Our research addresses how sustainable futures are understood, enacted and resisted. We study multiple visions of sustainable futures, the power relations they are embedded in, and their transformative potentials. Our work covers a broad range of sectors, such as forestry, steel and plastics, and a variety of actors, from fossil fuels, petrochemical and heavy industries to grassroots organisations, activists and artists. It involves analysing the entangled relations of technology, environment and society, and how political economy configurations hinder or facilitate socio-ecological transformation. Our research on sustainable futures involves initiating new (kinds of) futuring, where we deploy methods to explore classic scenario analysis, but also experiential futuring and experimentation. Futuring exercises are used for decision-making, governance, and as ways of making the conversation about sustainable futures more democratic, encouraging a plurality of sustainable and just futures and future-making.

Main contact: Alexandra Nikoleris