Forum for the Future

Forum for the Future is celebrating its 15th Anniversary! And we are really proud of what we’ve been able to achieve during that time. http://www.forumforthefuture.org/
 
The idea of the Forum emerged from the Earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro in 1992. I’d spent the preceding twenty years campaigning against things, and desperately needed to get some more positive energy flowing. Hence the Forum, launched four years later, together with my close colleagues Sara Parkin and Paul Ekins.

There are now roughly 70 of us, based in London, Bristol, Cheltenham and New York.

Our mission is simple:
Forum for the Future is a non-profit organisation working globally with business and government to create a sustainable future.
We have 15 years’ experience inspiring new thinking, building creative partnerships and developing practical innovations to change our world.
 We aim to transform the critical systems that we all depend on, such as food, energy and finance, to make them fit for the challenges of the 21st century.
 

You’ll find out all you need to know about Forum for the Future on the website. What follows here is:

  • Forum’s Front Line: A snapshot of some of our current activities.
  • JP Priorities: A summary of those aspects of the Forum’s work that I’m most closely involved in.
  • What’s Next: The new Strategy 2011- 2016.
  • Supporting the Forum: Opportunities to personally donate to our work and to join the corporate Forum Network.

1. Forum’s Frontline
A snapshot of some of our most current activities:

1.1 Sustainable Shipping Initiative
This is turning out to be one of the most fascinating projects we are currently working on – 16 organisations from across the globe coming together to prepare a Vision of a genuinely sustainable future for the shipping industry – which will lead into a Plan of Action as to how best to turn that Vision into practical action.
http://www.forumforthefuture.org/project/sustainable-shipping-initiative/overview

The organisations involved are: WWF, BP Shipping, Cargill, Gearbulk, IMC, Maersk Line, Morgan Stanley, Rio Tinto Marine, Tsakos Energy Navigation, Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, Wärtsilä, ABN Amro, RSA, Lloyd’s Register, Carnival, China Navigation Co (Swire Shipping)

1.2 Barriers to Long Term Thinking
Forum for the Future has always had a strong interest in the way our capital markets operate: if capital isn’t being allocated to promote genuinely sustainable outcomes over the long-term, then the very idea of sustainable economic development becomes pretty meaningless.

Short-termism dominates the way our capital markets operate, which is why a big chunk of our work in this area focuses on overcoming the different barriers to long term thinking.
We’ve just completed a ground-breaking report, funded by the Friends Provident Foundation, ‘Overcoming Barriers to Long Term Thinking’  http://www.forumforthefuture.org/sites/default/files/project/downloads/long-term-thinking-fpf-report-july-11.pdf

1.3 Dairy 2020
The dairy industry provides products that support health and wellbeing, helps sustain rural communities, and plays a vital role in looking after our land. It’s an industry that we care about and value. But the 21st Century presents us with some big challenges: climate change, economic difficulties, and changing demands from consumers and businesses.

We have an opportunity to take on those challenges and build a positive and sustainable industry for the future. But we won’t do it alone. That’s why we’re working on this together and using an innovative futures approach to create a common ambition and strategy to tackle those challenges. We need your input – share your thoughts, ideas and stories with us here.
http://www.forumforthefuture.org/project/dairy-2020/overview

1.4  Megacities on the Move

For the first time in history more than half the world’s population is living in towns and cities. We passed this milestone in 2008 and by 2040 two in three people are expected to live in urban environments. Urbanisation presents us with a wealth of new opportunities and huge challenges. It has the potential to further economic development and innovation, but also threatens to exacerbate key global problems, including resource depletion, climate change, and inequality.
 
