The Future Laboratory: Global Futures Forum

The Global Futures Forum is The Future Laboratory’s annual strategic foresight conference that aims to challenge current thinking and existing strategies on how we need to deal with tomorrow’s consumer. This year, we were invited to have an on-stage conversation at the event with the company’s senior analyst Victoria Buchanan, on how Faber Futures is driving a systems change in design at the intersection of nature and technology.

The event was curated around four emergent human needs: attainment, purpose, identity and security and how they are shaping the coming decade’s social trends.

As we power towards the 2020s, many socio-political and cultural systems are up for grabs as environmental security, national wellness, brand purpose take center stage. But how can brands take a stand and lead at this moment to make real and impactful change? Can businesses enrich the debate and challenge their customers? What new systems and technologies will help them make the right interventions and at the right time? The forum left us pondering on these and other questions, on how brands remain relevant in world in flux.