Speculative Futures: Environmental & Ecological Imagination as a Competence for Practitioners

On 7 April 2026, ᴇNᴀBʟS’ IDEA team — Dora Psoma, Tilemachos Kotronis, and Elisavet Petridi — organised and implemented the final event of the workshop “Speculative Futures: Environmental & Ecological Imagination as a Competence for Practitioners” in Thessaloniki, within the framework of the project and the Greek Living Lab.

• Dora Psoma: d.psoma@ideatraining.gr
• Tilemachos Kotronis:t.kotronis@ideatraining.gr

The event marked the conclusion of a six-week workshop series with a total duration of 24 teaching hours and formed part of the ongoing activities of the Greek Living Lab focusing on Nature-Based Solutions (NBS), sustainability education, and the development of NBS competences through participatory and experiential learning approaches.

The workshop was designed for Vocational Education and Training (VET) learners and brought together participants from diverse professional and academic backgrounds, including architects, engineers, artists, legal professionals, and individuals working in related technical and creative fields. Through an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspective, the workshop explored how ecological imagination, speculative thinking, and futures literacy can support sustainable and resilient responses to contemporary environmental and social challenges.

Building on previous Greek Living Lab workshops focused on urban transformation, biodiversity, and sustainable neighbourhoods, “Speculative Futures” examined how storytelling, artistic practices, collaborative creativity, and futures-oriented thinking can contribute to discussions surrounding environmental crisis, resilience, and post-crisis futures. Rather than approaching the future as a fixed prediction, the workshop encouraged participants to imagine possible futures emerging from present ecological, social, and political conditions.

Throughout the programme, participants engaged in readings, facilitated discussions, moodboards, visual experimentation, and collaborative creative exercises. They explored themes such as ecological crisis, dystopian futures, memory, survival, circular economy practices, re-use, recycling, and collective action. By combining text, image, artistic materials, and personal reflection, participants developed their own speculative narratives and creative projects, expressing personal interpretations of environmental change and future worlds.

The workshop methodology adopted a learner-centred and participatory approach aligned with the principles of the Greek Living Lab model. Short expert presentations were combined with interactive discussion, collective reflection, peer exchange, and experiential learning activities. This structure enabled participants to connect theoretical sustainability frameworks with real-world environmental and social challenges while strengthening competences related to critical thinking, futures literacy, promoting nature, and collective action.

During the final event on 7 April 2026, participants presented their speculative future scenarios and creative projects, reflecting on how societies may adapt to environmental and social crises through sustainable and nature-based approaches. At the same time, the IDEA team shared an open-ended questionnaire based on the European GreenComp framework. The assessment focused on four NBS competences directly connected to the workshop’s themes and creative processes: Futures Literacy, Critical Thinking, Promoting Nature, and Collective Action. The selection of these four competences was made in collaboration with 3s and was based on the same competences previously explored during the Greek Living Lab workshop held on 5 June 2025 at TEE/TKM. Their integration into the workshop framework aimed to ensure methodological continuity between the Greek Living Lab activities.

Participants’ responses to the open-ended questions further highlighted their reflections on the role of NBS and the competences developed throughout the workshop. For example, in response to the question “To what extent do you believe that Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) effectively address environmental problems?”, participants stated:

“Definitely to a significant degree, as long as they are implemented on a broader scale and accompanied by larger-scale actions, e.g. sustainable neighbourhoods.”

And

“To a considerable extent. The adoption of environmentally friendly attitudes and behaviours is a starting point.”

Additionally, regarding the question “Among the following competences – Promoting Nature, Critical Thinking, Collective Action and Futures Literacy – which do you believe you developed the most during the workshop and your project?”, participants referred particularly to the importance of collaboration, collective thinking and future oriented reflection.

Responses included:

“Collective Action, because we engaged in brainstorming that helped me in finding solutions”

“The workshop highlighted the importance of collective action as a crucial factor in generating proposals”.

Overall, through participation in the workshop and the collective exploration of environmental futures, learners had the opportunity to deepen their understanding of Nature-Based Solutions, strengthen ecological awareness, and develop future-oriented competences relevant to both professional and social contexts. The workshop ultimately highlighted the importance of creativity, collaboration, and participatory learning in imagining more sustainable, resilient, and inclusive futures.