and why businesses operate...

The food transition

The way we produce, consume and value food is pushing the planet beyond its limits. We know that we need a deeper transformation of the underlying models for how we grow, eat, and make a profit from food. 

In 2024, our programmes put together recipes and ingredients for a just and regenerative food system: 

• Growing our Future US launched the Ecosystem Services Market Programs in Action report, detailing learnings from the first-ever application of regenerative cotton protocols in the US, conducted in the 2022/23 growing season. The first full growing season of the pilot has proven to be successful in supporting the adoption of regenerative practices and the quantification of insetting outcomes, such as carbon dioxide removals and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions, as ecosystem services credits. Additionally, the programme initiated an Advisory Council to garner insights from experts across food and agriculture, supported a major US retailer to scope its definition of regenerative agriculture, and engaged communities across the state of Colorado in an exploration of proposed legislation to incentivise regenerative sourcing.

• Growing our Future UK continues to work towards a regenerative, climate-resilient future for UK food systems. Alongside our partners, we’re exploring pathways to market for regeneratively grown produce and we’re supporting fruit and vegetable middle actors. Through a series of collaborative initiatives, we’re driving the transformation of key UK food sectors, including orchards and dairy. 

The energy transition

Transforming the global energy system requires a holistic approach that blends social, environmental, and systemic considerations with technical solutions. Without addressing the systemic flaws of our energy system, our transition efforts will stall.  

In 2024, we powered-up our efforts for a just and regenerative energy system through: 

• Responsible Energy Initiative India, which continues to shift the conversation around renewable energy from a focus solely on growth to one centred on responsibility. We brought together business leaders at the Responsible RE Summit to discuss how renewable energy can be both people-centric and ecologically positive. An op-ed series with IDR and The Hindu helped mainstream the conversation, while our support for the release of Powerful Futures – a guide from the Global South Alliance for a Just Transition – helped disseminate insights on land, supply chains, and community engagement. Engagement at forums like RE Invest reinforced the need to balance ambitious energy goals with responsibility. 

• Responsible Energy Initiative Philippines, a multistakeholder programme that has brought together over 40 organisations from across the renewable energy system, including developers, financiers, procurers, policy-makers and civil society to shape norms, policies and practices for ecologically safe and socially just production and deployment of utility-scale renewable energy. Our Call to Action report launched on 26 January, the inaugural International Day of Clean Energy, provided a comprehensive look at the Philippines’ energy transition and has contributed to an increasing awareness of the environmental and social risks associated with large-scale RE projects. In 2025, participants are poised to develop intervention ideas into prototypes for feasibility testing to mitigate these risks and guide the transition to responsible renewable energy.   

• The Future of Critical Minerals for Renewable Energy. In 2024, we explored the risks and opportunities associated with securing critical minerals essential for renewable energy. We facilitated discussions through an innovative artefact exercise—creating a newspaper from 2039, which examined potential futures, grounded in today’s decisions. This helped stakeholders envision the seeds of these futures, as well as the associated risks and opportunities. 

The business transition

We believe that the world cannot respond adequately to our climate, social and economic crises without businesses stepping up—and expectations of them to do just that are growing.  

In 2024, our programmes moved the needle on the purpose of business through: 

• American Climate Futures, which launched the Business Guide to Advancing Climate Justice to provide businesses with practical guidance to embrace their role in creating equity-centered solutions to the climate crisis. 

• The Climate and Health Coalition, which launched the Climate and Health Toolkit for Food Businesses at COP29, providing essential resources to help businesses drive solutions that promote both health and climate action. In partnership with leading companies such as Britvic, SIG, and Waitrose, the Coalition’s Food Cluster is working to accelerate the transformation of the food and drink industry, ensuring it delivers positive outcomes for both people and the planet. Additionally, the report Policy as a Route to Cleaner Air calls for more integrated environmental and health policies to reduce outdoor air pollution. 

• Enabling Systemic Circularity in Fashion. Circularity in the fashion industry has been limited by a lack of collaboration between brands and manufacturers. To overcome this, Forum worked with 12 leading brands and manufacturers to identify barriers and co-develop innovative solutions, which will be released in a project insights report in January 2025.

Transformational change is not only possible but already happening

From now to November 2025, Forum’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. 

Why not join us on a journey to reimagine the way the world works?

The School of System Change

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