My futures' watchlist for 2025

Don't just itemise what's changing, and what isn't. Look for how trends and developments affect how we define ourselves and our world.

Previously, I’ve given tips on how to scan the environment. Here I want to highlight the issue I’m especially interested in monitoring in the new year, based on the scans I’ve completed for clients in 2024.

Scanning can be like walking along a beach and picking up shells and exoskeletons that look interesting or unusual. Sometimes you may look for, or notice, particular types of shells – based on shape, colour, or incrustations. But the point of futures scanning isn’t just to find pretty or weird things. More importantly, you try to stand back and see if there is a larger pattern to the diversity and numbers. You also need to let your mind wander and take in the views, smells, and sounds to provide context.

Rather than focussing on individual trends and drivers of change - artificial intelligence, climate change, etc – it is more insightful to look at collective potential implications. This is because trends and drivers shouldn’t be considered individually. They often combine, constrain, or conflict with each.

Below I share some of my key scanning takeaways with reference to the Verge domains, which I summarised in the earlier post.

(Re)defining

The most significant insight for me this last year is that many of the most notable trends and changes fell within the “Define” domain in the Verge framework.

“… the concepts, ideas, and paradigms we use to define ourselves and the world around us. This includes things like worldview, paradigms, and social values and attitudes.”

Defining and redefining ourselves and things is a natural response to significant challenges and changes. Consequently, we are living in a time of a multiplicity (or at least a greater profile) of labels, either self-proclaimed or imposed. “Alpha males”, LGBTQI+, “woke”, “tech bros”, “snowflake”, “far right”, “radical left”, “boomers”, “Gen whatever”, etc. Backlash against these labels and concepts can also be intense, due in large part to social media, and rising tribalism & intolerance.

But the proliferation of labels is distracting. In reality, we usually have several social identities, based on different settings and context. Characterising people by one label is not only simplistic, but can be used as a political strategy to avoid reasoned debate, and as a means for surveillance, control, and oppression.

There are also deep divides between those who want a return to an imagined “better” past, those who desire a rapid transition to a more sustainable and just future, and a smaller nihilistic collective who see little hope in any improvement for society or the planet.

When we most need to come together and resolves differences for the common good we seem instead at greater risk of social and economic fragmentation.

So, over the next few years will there be further atomisation and rigidity of communities and groups? Or will we see more examples of cooperation and collectivism to address shared aspirations? What will help to facilitate such collaborations?

The elements within the Define domain are closely linked to those in Verge’s Refine and Connect domains.

Relate: The social structures and relationships that organize people and create organizations.

Connect: Technologies and practices used to connect people, places, and things.

How will New Zealand define itself?

For Aotearoa New Zealand one of the key issues that fall into the Define domain is the role of the Treaty of Waitangi in our future. This year saw the large and diverse protest against the Treaty Principles Bill. The protest and the growing wider adoption of some Māori cultural practices and te reo (Māori language) are signs that a significant cultural shift is underway here that could blend western and indigenous values.

The protest also reinforced the widespread support the new Māori queen, Nga wai hono i te po, received after succeeding her late father. She is seen as a signal of a new generation of Māori (and national) leadership and is expected to increase the influence of the Kiingitanga movement.

How will such a cultural realignment influence social, environmental, and economic policies over the longer term?

But there are always risks that cultural (and other) shifts fail due to complacency. While polling indicates that more are opposed to the bill than support it, even more (39%) reported being uninformed or undecided. This is only one poll, so it’s important to track how preferences change (or don’t). What consequences (positive and negative) may emerge if support for embracing Māori perspectives and culture falters?

Will there be more, or less, tunnel vision?

An important sub-category of Define that I’ve noticed across my scanning is “tunnel vision.” This is where the focus is on only part of a broader issue. An example is “carbon tunnel vision.” This is adopted (intentionally or not) in most sectors, including governments, with disproportionate attention given to carbon emissions and footprints, at the expense of, or poorly connected to, wider environmental, political and social factors.

As Dave Bengston noted, its everything change rather than just climate change. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), in a recent report, highlighted the need to consider environmental interlinkages.

Tunnel vision applies to other areas too. For example, building performance is still often looked at in silos – insulation, ventilation, weather tightness, etc. So, owners can end up with well insulated houses that are too hot and poorly ventilated. This is starting to change, although testing and regulatory requirements that incentivise looking at a building as a system are lagging.

Thinking systemically at urban scales still has a long way to go to, but cities like Rotterdam are illustrating how to develop climate-resilient environments, and the concept of cities as a system of systems is also gaining attention.

We don’t need to look too far for examples of tunnel vision

The recent decision by the NZ Government to remove the social sciences and the humanities from the prestigious Marsden Fund is an example of tunnel vision too. Whether it is a wilful version or a consequence of ignorance I’m not sure, but you hope a Minister is well advised before making a significant decision. It is intended, the Minister of Science, Innovation & Technology says, to have a greater focus on “science with a purpose.”

This has been widely condemned by a diversity of researchers, and others, as a narrow and shallow view of fundamental (or “blue sky”) research and of the contributions that social sciences and humanities research contribute to improving social and economic outcomes.

There is good international evidence of the value of social sciences and humanities to improving society, economically and otherwise:

“Engineering and medicine are the handmaidens to society. They provide solutions, but they can only be solutions if they are adopted by society. So, I think this government and many governments get it totally wrong. Technology isn’t the solution. Technology can be used, but it can only be used by a society which is made out of individual humans. And if you don’t understand individual humans, you don’t understand what makes an effective culture. There is nothing more important to the survival of society than social science and the humanities". STEM Panel Member for the Research Excellence Framework, 2021

Stay curious and hold onto some hope

As challenges get more complex, there are growing political, economic, and social temptations to focus on the easier stuff to demonstrate something is being done, avoiding (potentially) more expensive or disruptive actions that will be more effective over the longer term.

So, I’ll be looking out for examples that reject tunnel vision and work across ideological and social divisions. My expectation is that these are more likely to be found at local levels, where there is a willingness and imperative to constructively challenge and debate an issue, and be open to new approaches.

But I’ll also keep an open mind that is receptive to other curiosities and surprises in my New Year’s seaside scanning.