Changing currents: Charting our energy future

Forum for the Future has developed a futures-focused strategic role-playing game inspired by the Iconic Renewable Energy (RE) Zones, or areas recognised for their potential to actively engage civil society in phasing out fossil fuels and developing clean, renewable energy, as identified within the Global Clean Energy Network (GCEN) framework.   

The game invites players to explore how diverse energy-transition stakeholders might respond to challenges in scaling renewable energy, and how their actions could interact to shape different futures. By strengthening our collective anticipatory muscles, we aim to help practitioners not only react faster but also move ahead of the curve. 

The challenge

Decarbonising the global energy system is accelerating, yet the path forward remains deeply contested. Fossil-fuel incumbents continue to deploy sophisticated foresight and coordinated strategies, often keeping civil society, advocates, and policymakers reacting rather than shaping the agenda. At the same time, the wider energy transition landscape is becoming more volatile: compounding crises, political shifts, and rapid technological change create new uncertainties that decision-makers struggle to anticipate.  

While sustainability actors think about the future, we often lack the structured, strategic futures capabilities that allow incumbents to pre-empt risk and act early. Building this anticipatory capacity is critical — but time-poor leaders rarely have space for deep, reflective exploration of long-term consequences. As a result, even well-intentioned efforts to accelerate renewables or embed justice considerations can be undermined by short-term pressures, fragmented coordination, and the pace at which disruptive events reshape the system. 

Our solution

To help shift this dynamic, Forum for the Future developed Changing Currents, an immersive, futures-focused strategic role-playing game. The game centres on Project Zephyr Wind — a fictional yet plausible renewable energy project in Southern Africa, inspired by real developments and the Global Clean Energy Network’s Iconic Renewable Energy Zones.  

Through two in-person sessions in 2025, in Johannesburg and London, we convened leading stakeholders from government, civil society, international organisations, finance, and the private sector to determine the project’s fate across four rounds, each representing two more years in the year future (2026, 2028...). 

Players received individual character cards outlining specific roles, motivations, and team affiliations. This forced unlikely collaborators — for instance, a renewable energy developer and an offshore oil and gas CEO — to negotiate shared decisions within their teams. Embodying these characters pushed participants beyond abstract debate into lived perspectives, deepening appreciation for the pressures and incentives shaping different actors’ choices. Unexpected events — from a miners’ strike to a nano-locust outbreak — arrived through “headlines from the future,” mirroring the speed and unpredictability of real-world change.

Through negotiation, compromise, and moments of tension, participants navigated competing goals while assessing the long-term implications for Zephyr Wind and the region. Many reflected on how stepping outside their own roles sharpened their understanding of political pressures, trade-offs, and the emotional realities of decision-making. By simulating system complexity and uncertainty, the game strengthened players’ anticipatory capacity — enabling them not only to react to disruption but to think and act strategically ahead of it. 

"I work in an international CSO and it was really helpful to take time to think in depth about how other stakeholders view, and respond to the energy transition."

- Playtest participant 

What's next?

At Forum, we continue to think about ways in which we can build anticipatory capacity over the long term. Through the development of the Changing Currents game, we experimented with relationship building, unusual tactics, and decision making amidst uncertainty. Our hope in the short term is that the participants are better equipped to use these skills and insights into their daily roles within the energy system.  

Our hope for the long term is that prototypes like Changing Currents can help us to better understand how change happens and how we can do the challenging work of shifting mindsets into the future.  

If you are interested in playing the game with your organisation or adapting it for other contexts, please contact Alisha Bhagat at [email protected]  

Further reading and resources 

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