This page is still in draft – more ideas/links to come, or send in your own ideas for us to include: greenstories@soton.ac.uk
There are many ideas to explore that might make up a sustainable society. There would be greater re-use of items, lots of recycling, much less packaging, water conservation technologies and practices. Sustainability is about social well-being, peace and justice as well as the environment. So you can also explore alternative ways of managing conflict. Imagine an international army of social scientists, experts in non-hostile communication strategies, being sent into long-standing war zones to counsel warring parties as an alternative to troops for example!
Story ideas
Focus: You could make this new society the focus, for example the ‘fish out of water’ plot is a common way to showcase absurdities in our present society. Maybe it could be time-travelling drama and your hero could be transported from 1930s Britain where it was normal to live frugally and not waste anything to modern day UK. Even better your heroine could go to the future and comment on how great everything in in this new futuristic society, then perhaps return with new expectations – it could be a comedy e.g. she could want to take back a phone because it only lasted 10 years for example.
Or how about society has become more localised with each region having a local currency, community-owned renewable energy and policy decisions are made by citizen juries. See for example https://www.leedsclimate.org.uk/leeds-climate-change-citizens-jury. You can then write any kind of story – mystery, rom-com, legal drama etc. against this backdrop. Juries can be quite dramatic and involve all kinds of interplays between characters so might make a good location for such a story. This would be a good device can then showcase the ways in which societies will change as they adapt to climate change.
If your story includes a wedding – check out what a sustainable wedding looks like: The Full Guide to a Sustainable Wedding | 77 Diamonds
How about a story about a staycation, where characters have holiday dramas/romance using slow/active travel. You may find ideas here.
Background: You could simply take any story you like, possibly one you have already been working on and simply shift it into the near future or parallel world and adapt the peripheral descriptions to showcase more sustainable solutions.