Megacities on the move sets out to find solutions to one of the biggest challenges – how billions of city-dwellers can access what they need without putting intolerable strains on the planet. It focuses on how to achieve sustainable urban mobility, looking at all the ways in which people will access goods, services and information and make contact with each other. It goes beyond transport to consider ICT solutions, innovative urban design and much more.
http://www.forumforthefuture.org/sites/default/files/project/downloads/megacitiesfullreport.pdf

2. JP Priorities
A summary of those aspects of the Forum’s work that I’m most closely involved in:

M&S launched its ‘Plan A’ initiative in 2007 http://plana.marksandspencer.com/?intid=gft_plana. It’s a five-year plan. So with just a year to go, the focus on the remaining action points that have not yet been achieved is becoming intense! Forum for the Future has been involved in Plan A right from the start, working both with the Plan A team (Richard Gillies, Mike Barry, Adam Elman, Rowland Hill & Carmel McQuaid) and the Senior Managers. I have regular meetings with Marc Bolland to discuss progress (as I did with Sir Stuart Rose before he stepped down in 2010), and take on a number of supporting engagements to help promote Plan A.

For me, the Plan A story is one of the most inspiring I know. It’s had a huge impact both internally and externally – indeed, Plan A has become a global brand in its own right. See my commentary on page 46 of the latest M&S ‘How We Do Business Report 2011: http://corporate.marksandspencer.com/documents/publications/2011/how_we-do_business_report_2011

M&S’s ambitions in this area are impressive. Earlier in the year, Marc Bolland asked me to Co-Chair with him a group of global experts to help M&S deliver on its commitment to becoming ‘The World’s Most Sustainable Retailer’ by 2015 – that’s the kind of challenge I love!

I’ve worked with Unilever over a longer period of time and on a wider range of issues than with any other company! I’ve been a member of the Unilever Sustainable Development Group (formally the Unilever Environment Group) since 1996, and the Forum has had a formal partnership with Unilever since 1998.

For the last couple of years, I’ve been acting as a Special Advisor on the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, which was launched in Nov 2010. I meet regularly with Unilever’s Chief Executive Officer, Paul Polman, and other members of the Unilever Executive Team. My key contacts are Gavin Neath (Senior Vice President Sustainability) and Karen Hamilton (Vice President Sustainability).  My work with Unilever takes me around the world, from India, to Brazil and the USA.

I bang on about the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan in almost every presentation I give! It’s the most wide-ranging, imaginative and ambitious corporate sustainability initiative that I know of – and the decision to base all its metrics, indicators and targets not just on Unilever’s own direct impacts, but on the impacts arising from the use by consumers of its products is a real differentiator.
http://www.unilever.co.uk/sustainability/USLP/?WT.GNAV=Unilever_Sustainable_Living_Plan

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I’ve been a member of Aviva’s Socially Responsible Investment Advisory Committee for a very long time, providing me with fascinating insights into mainstream capital markets and just how difficult it is to get the basics of sustainability and social responsibility established within this critical part of the economy.

The SRI team is just one small part of Aviva Investors, and Aviva Investors is just one part of the Aviva Group. Aviva Investors Chief Executive Officer is Paul Abberley, who has made some cracking speeches over the last couple of years, saying some things that other people in the sector still fear to say!

Forum for the Future is also working with Aviva Investors on an ambitious project tracking out sustainable investment options in four key sectors of the economy through to 2040 – providing a ‘Vision for a Sustainable Economy’. This will be going live in September http://www.forumforthefuture.org/projects/vision-for-a-sustainable-economy

Forum for the Future has had a partnership with Birmingham City Council, on and off, over many years, and it’s always been quite challenging getting everything aligned to help the city make some of the breakthroughs that it knows its capable of making.

Our current focus is on two things: climate change and Birmingham’s Green Economy. On climate change, we helped develop Birmingham’s very ambitious ‘Low Carbon Strategy’, and I now sit as an ex-officio member of the Cabinet’s Sub-Committee on Climate Change and Sustainability. It’s interesting to see things from the inside!

We are also doing a piece of work for the City Council on the opportunities to make far more of the Green Economy agenda within Birmingham and the wider Local Enterprise Partnership – something that Birmingham is particularly well-placed to take advantage of.

Forum for the Future no longer has a formal partnership with BP, after a couple of very difficult years where it proved difficult to get the kind of value out of the partnership that we would have wanted. I continue to work with BP on a personal basis on three projects:

1. Targetneutral http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9011548&contentId=7021085
This is one of the best-established carbon offset schemes in the UK, and Forum for the Future has been closely involved in its design, launch and implementation. I chair the Advisory & Assurance Panel, which includes a number of trenchantly independent characters such as Tim Smit (Eden Project), Charles Secrett (Former Director of Friends of Earth) and Rita Clifton (Chair of Interbrand).

