Pathways to Sustainable Futures through Envisioning and Imagination
Session 4.2 — Explore
Creating visions of a sustainable future: Envisioning and Imagination
Imagination is a core human capability and a cornerstone of futures thinking—it is our evolutionary superpower. Addressing something non‑existent requires imagining it. Creativity recombines ideas in unexpected ways so novelty can arise (Ketonen-Oksi & Vigren, 2024).
| Definition: Imagination The interdependent cognitive and comprehensive social processes that generate shared understandings of the present and visions of possible future states of the world—a way of seeing, sensing, thinking, and dreaming that creates the conditions for material interventions and political sensibilities (Moore & Milkoreit, 2020; Ketonen‑Oksi & Vigren, 2024). |
Bringing the future into the present calls for a collective and structured use of imagination. Futures thinking competence includes knowing why we imagine and how to consciously use imagination to create visions of alternative futures (Miller, 2018).
Imagination is situated and temporal. It functions to understanding the present and envisioning the future. Memories are created through imagining the past, and memory and images of the past act as building blocks for our imagination—they utilize the same brain mechanisms. As an individual and collective endeavor, imagination depends on many factors, such as available resources, structures, histories and path dependencies, and technologies. The concept of situated imagination highlights how social, physical, and ecological realities shape visions (Moore & Milkoreit, 2020).
Imagination is a process associated with creativity—“a reservoir of ideas” holding novelty and change in it. Importantly, imagination can offer “cognitive freedom” from strict rationality and current constraints (Moore & Milkoreit, 2020). Yet power, equity, and diversity shape who gets to imagine—and what counts. Diverse and inclusive participation tends to increase the quality and legitimacy of imagined futures by widening the option space. Imagination is both a method and a terrain of politics. By structuring it, and diversifing it, we can enrich visions of sustainability.
“Missing voices cannot influence what is imagined.”
How do we imagine the Future?
Imagination and assumptions competence has been defined as recognizing that futures exist only in imagination and are revealed and tested through images and stories that differ across scenarios (Bergheim, 2024). We use anticipatory systems and assumptions to build images of the future; these influence what we sense and perceive and how we act now.
Frames matter: Many of us default to linear time—the frames of e.g. growth, aging, incremental change. Present day sustainability challenges suggest alternative frames, such as atmospheric CO₂ levels. We moved from ~280 ppm pre-Industrial Revolution to roughly 426 ppm today, with projections higher. How do CO₂ frames reshape our futures thinking? How do we handle the uncertainties they entail?
Uncertainty is intrinsic to sustainability because environmental, social, and economic systems are complex (Bergheim, 2024). Uncertainty refers to the unknowns that exist about the future and requires the exploration of a broad range of envisioned futures. For example, scientists agree on warming trends, but the exact pace and local impacts of climate change are uncertain. This complicates precise plans, but underscores the need for adaptive strategies that work across futures.
Fostering Imagination in Higher Education
Imagination is not a luxury — it is a cognitive tool for envisioning alternatives, hypothesizing possibilities, and crafting innovative solutions. In higher education, it enables learners to connect disciplines, question assumptions, and build new paradigms. Knowledge creation in an “ecological university” embraces complexity and unpredictability—conditions where imagination thrives (Barnett, 2018). Maxine Greene (2000) links imagination to “wide-awakeness”—critical awareness that enables fresh perception and action.
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
Yet academia often constrains imagination through disciplinary silos, standardized curricula, and assessment-driven practices. These reward conformity over curiosity and stifle agency, transforming students into passive recipients rather than active co-creatos of knowledge. Structural rigidity discourages exploration and imaginative risk-taking (Freire, 1970; Barnett, 2011; Facer, 2022).
How to nurture imagination as a tool for fostering critical pedagogy
Imagination underpins critical pedagogy. It helps learners to read the world not only as it is but also as it could be, fueling dissent, innovation, and more just futures (Giroux, 2010). Freire sees imagination as liberatory: picturing new realities precedes transforming them. Genres like solarpunk, Afrofuturism, and Indigenous futurisms can act as “thinking devices” to explore political, ecological, and ethical dilemmas, inviting critique of current systems, and engagement with speculative alternatives.
For educators, futures thinking rooted in decoloniality challenges dominant narratives and reclaims alternative ways of knowing, being, and becoming (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018). Integrating diverse voices supports inclusive plural visions beyond Eurocentric, technocratic, or extractivist frames.
Pause and Reflect
Imagination and academia
* Why is imagination often overlooked in higher education?
* How does imagination shape how we construct knowledge?
* What structures in academia constrain imagination?
Explore further
Ideas to inspire you to explore more learning activities that can be tailored to your course goals:
- Storytelling and speculative fiction
- Use solarpunk or science fiction (sci‑fi) stories, brief vignettes, or prompts (e.g., from Solarpunk Magazine, Solarpunk Storytelling, Green Stories, Greenlit Fest, or Clima Utopyas, ecoF) to explore utopian/ dystopian futures.
- Design‑based pedagogy
- Have students prototype sustainable futures (e.g., cities in 2050, future schools, climate‑resilient neighborhoods, post‑capitalist economies) with visual models, storyboards, or digital tools.
- Apply speculative design to prototype sustainable tech/social systems (e.g., food‑sharing apps, eco‑currency; see Extrapolation Factory).
- Interdisciplinary projects
- Co-teach across disciplines (e.g., climate science + literature) to explore topics like climate grief or eco‑ethics through poetry, data, and activism (see examples here).
- Create multimedia exhibits combining art, data visualization, and decolonial storytelling.
- Role-play and improvisation
- Run simulations (e.g., En‑ROADS, climate negotiations, post‑carbon town halls) or “What if…” games to unlock creative thinking.
- Use gamification to build interactive speculative narratives.
- Reflective practice
- Assign reflective letters (see session 1.1., dream journals, or guided “future walks” imagining the world in 30 years.
- Use visual or audio journaling to explore personal values and desired futures.