DAVID BENT

David has over 20 years of experience leading sustainability as a strategy advisor, catalyst and facilitator. He is the Founder of the Atelier for What’s Next, a studio for initiatives at the frontier of generating a better future. In its first two years, the Atelier has worked on different cutting-edge projects, including: a shipping NGO which is trying to transform the maritime industry; an innovation agency wanting to accelerate the net zero transition; and a cultural collective that is trying to shift mainstream political narratives.

David also is a Mentor at Undaunted, Imperial’s flagship climate innovation hub, a Fellow with Zinc, the mission-orientated VC firm, and a Venture Partner at Conduit Connect, the early-stage impact investor.

David worked for 13 years at the global NGO Forum for the Future, helping leading corporates be more successful by creating a sustainable future. He worked with noted companies like mobile network O2, Indian conglomerate Arditya Birla, and Hong Kong-based Swire Group.

Since 2016 he has been exploring ‘what can we do in these powerful times?’ (now a podcast). He is  an Edmund Hillary Fellow, one of 500 or so innovators committed to New Zealand as a basecamp for global impact, and Honorary Lecturer at the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources (also with podcast of practitioners telling stories of innovation for sustainability). He was chair of EIRIS Foundation, a charity that is pioneering the next steps for sustainable finance.

Work w/ CUSP

As a CUSP Fellow, David is exploring how curated foresight tools can help sustainability practitioners navigate deep uncertainty and make more informed decisions for a just and sustainable future.

His project reimagines the MAPSS Bulletin—CUSP’s respected weekly scan for sustainability professionals—by asking: What if key actors had regular access to a horizon scan designed specifically to support effective action in an unpredictable world?

This work is made possible by a convergence of timely developments. With Ian Christie stepping back from producing the Bulletin, there is space to evolve the format. At the same time, futurist Andrew Curry is working to codify key foresight methods that can inform a wider community of practice.

These shifts align with The Rift, a new two-year research cycle from Chatham House’s Sustainability Accelerator, which asks how to act wisely when we treat the present as the beginning of a fundamentally new era. David’s project is situated within The Rift‘s research strand on decision-making under uncertainty. It takes forward an existing approach—the MAPSS Bulletin—and prototypes a new kind of sustainability scanning: one that is not only insightful but actively used. Drawing on deep expertise in foresight, AI, and collective intelligence, the project builds on an established expert community and institutional platform to reach broader audiences of key sustainability practitioners.