Why is it so hard to imagine a better future? And, more importantly, what are the consequences if we fail?

According to Professor Geoff Mulgan, we struggle to imagine futures because ‘future imagination involves two distinct steps, each of which is difficult: The first step involves questioning or rejecting the present, resisting to claim to be natural. The second step means constructing a plausible alternative, moving between an awareness of limits and a search for transcendence of those same limits’ (Mulgan, 2022: 35).

It is no exaggeration to say that both of us, on several occasions, felt naive, on the verge of unintelligent, in the many situations where we have presented the idea about a sustainable and better future. Daring to imagine a better world. We have repeatedly encountered resistance or scepticism from others, which, honestly, at times, have made us doubt our own worldview.

This feeling is not unique to us. One of us, Julie, once reached out to her network on LinkedIn to invite people to give their version of how an irresistible, circular society might look and feel 30 years from now. She got this private response in her direct inbox from a business leader within concrete production: