by In the Sunday NY Times, an editorial “A Group Shout on Climate Change,” acknowledged Kellogg’s for their sustainable practices of helping to stem the destruction of tropical forests by changing the way they buy commodities like soybeans and palm oil. In the same issue, the President’s Drive for Carbon Pricing Fails to Win at Home, cited Dow Chemical for signing a new declaration calling for a global price on carbon.
Futurists often wonder if or how we might have had an impact. I worked as an organizational futurist with these companies, and some of that work touched on the issues in which they are now being held up as examples of “good behavior” in the sustainability space. I think there is a connection. I can neither confirm nor deny that anything particular I did as a futurist led to this behavior. I can suggest that the fact that these companies did some serious foresight work is probably a factor in them now being among the leaders in adopting future-friendly practices. I saw the evolution in thinking and to think that we futurists helped with that, well, that’s a good thing!
As we know, in our craft, a key to success is “transferring” ownership of ideas and concepts so that our clients adopt them as our own. Thus, we always have an issue of getting credit. My experience is that we have a good idea of how effective we’ve been (although surprised occasionally) , but it is tricky to effectively communicate that. It is difficult to provide evidence or prove that we’ve been effective when asked by someone outside the situation. So, today, I’m choosing to take comfort that perhaps some of the work I’ve done as a futurist has had a positive impact. It can’t be proved that it did, but nor can it be proved that it didn’t. Andy Hines
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