A need for change: The second update from the Foresight Group
The Foresight Group's second meeting on 24 February 2025 explored bold proposals to address global challenges—ranging from innovative economic models to regenerative urban design—as part of its mission to reimagine a resilient, sustainable future.
A series of radical proposals to help tackle major global challenges emerged during the second meeting of the Foresight Group on 24 February 2025.
These ranged from innovative economic models and demonstrator projects for governments to adopt, to a greater use of biomaterials and treating cities as ecosystems where the waste from one part becomes the nutrient for something else. These ideas were discussed as the group progressed its work, focusing on the global megatrends affecting the planet and its people in the years to come.
Beginning the session, chair David Orr, also chair of Clarion Housing Association, restated the group's aims: “None of us is in charge of the future, but we are in charge of imagining a future that we would like to see, and I think that really is the job that we are engaged in.”
Group members Julie Hirigoyen, senior adviser, Systemiq and CBRE Group, and Michael Pawlyn, founder, Exploration Architecture, then gave presentations on the nature of the planetary emergency. The group heard that planetary boundaries that represent the safe operating space for humanity, in areas ranging from biosphere integrity and climate change to freshwater and land use, are already being breached in most cases with the world currently heading towards a three-degree Celsius global warming scenario.
Indy Johar, Director at Dark Matter Labs, and Rachel Coldicutt, Director at Careful Industries, also presented their perspectives on the increasing disruption from science and technology.
The group was warned of the threat of unstable technologies and that the Silicon Valley model of extractive technology is unsustainable. The group heard how a totally different approach to asset valuation and new ways to finance investment in the resilience needed to face the effects of climate change are needed.
Future meetings will turn to issues such as changing demographics and household structures, and economic and social upheaval as the group begins to refine its thinking, turning radical thought into practical solutions that can be applied within Clarion and across the wider housing sector.
The Foresight Group will next meet on 28 April.