2024 was an exceptionally good year for DRIFT. Not only did we celebrate our 20th anniversary, but our courses were full, we had an impact on science and society, the team was full of good energy with fewer ailments, and we closed with a sizeable positive financial result. In this document, then, you’ll find a ‘hurrah!’ story full of highlights.
But all this is set against a backdrop of dark clouds – we’re experiencing socio-political backlash, intensifying wars in Gaza and Ukraine make it clear that justice or sustainability are less than ever taken seriously and, as political pressure weakens, it also appears that many companies and civil society parties are taking transitions much less seriously than we do.
At the same time, in response to this, turmoil all kinds of new parties are emerging from domains such as healthcare, water management and science willing to accelerate transitions.
As a thriving social enterprise at a very uncertain moment in time, we are now publishing the second edition of our societal impact report. We’ve improved on the one we put out last year, making a start with developing a Theory of Change, and providing more flavour as to what we do with our main activities: research, consultancy, education and arena.
The theory and the report aim to make explicit how we think we have an impact on society, and we will continue to develop and adapt both as we go. This not only helps us telling the story of how we’re accelerating justice and sustainability transitions (and how we believe you can too), but also helps us internally to make these assumptions explicit and where possible test them.