2. BP Biofuels http://www.bp.com/productlanding.do?categoryId=9030593&contentId=7055794
I’m currently advising BP Biofuels on its biofuels Strategy, and its joint venture Vivergo, which will be opening Europe’s biggest wheat-ethanol plant near Hull in 2012. Can biofuels really be ‘done well’ at this scale?

3. Strategic Advice
I continue to advise Executive Team members on how best to ‘mainstream’ sustainable development into the many different processes underway in BP after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

  • BT (Leadership Panel)  http://www.btplc.com/

I’ve been Chair of BT’s Leadership Panel since 2000, and shared much of BT’s extraordinary sustainability story during that time with a close colleague, Chris Tuppen.  He always managed to find ways of working with BT systems to achieve real leadership on many facets of the broader SD agenda, as reflected in it’s leading position in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index over may years.  (BT has just appointed a new Chief Sustainability Officer, Niall Dunne).

The Leadership Panel has a close relationship with a number of key BT Executives, and plays a critical role commenting on both the Annual Report, and the Sustainability Review.  Over the years, BT has moved closer and closer to more integrated reporting.  Together with BT’s own Committee for Sustainable and Responsible Business (Chaired by BT’s Chairman, Mike Rake), we’ve also been actively involved in helping to shape the new strategy for sustainable and responsible business.
 

Carillion set up a Board-level Sustainability Committee many years ago. I’ve been involved from the start, first under Neville Simms and now under CEO John McDonough. (The other external Advisor is Julia Cleverdon, former CEO of Business in the Community).

There are two big things going on at the moment: a new Strategy, which has brought some much-needed focus to what had become a somewhat baggy and process-driven old Strategy, with much more demanding targets and performance measures.

Secondly, Carillion has just acquired Eaga, to create a new unit inside Carillion (Carillion Energy Services). This is a big deal for the company, with an eye on the huge retrofit market here in the UK as and when ‘the Green Deal’ eventually lands.
 
Carillion has confirmed its intention of being the leader in all the sectors it operates in, and is now gearing up to be exactly that.

I first got involved with the Co-operative Bank many years ago, working closely with Paul Monaghan.  Then with the Co-operative Insurance Services, then with all the rest of the burgeoning Group (Food, Travel, Funerals!) as it has grown and grown over the last few years.

I love what the Co-op does.  It’s a much more in-your-face Corporate Sustainability story (as in the latest campaign “Join the Revolution”!) than most, and the campaigning activities of the group are as impressive as that of many NGOs.

My principal role is to provide the independent commentary on their Annual Report.  This is not just any old report – it’s the most comprehensive, data-rich and even slightly clunky (!) report that I have to engage with every year.  But no other report does quite the same job, which probably explains why it keeps on winning Awards!

  •  Forum’s Bristol Project

Forum for the Future has had some fantastic support both from the John Pontin Charitable Trust and the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation to help Bristol City Council (and the wider ‘West of England’ Partnership) to become the most sustainable city region in the UK – you can check all the details on the Forum’s website: http://www.forumforthefuture.org/project/refit-west/overview

I have been involved with this from the start – and ran a series of Masterclasses for the West of England Partnership Board through 2010/2011. Cities find it really difficult to understand both the scale and the transformation required, not least because so much of our urban infrastructure locks us into hugely wasteful, carbon-intensive ways of living and travelling. There are many sustainability intiatives now underway in Bristol, and Forum is right at the heart of much of this.
 

Odd name – but a great initiative! This is a regeneration Fund set up by Aviva Investors to take on tricky, mixed-use sustainable regeneration projects in cities across the UK.
There are five Advisors on the SRI Advisory Committee: myself, Paul King (CEO UK Green Building Council), Anne Power (LSE Housing and Communities guru, and a former colleague of mine on the Sustainable Development Commission), Nic Marks (wellbeing supremo at the new economics foundation), and George Fergusson (Architect and former President of RIBA). It’s a good group.

