Building Meaningful Futures is a nonprofit, interdisciplinary initiative for more sustainable development of built environments — created to help stakeholders make more individually meaningful choices about sustainability.
This website provides free resources for any stakeholders to improve and manage project sustainability processes and outcomes — by applying key insights from Design Thinking, Decision Science, and Project Management.
Scroll down to learn more about the aims and objectives and core components of the initiative.
Would you like to collaborate or discuss our work? We’d love to chat! Drop us a quick message on our Contact page, here.
The aim of the Building Meaningful Futures initiative (BMF) is to help solve ongoing built environment sustainability problems through practical, evidence-based solutions.
The objective is to help individuals, projects, and organisations make better, more socially- and ecologically-beneficial decisions which are more individually meaningful.
The BMF Initiative was created from well-established, evidence-based insights and innovations toward practical, applicable solutions — all available here, for free. These tools and techniques are based on nearly a decade of applied research and development, benefitting from substantial investment, and formed by highly experienced, and in some cases, world-leading experts.
Scroll down to learn more about the Four Core Components we advocate to Build Meaningful Futures. Alternatively, click the button below to find out about the ‘Problem-Need’, outlining the Three Main Challenges we seek to resolve through the BMF Initiative by supplying Three Missing Pieces.
LATEST NEWS:
COMING SOON: GHG+CO2 Primer! Full announcement on publication.
We are super excited to be working as part of the Climate Action Community at The Institution of Environmental Sciences (IES) on a new Sustainability Resource Framework. Full announcement on publication.
We are very pleased to announce the publication of our 2022-25 Strategy, outlining the detail of our Mission, Strategy, and Management of the initiative. To download a copy, please Click Here or click on the cover image below.
Making more individually meaningful choices involves four core components:
1 Human Values
Human Values are relatively stable socio-cognitive concepts representing worth, meaning, and import, normally expressed as ideals and/or goals (e.g., positive relationships, creativity, connection to nature). Values also have socially shared aspects (i.e., relatively universal) and are both accessible and measurable (cf. Cheng and Fleischmann, 2010; Schwartz, 2012).
Values are critically important because they are foundational in not only our lives, but also our personalities and cultures. Most importantly, our values motivate both our behaviour and decision-making, whether deliberately or subconsciously. This includes our communication, project planning, and design behaviour.
Whereas Value is the relative desirability or worth ascribed to an object or goal, described as “the relationship between satisfying a need and the resources consumed in doing so” (BSI, 2000), and sometimes associated with financial quantification of goods, assets, and services.
Human Values provide a strong foundation from which the value of sustainability can be established — for any individual and their own reasons, thus motivating more robust decisions.
2 Communication Frames & Framing
“Frames are both mental structures that order our ideas, and communicative tools that evoke these structures and shape our perceptions and interpretations over time” (Holmes et al., 2011:36). Frames communicate meaning, and reframing can embed new meaning in context (cf. Matthes and Kohring, 2008; Hertog and McLeod, 2001; Cornelissen and Werner, 2014).
Importantly, Frames are perceived differently by decision-makers under various conditions; because framed options influence people’s interpretations of outcome likelihood and desirability, they impact sustainability decision outcomes — framing effects are the consequences (Shealy et al., 2016; Klotz et al., 2018).
For these reasons, frames are critical to establishing the meaning and worthiness of sustainability in each project’s context.
Thus, Framing, as the act of creating individually-meaningful frames, is a fundamental tool for setting the stage for sustainability in the early stages of project planning and design decision-making.
3 Meaningful Choices
Meaningful choice is a conscious consideration of what sustainability means to stakeholders and decision-makers, and equally how such a choice/decision will affect project impacts on issues associated with sustainability. Such choices are made with respect to both their individual situations and broader, long-term goals. “[A] choice becomes meaningful when the reason for the choice is fit to important goals (Csikszentmihalyi, 2000)”.
Importantly, meaningful choices thus embed the individual meaningfulness of a decision-problem to a decision-maker in making choices/decisions.
4 Managing Sustainability
Major decisions about sustainability typically happen early in projects, but are refined and changed throughout the project lifespan. Therefore, the most successful approaches to Managing Sustainability effectively over time typically involve five core factors.
- A composite Values-and-Frames approach
- Values-engagement
- Values-framing
- Values-reflection and Values-reframing
- Managing change through vigilance for, and responsiveness to, values shifts
Building Meaningful Futures 