The energy demands of AI and other digital infrastructures threaten to eclipse the decarbonising agenda.
Transition Templates AI and Digital: Pathways to Net Zero+ was an AHRC funded Future Observatory project in 2025. We prototyped the four-step Transition Templates process to support decarbonisation in the AI & digital sector. We launched the Four Futures Framework and build capacities to envision, design, communicate, and enact energy transitions with participatory workshops and events alongside partners Green Tech South West and Friends of the Earth.
We prototyped Transition Templates AI and Digital method with the three in-person workshops; one flash workshop at the Regenerative Design Anti-conference and two day-long workshops at Bath School of Design. We also held two online workshops. These workshops were conducted primarily (but not entirely) with experts in sustainable design and digital technologies. Approximately 60 people participated in these workshops. The method is introduced in the TT Guide (PDF available here) with greater detail in upcoming peer reviewed publications.
The value of this Transition Templates process will be in helping us in the necessary slowing down and stepping back - and specifically to highlight those areas for intervention that we may have overlooked, as well as the gaps in our understanding of the future.
– Mary Stevens, Friends of the Earth Experiments blog
While prototyping the Transition Templates method in the digital sector we came up with some ideas to encourage decarbonisation work in the sector. Ruth Wright-Palmer made one of the first spin off projects with her digital decarbonisation toolkits – available to download for free on our resource section.