Inhabiting tomorrow
Shaping liveable futures
Alice Leguay, CBA Strategy Advisor for Growth & Engagement was a speaker at Habiter Demain (Inhabiting Tomorrow), which took place on 4 July in Rome. Organised by BNP Paribas and Villa Médicis, the event convened leading thinkers to explore how design, ecology, and economy can shape more liveable futures.
Alice was part of the Day 2 opening session Living Our Planet alongside architect Eric-Daniel Lacombe and moderated by futurist Julien Tauvel. Their conversation explored three questions: What if we are not at the centre of the world? What if empathy is the only solution to the crisis? What if sustainability is no longer enough?
Humans must stop seeing themselves as separate from ecosystems. The landscape, the bioregion and its communities —not the individual—are the unit of action. Alice emphasised the work of the CBA and its Living Labs, which begin with deep place-based understanding. Each landscape is unique and must be treated as an integrated social-ecological system.
“At the CBA we design Living Labs that regenerate landscapes and activate new value chains rooted in place and in local communities. Catalysing these systems is key in the first instance, until they become scalable, investable systems. Our mantra is action on the ground”, she said. “At the CBA, we know that for any economic system to be sustainable, it must start by regenerating nature and its communities – only then can we consider it potentially viable for the long term.”
