A future design approach to nuclear waste repository siting: activating futurability and cultivating pride

Nuclear waste repository siting presents an unprecedented intergenerational challenge: decisions made today will affect approximately 5,000 future generations over 100,000 years. Contemporary approaches in Finland, Sweden, and France rely almost exclusively on present-generation perspectives in societal decision-making. While achieving varying degrees of local acceptance through institutional trust and economic compensation, these processes implement no systematic exercises where current residents adopt future generations’ temporal viewpoints. Future Design (FD) offers a complementary framework by activating futurability —the capacity to experience present happiness through pursuing future generations’ wellbeing. FD employs dual perspective-taking: temporal (through integrated Past Design, Present Design, and Future Design exercises) and spatial (host-beneficiary dialogue). This cultivates three forms of pride: achievement pride from confronting civilization’s waste challenge, collective pride in community contribution, and anticipatory pride imagining descendants’ evaluation. Unlike compensation-based acceptance, pride-based acceptance emerges intrinsically through perspective-taking. Rigorous pilot testing comparing FD and non-FD deliberations is essential, with ethical safeguards ensuring transparency and genuine openness to rejection. Integrating FD into repository siting can help demonstrate what current generations owe future generations: not merely engineered safety, but proven concern.