Culture & The Futures We Make

Every campaign, product, space and story carries an image of the future. The creative industries decide, more than most, what people desire and what feels normal. So what happens when that talent turns toward a future where life is beautiful and flourishing, where everyone has enough, and where we live within the limits of our planet? And what would that future actually look like?

Amsterdam has already made one choice about the images it lives with. Since May, fossil fuel ads have been banned from the city’s billboards and bus shelters, a policy Creatives for Climate helped move forward by rallying more than 100 senior industry leaders in a single week. Their work goes further than what to stop: they put the power of storytelling and popular culture to work, building lasting public support for climate action.

On Creative Industry Day of the We Are Warming Up Festival, Futures & Sustainability and Creatives for Climate bring together designers, makers, storytellers and futures thinkers for an evening of music, ideas and play.

What to expect

Who it is for

People working in the creative industries, and those in impact, foresight and business who are curious about the role of culture in change. The mix is intentional: new ideas come from difference, not sameness.

The first four Futures & Sustainability evenings sold out, so we recommend booking early.

Come curious. Leave with a wider sense of what is possible.

Warming Up Festival: Culture Professionals Day
On Friday 20 November, Warming Up Festival, in collaboration with the Sustainable Cultural Sector Programme, is organising a special Culture Professionals Day. This event brings together the festival’s themes with the issues you deal with on a daily basis: just as with the wider program, everything here is intertwined.

After all, a great deal is also expected of the cultural and creative sector. We are hearing more and more about the role the cultural and creative sector can play in the sustainability transition of wider society. But what does that actually look like? Sometimes new regulations seem to clash with day-to-day practice. Not everyone creates work that focuses on environmental sustainability, and yet everyone can contribute to a positive climate footprint. How can you also ensure that environmental sustainability is fully integrated into your organisation’s policy, without compromising other important values?

Check the entire Warming Up Festival program here.

Futures & Sustainability is an Amsterdam-based platform that convenes events, facilitates participative workshops and provides strategic advisory, helping organizations and professionals navigate societal transitions through futures literacy, systems thinking and design. More about the series at futuresandsustainability.com

Creatives for Climate is a global non-profit network of more than 8,000 creative professionals across 90+ countries. Its mission is to end the creative industry’s promotion of fossil fuels and its role in greenwashing, and to put the industry’s influence to work for climate action, through training and peer learning for creative professionals and by changing the standards that shape client work.