Learning with futures to realise progress towards sustainability: The WBCSD Vision 2050 Initiative

This paper addresses the limited evidence of how futures work bears fruit in the present by exploring a specific, yet significant, empirical case study. The results of our longitudinal study into the WBCSD Vision 2050 Initiative shed light on how organisations are harnessing the perspective of the long term future to identify what can and should be done in the near term to keep progress towards sustainability on track. We provide evidence of the expected and realised benefits of this collaborative futures initiative. These benefits extend beyond direct decision support, manifest at multiple levels and vary over time. We note that shift from single client to collaborative futures work is inherent to addressing sustainability challenges and call for more research into how collaborative futures practices are evolving to deal with new puzzles and wicked problems.

► Increasing prevalence of collaborative multi-organisational futures work is noted.
► A visioning-plus approach enabled motivational, realistic and concrete pathways.
► Benefits of collaborative futures are diverse and manifest in use.
► Collaborative futures work focussed on sustainability assumes an activist stance.
► A key challenge is to better relate multiple futures methods.