Our colleagues on Igloo (and the two sister funds, ISIS and Blueprint) have adopted the Footprint Policy that allows them to assess both the design and the delivery of projects against four main themes:

1. Health, Happiness & Wellbeing
2. Regeneration
3. Environmental Sustainability
4. Urban Design

We don’t do the actual appraisals of all the different projects (that’s done by the consultancy URBED), but we assess the robustness of the Footprint Policy and the way it’s being implemented.

As part and parcel of Forum for the Future’s very successful partnership with O2, I have regular discussions with Ronan Dunne, it’s CEO, to discuss the leadership challenges he faces in keeping O2 ‘out there’ at what is a challenging time for the company in terms of the state of the UK economy.

The great thing in O2 is the level of traction at Board level – the Forum team engages with the full Board twice a year, covering the whole gamut of challenges and opportunities.  The emphasis on innovation is critical – and the success of O2’s eco-rating tool for all hand-held devices has been hugely important in that regard.
 

Npower is one of the ‘Big 6’ here in the UK, with a German parent company. So it’s obviously right at the heart of all of today’s crunchy sustainability dilemmas – on climate change, energy security, nuclear, renewables, fuel poverty and so on. They have been Forum for the Future’s energy sector partner for quite some time.
My principal role here is limited to working with the UK CEO, Volker Beckers, acting as a sounding board/mentor for what is (obviously!) one hell of a challenge – not least because of all the regulatory/political risks associated with government policy here in the UK. 

Forum for the Future has had a really interesting relationship with the Technology Strategy Board for a number of years – working on a number of different initiatives to embed sustainability in everything the TSB does – which covers a very wide terrain.

There are a lot of organisations for whom the meaning of sustainability doesn’t really matter that much: doing more of the good things and fewer of the bad things sort of covers it.  For the TSB, understanding what sustainability really means is critical.  Technological breakthroughs will be the principal driver of the kind of sustainable prosperity our future depends on, but being clear about the constraints within which we have to achieve those breakthroughs is truly fundamental.  Our shared “Sustainable Economy Framework” will be published later in the year.

3. What’s Next for Forum for the Future?

Forum has an exciting new five year Strategy (2011-2016) designed to ramp up the scale and pace of change towards sustainability. The current rate of change doesn’t match the urgency of the challenges we face.

We want to focus on transforming whole systems which underpin our lives and the prospects of sustainability, starting with food, energy and finance.

System innovation is at the heart of our new strategy. We look at the whole system and how its different parts join up.  We bring together key organisations to identify areas where we can intervene to create widespread change, and we plan multi-faceted action addressing behaviour, technology, policy and business practice.

We have set up ‘the Lab’ http://www.forumforthefuture.org/the-lab to help us learn lessons from how system innovation works in practice and pioneer new approaches. It provides space for us to explore and overcome the complex challenges to building a sustainable future.

See these animations and slides to further illustrate our work:

http://www.slideshare.net/forum4thfuture

http://www.youtube.com/user/forumforthefuture96

Companies and other organisations leading the way on sustainability tell us they are reaching the limits of what they can do alone, and that they now recognise the urgent need to help change the system in which they operate.

We are looking for ambitious partners who want to work with us, future-proof their businesses, and join other organisations who are leading the way in shaping a more sustainable world.

Forum’s new strategy is a natural evolution, building on 15 years of work on sustainability with leading businesses and with central and local government.

FORUM’S USPs

  • 15 years experience of creating real change in the public sector and business, working across a wide variety of sectors.
  • Strong cross-sector relationships which allow us to build and deliver ambitious projects and  bring key organisations together to overcome shared problems.
  • Cutting edge thinking and practice: futures and diagnosis, innovation, developing sustainable business models and scaling up solutions.
  • Our charitable purpose and culture, which makes us independent and focussed on the change we create.

FORUM’S SYSTEM INNOVATION (SI) STRATEGY VISUALISED:

4. Supporting Forum for the Future
Please see here:   (page currently under construction)   for an opportunity to personally donate to our work.

Please see here for ways of joining the corporate Forum Network: http://www.forumforthefuture.org/forum-network