Forum for the Future is a leading international sustainability non-profit. For over 20 years we’ve been working in partnership with business, governments and civil society to accelerate the shift toward a sustainable future.
Wednesday, 2 May 2018
The Future of Sustainability: living in Nonlinear Times
3 years ago - New analysis from Forum for the Future explores the public commitments of 132 leading food companies and outlines a five-point plan to get businesses on track towards a more sustainable global food system.
3 years ago - From growers to sellers and consumers, there’s no doubt coffee touches billions of people every single day. But as coffee prices continue to decline, how can we address the underlying power dynamics that are driving unsustainable practices?
3 years ago - Climate Week NYC saw the UN declare the 2020s “the decade of delivery.” But while progress has been made, are we too self-congratulatory, staying comfortable within our own echo chambers? Are we really delivering enough at the scale and pace needed?
4 years ago - SB'19 Detroit was full of rich discussions from brands, technology providers and alliances driving holistic changes in supply chains and other complex systems — and shining light on problems along the way.
4 years ago - CEO Dr. Sally Uren has a realistic understanding of collaborations and shares how combining forces is the way forward.
4 years ago - New studies released today at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit dive into potential futures for the fashion industry — Forum for the Future examines four distinct, climate-changed scenarios; while Fashion for Good assesses the viability of three circular business models.
4 years ago - Building on the work of Protein Challenge 2040 and Feed Compass, this three-year, global initiative is focused on accelerating the sustainable production and use of edible fats and oils.
4 years ago - Rising nationalism and global migration among seven trends impacting future of sustainability, according to a new report from Forum for the Future.
5 years ago - ‘I would like to source more sustainable cotton, but I’m not quite sure where to start. There seems to be an awful lot of standards out there, and I’m not quite sure what the differences are between them.’
5 years ago - On Thursday, June 14th, I will be with my closest family at Buckingham Palace, proudly receiving my OBE. For those outside the UK, this may not mean much (unless you’ve been watching “The Crown”), but the award is a public recognition of doing something useful — in my case, for services to sustainability.
5 years ago - If I took one thing away from the Circular Economy sessions at SB’18 Vancouver, it was the need to design for the end of a product’s first life. Note I said, “first life,” because ideally it will be endlessly recycled. That said, as new products come online, designers need to be asking, what materials are we using? Can the product itself be reused like the very cool fashion pieces curated by Beyond Retro (a Bank & Vogue LTD company), or will it be recycled and recreated like Brambles’ packaging solutions?
5 years ago - The world is complex and interconnected. When we pull one lever in a system, it ripples throughout. Pull the right levers and you can solve some of the most complex problems, pull the wrong one and it can be disastrous. This is why it is critical to take a systems approach when solving complex, or what Sally Uren, CEO at Forum of the Future, calls “wicked” problems.
5 years ago - In a new report, Forum for the Future calls on leaders to better understand the dynamic trends that are shaping the future in order to create strategies that effectively navigate today’s complex challenges and unlock new opportunities for sustainability.
5 years ago - How a T-Shirt Is Driving a Circular Economy by Melanie Vella In this main stage session, Forum for the Future CEO Sally Uren returned to interview Jeffrey Hogue, Chief Sustainability Officer at C&A, to delve into the organic fibre that made up Sally’s t-shirt, quite literally.
6 years ago - Automation, artificial intelligence, the growth of the informal economy and shifts away from command-and-control power cultures are all trends that are profoundly shaping the workplace. But what will the future workplace look like? Of course, the honest answer is that we don’t really know.
6 years ago - SAN FRANCISCO, May 17, 2017 – Sustainable Brands® recently unveiled the session schedule for the Activation Hub at SB’17 Detroit, running May 22-25th at the Cobo Center in downtown Detroit. The Activation Hub is the action-centered space within the conference program that allows attendees to collaborate on new tools, resources and ideas to accelerate sustainability-led innovation.
6 years ago - Cotton is an integral part of the apparel and textile industry providing livelihoods for over 300 million people across the globe. The environmental and social implications of cotton production are, however, significant.
7 years ago - It is an achievement of the sustainability movement that standards for measuring and reducing our societal and planetary footprint have been established and are being tracked. But evolution tells us that more must be done - business must become restorative. Where is the roadmap for that?
7 years ago - The purpose of business is changing. While historically, business students have been taught that the purpose of business solely is to increase investors’ profits — known as the Friedman Doctrine — the most successful brands are searching for a deeper meaning. Defining and activating purpose in business was the key theme of Tuesday evening’s plenaries at Sustainable Brands 2016. While Millennials often receive credit for compelling companies to embrace higher ideals, this actually is something all generations of demanded, said Shannon Schuyler, Chief Purpose Officer at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). However, because Millennials are such a large demographic and constantly communicate via technology, their voices are being heard.
7 years ago - This morning at SB’16 San Diego, BSR and Forum for the Future launched the Net Positive Project, a cross-sector coalition that aims to expand the number of companies that go beyond reducing their negative sustainability impacts to contribute in a “net positive” way to society, the environment, and the global economy.