Imaginaries on Sustainability Transformation – Report outlines three positive futures

In the field of sustainability transformation research, there has been growing interest in future imaginaries and the factors that shape them. The reason is clear: imagining futures is a process deeply influenced by other topics, collective perceptions, and narratives available in our social environment. In recent years, uncertainty, risk, and survival have dominated public future discourse. When society lacks inspiring images of the future, people tend to base their decisions either on legacy mental models or reactively respond to current problems.

This limits the ability of individuals, organisations, and societies to proactively pursue the long-term actions needed for a sustainability transition — or more radically, a sustainability transformation. A lack of futures thinking can also diminish people’s sense of agency and increase societal polarisation.

By offering diverse, positive visions of the future, we can better motivate decision-making and foster the kind of broad societal dialogue that sustainability transformation requires.

Literature review: 150 publications featuring future imaginaries

In autumn 2024, the Finnish Expert Panel for Sustainable Development launched a project to develop future visions of a society that has undergone a sustainability transformation. Demos Helsinki was tasked with compiling a literature review on the subject. The review includes images of the future, visions, scenarios, and cultural narratives portraying a post-transformation world. Sources include academic literature, reports from NGOs and public organisations, and works of fiction. The focus was on publications in Finnish and English, primarily produced in Europe and North America.

The outcome is an open-access database of over 150 documents. While not exhaustive, this collection offers insights into what kinds of sustainable futures have been imagined—and what’s missing. The review’s findings are summarised in the Expert Panel’s discussion entry Positive images of futures as sustainability transformation drivers and in Demos Helsinki’s background report.

Images of the future rarely explore institutional and economic change

Our review revealed striking gaps in current futures discourse. Most of the images of the future we found focused on technical solutions — renewable energy, circular economy models, and urban sustainability innovations. Far fewer explored structural shifts in economic systems or institutions. This is reflected in the portrayal of everyday life: citizens are shown mainly as users or implementers of new technologies, while active civic engagement is rarely highlighted as a driver of transformation.

Another notable observation concerns the role of the economy. Over the past three decades, market mechanisms have often been proposed as solutions to climate change and biodiversity loss — for example, pricing emissions and natural capital to account for externalities and shift market incentives. These “true cost economics” approaches could, in theory, make low-impact products and services more competitive.

Surprisingly, we found very few images of the future in academic scenarios or policy reports that explicitly apply this kind of thinking. While numerous economic models simulate the hypothetical impacts of market-based solutions, these approaches may have crowded out future-oriented explorations of how such models could reshape society.

Despite the wide range of sources, the predominance of technical visions, rather standard structure of transformation processes, and a narrow cast of actors came as a surprise.

We also examined positive futures found in climate fiction literature. In this genre, such images of the future are clearly in the minority compared to dystopias. Typically, the narratives we identified depict a deepening of current crises leading to political and economic collapse. Out of this collapse, often with the help of citizens and scientific communities, new social orders emerge. These stories offer richer explorations of institutional change and citizen action than those found in academic and policy literature.

Three seeds for sustainable futures

The goal of this review was to provide starting points for the Expert Panel’s future visioning process. In spring 2025, the process will bring together diverse citizen groups to co-create visions of a transformed society.

To support this work, we drafted three seed imaginaries based on gaps identified in the reviewed material. These are not final scenarios but open-ended starting points for further exploration.

1. True-cost economics

In this future, markets serve as engines of sustainability through robust pricing mechanisms for emissions and ecosystem services. The most harmful business models disappear, capital flows toward sustainable innovations, and new jobs are created. Ecosystem restoration and natural resource stewardship become key sectors, spawning new professions and livelihoods. Resource-intensive industries undergo creative destruction, with agile companies leading a shift toward a regenerative market narrative. Price signals make planetary boundaries visible in everyday choices, helping people internalise sustainable values in their lifestyles.

2. Planetary rules

Here, the sustainability transition is guided by a new system of planetary governance based on science, real-time global data, and inclusive citizen assemblies. This system regulates overconsumption and ensures nature protection and restoration at scale. It manages critical global issues like natural resource use, AI and weapons oversight, and pandemic prevention. Regional, national, and local bodies retain responsibility for non-planetary issues. National sovereignty is reimagined as part of a multilayered governance model. Property rights are reframed in relation to broader freedoms and responsibilities, better accounting for the rights of future generations and non-human life. Humanity’s relationship with nature shifts fundamentally: planetary thinking emphasises interconnection, relationality, and systems awareness. People are no longer separate from nature, but part of the living world.

3. Sustainability awareness revolution

In this future, societal transformation emerges through education and learning. Sustainability literacy, eco-social education, and a culture of sufficiency become embedded in new generations’ worldviews. A deep, intergenerational shift in values guides people to direct their skills, passions, and resources toward sustainable solutions. Work life, economic structures, and institutions adapt accordingly. Local communities and professional networks form the backbone of the transformation, creating and reinforcing new norms. Organisations clinging to outdated paradigms lose relevance as people “vote with their feet.” This gradual, networked transformation forces societies to respond to the consequences of climate and ecological breakdown while building more sustainable ways to live within planetary boundaries.

These three seed imaginaries deliberately leave many questions open, especially the crucial one: How did we get here? The Expert Panel will continue to develop these visions with citizens over the coming year. We hope these starting points inspire others to join in imagining hopeful futures — together.