The Future toolkit: How could we do better if we can’t imagine better?

In this article, we explain some of the main incentives and learning targets for exploring our open-source Future toolkit. We wish you an inspiring sustainability journey!

The future and transition studies call us to take a critical look at the mainstream visions we are guided towards, as they are often limited to environmental and societal collapse or techno-centric business as usual (McPhearson, 2017). But how can we answer the need for more diverse and desirable societal narratives about the future, as well as design practices that can intervene in destructive development? Through our Future toolkit, we want to bring the following perspectives about the future, transition and design into practice:

1. The future is not pre-determined. There are multiple possible, plausible, and probable futures that might happen – and not all of those are desired (McGregor, 2020). As the future is not decided yet, we can have an impact on it.

2. The desired futures are value-based. As the future cannot be known, it is imagined – and the imagination is shaped by our values (Milojevic, 2005). Thus, we can use futures as a method to reveal the values that define our actions and developments today.

3. Visions of a good life are diverse. We have the possibility to develop sustainable and desirable alternatives for the fossil-intense idea of development and well-being. These ideas and images of the future shape our actions and decisions in the present (Milojevic, 2005).

4. The transition doesn’t happen at once but is constructed by multiple streams and interventions. The transition also doesn’t happen in one place but in multiple realms of the system (Geels, 2011). As the interventions can be designed, the transition toward the desired futures can be designed.

“Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward.” 

(Søren Kierkegaard)

The Future toolkit is for individuals, communities, and organizations to understand and utilize systems, futures, and transitions. It can be used for increasing resilience toward the future, building agency in sustainable transitions, or defining the values and vision leading our work. The tools are built for enabling collaboration within a group or a project team but can be used as an individual as well.  

Overview of the Future toolkit.

The toolkit builds future capacity in three steps, using Transition Design and Double flow scenario method :

1. System knowledge: Understanding the complexity, systemic nature, history, and mental models behind the sustainability issue.

2. Future knowledge: Using creative methods to explore value-based futures and reflecting on human-centered perspectives.

3. Transition knowledge: Finding weak signals, designing interventions and building actionable pathways from today toward the desirable future.

The Future tools utilize the Transition Design framework (Irwing, 2018)

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We would love to hear your impressions and experience using our tools or guide you to use them.

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The Future tools are built on top of the academic work of multiple authors and designers in the fields of Systems and Futures Thinking and Transition Design:

Iceberg model: 

Northwest Earth Institute, “A Systems Thinking Model: The Ice-berg,” Retrieved in July 7th 2023 from: https://www.nwei.org/iceberg/

Double-flow scenario method:

Gaziulusoy, İ., Boyle, C., McDowall, R. (2013). System innovation for sustainability: a systemic double-flow scenario method for companies. Journal of Cleaner Production, 45: 104-116. Elsevier.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.05.013

Futures wheel:

Daffara, P. (2020). Applying the Futures Wheel and Macrohistory to the Covid19 Global Pandemic. Journal of Futures Studies, 25(2): 35–48. Tamkang University Press. DOI: 10.6531/JFS.202012_25(2).0006