Decade of change: How Forum for the Future is driving systemic shifts in India

From the beginning, Forum believed that business could be a powerful force for good, and today, we’re doubling down on that belief. Progress has been encouraging, but it’s not yet delivering at scale. Businesses need to rethink how they operate and collaborate to strengthen their value chains and the broader systems they rely on. A focus on short-term profits often comes at the expense of long-term resilience; for businesses, society, and the environment. While efforts like greener products and improved ESG ratings are steps in the right direction, they often overlook the bigger picture and fail to drive meaningful change.

The change we need is clear: moving beyond incremental changes to embracing systems-level thinking, where sustainability is integral to business models, creating long-term value for all stakeholders.

This change has never been more urgent in the Indian context. India’s economy has grown significantly over the past decade, with GDP over $3.5 trillion and the country becoming the fifth-largest economy in the world. Rapid economic growth and technological progress have reshaped the business landscape. Digitisation, a booming startup ecosystem, favourbale policies, and renewable energy, now over 46% of the power mix, have created new opportunities. At the same time, rising heatwaves, floods, and cyclones have highlighted the need to build resilience. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed weaknesses in healthcare and supply chains, while growing calls for equality, workers' rights, and environmental responsibility have made it clear that business as usual is no longer enough. 

The challenges we face today are only growing. Uncertainty is on the rise, and unsustainable ways of living and working have brought us to a pivotal moment — one that demands a reset. 

Forum for the Future is about change: what it means, why it’s needed, and how to make it happen. We focus on food, energy, and the purpose of business, combining systems thinking, futures practice, and strategic collaborations to help businesses and industries reimagine how the world works, for a just and regenerative future. 

Forum’s approach, grounded in systems and futures thinking, has helped businesses move from intention to action. Over the past decade, Forum has supported both internal transformation and wider systemic shifts by driving change across three key levels: hearts and minds, organisational action, and wider systems. 

Hansika joined Forum in late 2019, and it immediately felt like the end of a long search for belonging. 

“Forum’s approach, applying systems and futures thinking to real-world, complex, and messy problems, is something the world desperately needs but few organisations do well,” Hansika says. “The almost five years I spent at Forum revelatory, in terms of witnessing the power of these approaches into unlocking change that goes beyond surface level numbers and insights and works at a deeper paradigm-level shift.” 

This mindset shift — from isolated action to systemic interdependence — is central to Forum’s theory of change. Forum helps change actors recognise their interconnectedness with wider society and nature, building the confidence and courage to act even in the face of uncertainty and resistance. Hansika highlights how this shift translates into action: 

“Forum is great at playing a critical friend, pushing ambition among partners something that is both rare in this part of the world, and doesn't come naturally to organisations working in this space,” Hansika says. “This is something I learned to embody at Forum and now carry into new contexts and conversations.” 

By helping businesses and leaders see the bigger picture, and their role in shaping it, Forum equips them not just to imagine change, but to lead it. 

2. Unlocking organisational action 

Shifting mindsets is only the beginning. Forum helps businesses turn awareness into action by aligning strategies, structures, and operations with just and regenerative (J&R) principles. 

Forum has helped organisations integrate sustainability into their core business strategy, making it a key driver of growth and resilience building. Businesses are embedding sustainability into product development, supply chains, and business models, not just to meet targets, but to create long-term value and competitive advantage. 

Take Royal Enfield, an iconic motorcycle brand with passionate global following, for example. Forum helped Royal Enfield look at a vision that is entirely aligned with the brand's core values. More importantly, Forum was able to work closely with the RE team to lay out a path and set goals that not only resonated internally but were actionable. This is crucial for a very hands-on, rooted brand. This has percolated down to its overall business strategy, with sustainability as one of its main pillars. 

The work with Forum has also helped envision, create, and design RE's unique social mission— one that ambitiously goes beyond the limitations of conventional CSR around factories and areas of business focus to instead look at the vast Indian Himalayan Region (IHR). While the IHR is a place of global importance from an ecological, cultural, and climatological standpoint, it is also a spiritual home for Royal Enfield and its riding community. Royal Enfield is looking to work with 100 Himalayan communities and landscapes to enable them to become thriving and resilient in the face of climate change by 2030, and in the process, mobilise 1 million of its riders to be a part of this movement.