In conversation with: Helsinki Climate Unit’s Susa Eräranta
As transition designers we think a lot about the future - about which futures are possible and preferable, about how to create futures which are just and regenerative, and how to steer away from the business-as-usual future that threatens us all.
But even though these conversations happen almost daily for us, it can still be incredibly difficult to stretch our imaginations outside of current paradigms and conceptualise futures which centre marginalised voices, worldviews and value sets. A large part of our work focuses on making these really abstract and quite daunting conversations more accessible with the clients and communities we work with - and so we’ve been exploring a number of different ways to do this.
In this three-part blog about making invisible futures visible, we’d first like to share an inspiring conversation we recently had with Susa Eräranta about her futures-oriented work at the City of Helsinki.
Susa Eräranta works as a project director in the City of Helsinki’s Climate Unit, and has been employing a number of playful and creative tools for futures prototyping to help generate ideas and discussion around Helsinki’s climate-negative 2040+ target. We spoke to her about the value of these approaches and how they have been put to great use in public sector climate work.
Hi Susa! Can you briefly explain the project you’ve been working on with imagining Helsinki 2040?
The City of Helsinki’s 2021-2025 strategy sets targets to be carbon-neutral by 2030, carbon zero by 2040, and thereafter carbon-negative. The post 2040 carbon-negativity target means that the emissions produced inside the city borders must be lower than the city's ability to sequester carbon within its geographical borders. However, the target is not only about carbon optimisation but also other planetary boundary conditions and aspects of justice that need to be considered when planning measures.
The city strategy requires that a scenario review is carried out to meet the long-term climate targets, and identify pathways to achieving them. I’ve been working to concretise what the target actually means for the city, and initiating the scenario work. As we’re talking about a long-term target in a continuously changing world, this requires a solid knowledge base, but also imagination from the community!
How have you noticed the value of imagination work and prototyping futures within the City of Helsinki?
The changing future clearly challenges the human mind and imagination. This is true especially in the difficulty of imagining positive or desirable futures. Tight climate targets and changing planetary conditions easily attract our imagination towards dystopian futures and perspectives that emphasise giving up current advantages. Discussion of positive futures and good and sufficient future life is much more difficult. Research has highlighted the importance of using imagination in future-driven processes to avoid a lack of alternatives as the world changes.
The difficulty of being able to see desirable futures may then have larger impacts for the whole society. For this reason, we’ve tried to apply different immersive and playful methods that support imagination from the perspective of future boundary conditions and frame the discussion positively.
Have you collaborated with any other experts or skilled professionals through this process? If so, what impact and insight did these collaborations bring?
These approaches are based on a set of diverse expert reports, where the latest research and views of experts familiar with these issues give a robust foundation for imagination to start. During the imagination process we have then considerably expanded the scope of participation from experts to other bright minds in various corners of society.
When working with lesser discussed themes, all this support and critical questions have been essential even to understand the important themes to discuss or the relevant questions to ask. I hope this knowledge exchange will continue in the future. Hence, the most important impact has been to also learn how to discuss such complex matters, and how to create a safe space for trying out different paths of imagination.
However, as is typical in all kinds of pioneering activities, we’ve noticed that we’re mostly reaching individuals and communities that already have an interest in these themes. True dialogue always requires being open also to the thoughts that might contrast with whatever we already have, and so we must learn how to bring in diverse voices from the corners that we have not yet reached.
With more abstract approaches it can be hard to see their “real-world” value. How will the methods you have used impact any future decision-making?
As it’s impossible to know the future, we’ve thought that it is most important to listen to various voices and their insights of possible and desirable futures - though this makes it hard to track the impact of specific inputs. However, as current understandings and imagined futures influence what is being done and decided, it definitely matters what, how and for whom we imagine futures. Training imagination is also essential for improving societal resilience. In case of sudden changes, imagination opens up paths to adaptation and helps find solutions when things do not unfold as planned.
Where else could you see these tools and other prototyping futures approaches being useful - either in the public sector, or elsewhere?
We’ve seen in recent years how changes can take place overnight. So overall, willingness to imagine and anticipate different futures support all kinds of activities in a constantly changing world. These methods can be a support almost anywhere where future-bound policies, decisions, opportunities and risks are considered. They also strengthen the societal imagination and thereby support a more resilient society. Besides these more community-oriented aspects, they also present complex socio-ecological matters alongside their magnitude and possible impacts in a more relatable and understandable way. This helps the issues and desirable futures to be discussed outside traditional expert tables – hopefully acknowledging also the perspectives of other living beings, habitats and ecosystems.
In your roleplay and game approaches, you enable participants to experience alternatives futures - even if just for a short time. How can this support futures work, and what other value does it bring?
Besides the individual-level empowerment and understanding, the approaches also encourage thoughts of what good life actually means for different individuals and systems. And understanding these thoughts and behaviours that are linked to them is essential in any transformation.
Trying new approaches may also help to see the strengths and risks of more typical approaches, and underline their development needs. This is especially relevant when thinking about a continuously evolving field, such as climate and sustainability work. Themes such as earth system boundaries, multispecies and intergenerational justice are not commonly acknowledged in many current analysis and modelling methods, for example. Initiating the discussion around these themes could strengthen understanding of their relevance ,as well as of how to better take them into account in the future.
What would you say has been the biggest learning and insights from developing different futures experiencing tools, games and visualisations?
It’s been great to see how the approaches have lowered the threshold to participate in the conversation, especially among those who have previously been absent from the tables where discussions about futures have taken place. Some of the frequently heard comments have been 'I hadn't understood before', 'I really hadn't thought about that' and 'It makes more sense now'. Many also say that imagining futures from someone else's perspective is difficult. Which is just underlining the importance of rehearsing those skills. I believe that with these kinds of approaches that invite us to imagine in a relatable way, it will be easier to bring the understanding of future changes and already set goals even closer to the everyday life of each of us. When things are understandable, it’s easier to take a stand on them. It is also easier to assess impacts on diverse individuals, groups and communities when one actually understands what's being discussed - which is a very basic foundation for a just and resilient society.
These kind of tools can additionally support care and empathy. Looking at the world from the perspective of someone completely else can be a touching experience. Some participants have commented that during the game they also came to think about their own role, responsibility and possibilities to act from a completely new perspective. In general, I think that a better understanding of one's own role helps to create hope in a situation where the discussion about these topics becomes easily dystopian.
How do you plan to use these approaches in other projects or further development of this work?
Right now, we’re still in the workshop phase, trying to also have them in communities where we’re invited to discuss these issues. The precious pieces of imagination will then be used in the scenario work later on once the process proceeds to that phase. But even before that, they also help us to notice the previously ignored or unknown aspects of these complex themes. As the approaches are still in the phase 1.0 of their development process, we have not yet discussed their broader application elsewhere as such, but have been contacted by some actors about the possibility to use them in their work. And we would certainly be extremely happy to see them being further developed also by others so that imagining good life in desirable futures would become more common.
Thank you again to Susa for having this inspiring conversation with us. This work happening at the City of Helsinki clearly demonstrates the breadth of benefits that can come from explorative and imaginative participatory futures work, within real life contexts. From opening up the future to alternative perspectives, viewpoints and voices, to supporting resilience in the face of crises and empathy towards other humans and non-humans, Susa’s work highlights how much the public and private sector can greatly benefit from this growing field of work.
We’re excited to soon share some of Falay’s own work and frameworks that we have been developing in this Futures Prototyping space.
