School of System Change

We know that growing a global community of change agents is our best chance to accelerate a transition to a sustainable future. Want to know more?

Dr Anna Birney

Director School of System Change, Forum for the Future
@annasquestions

Anna is passionate about designing and facilitating systems change programmes that support people, communities and organisations to transform their practice.

Anna started facilitating multi-stakeholder processes around the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. At WWF-UK she ran a six-year education programme on system change which included setting up 56 communities of practice to knit together innovative practices. This experience supported her to develop practical system change frameworks for WWF-UK and Forum for the Future as well as organisations including Unilever, Nike, Shell Foundation, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Innovate UK and the NHS, through the System Innovation Lab - experimenting and learning how to develop different practices.

This led onto setting up the School of System Change where as well as overseeing the learning and curriculum, Anna now coaches on a wide number of projects and initiatives including the Marine CoLab, the #Oneless project and Oxfam’s System Innovation in Woman’s Economic Empowerment. She is the author of Cultivating System Change: A practitioner’s companion which is based on her PhD.

“Having cultivated the School since 2016 it gives me great pleasure to continue to engage and learn from participants, contributors and partners to evolve what we offer. I am most excited about how we can grow the number and diversity of facilitators and the diversity of learning, exploring what systems change practice might look like in different contexts and geographies.”

Latest

Love, futures and philanthropy: Why giving in a polycrisis needs to start from the heart

How do love, futures and philanthropy intersect, and why is this intersection so critical in tackling complex challenges in a polycrisis? Hannah Pathak, Forum’s International Managing Director, explores more in this blog.
Why organisations must prioritise climate and health in 2024 – and how some already are

Following World Health Day this past Sunday, Hannah Pathak, Forum’s International Managing Director and co-director of the Climate and Health Coalition, shares findings from a recent network roundtable about how organisations are focusing on climate and health in 2024, and why taking action now is more urgent than ever.
Pathways to transforming unethical recruitment practices

If a strong foundation of trust among diverse stakeholders is established in a complex system, how can this be built on to create lasting, effective change? In the last of a three-part blog series, we explore possible pathways to an effective changemaking system in responsible recruitment, and opportunities for value chain actors to act in transformative ways.
The women of Madre Tierra are fighting for farmworker justice. Here’s how.

Hormis, Elvira and Claudia are three of over two million farmworkers working to grow and harvest crops for the over 331 million people who live in the US. For Farmworker Awareness Week, Christina Daniels-Freeman, Programs Advisor at Forum for the Future, sat down with these three fierce advocates to learn about their stories, groundbreaking potential of the upcoming Farm Bill, and the role we all must play in fighting for farmworker justice.

Zoya Lukyanova

Zoya is a skilled facilitator and ecosystem enabler for impact driven networks, cross-sector collaborations and social innovation. She is a network partner for the School of System Change in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, facilitating learning experiences and cultivating the field in this region.
Joy Green

Joy is deeply experienced in using Futures for system change. She has fifteen years experience of applying foresight and system change methodologies across a wide range of sectors and organisations.
Marion Birnstill

Marion is a seasoned global health and partnering professional with 15 years’ experience spanning a career working for leading organisations across the private, public and non-profit sectors.
Mabel C. L. Mungomba

Mabel is CEO of Belcomm Limited, a Marketing and Brand building agency, and UPSTART Skills Bank which focuses on training and consultancy in Organization Development, Strategic Planning, Enterprise development, Leadership, Change Management and assisting progressive organizations design strategic plans and tailor made development programs for their staff.
Constança Belchior

Constança is a facilitator and designer of collaboration and innovation processes for sustainability and regenerative development. She belongs to a collective dedicated to transformative change - in teams, organisations and fields of action - grounded on an integral and living systems approach.
Jonathan Munro

Jonathan is Associate Director for Criminal Justice & Care Navigation for Rethink Mental Illness, a national mental health charity in the UK. He has over 20 years of experience working in Health and Justice environments, having worked in both operational and strategic roles.
Malik Gul

Malik is Director of the Wandsworth Community Empowerment Network based in south London, which addresses the structural inequalities and systemic racism that leads to discrimination, poverty and hardship, by unlocking the capabilities of frontline community groups and their members to be the agents of change within their own neighbourhoods and constituencies.
Louisa Hooper

Louisa Hooper, Senior Programme Manager, leads on the UK Branch’s Environment theme at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, currently focusing on initiatives to promote the value of the ocean. She has previously worked in publishing, communications and education (including in rural Japan) and is a writer in her spare time.
Rinku Sen

Rinku Sen, Executive Director of Narrative Initiative, is a writer and social justice strategist. She is formerly the Executive Director of Race Forward and was Publisher of their award-winning news site Colorlines.
Glenda Eoyang

Glenda Eoyang works with public and private organizations to help them thrive in the face of overwhelming complexity and uncertainty. She is a pioneer in the applications of complexity science to human systems, and she founded the field of human systems dynamics (HSD) in 2001.

The Five Capitals - a framework for sustainability

The Five Capitals Model provides a basis for understanding sustainability in terms of the economic concept of wealth creation or ‘capital’. Any organisation will use five types of capital to deliver its products or services. A sustainable organisation will maintain and where possible enhance these stocks of capital assets, rather than deplete or degrade them.
Jobs

We are a growing organisation and we are regularly on the look out for new recruits to join our teams around the world.
For a just and regenerative future

Forum for the Future is a leading international sustainability organisation running out of offices in the UK, US, India and Singapore.
Growing our Future US

Working together to accelerate the transition to a just and regenerative agriculture system in the United States.
Sustainability and system change

Climate change, malnutrition, inequality, poverty, ecological degradation. The global challenges we face are so urgent and tricky that we need a solution to match their scale and complexity. This is where system change comes in. We use systems thinking to understand the web of interrelations that create complex problems, anticipate unintended consequences, and identify how and where to take action to meet the SDG goals.
What is Net Positive?

We reinvent strategies for a 1.5°C world. Our Net Positive approach helps business put back more into society and environment than it takes out. Unilever’s pioneering commitment to eliminate fossil fuels from its operations and directly support the generation of more renewable energy than they consume was driven behind the scenes by Forum.
Transport or Mobility: What’s the difference and why does it matter?

Recently, the word transportation is being replaced with mobility. Why is this happening? What’s the difference between them? And why should we care about this change?
Become a system change agent

Learn more about upcoming system change programmes and express your interest.
6 ways Unilever has achieved success through sustainability - and how your business can too

A year ago this week, Unilever launched its Sustainable Living Plan (USLP), one of the most ambitious strategies that a global company has ever embarked on. Pioneering a bold new business model, the company pledged to double in size at the same time as halving its environmental footprint.
Transforming the Purpose of Business

More and more businesses like are setting ambitious targets for positive impact on their operations, value chains and wider operating context. For more than 25 years we have partnered with businesses to navigate this complexity and design impactful solutions that deliver the deeper change that’s needed. Why not get in touch to find out more?