Nature Consultation is an ongoing EU Policy Lab exploration into how institutions might integrate the perspectives and agencies of non-human beings into policymaking. Between 2024 and 2025, we convened a series of experimental sessions within the European Commission and with external experts to examine what a more relational, ecological and multispecies form of governance could look like.
From artefact to policy
The work draws directly on the speculative vision introduced by its artefact SYMBIOTIC, a film set in the Symbiocene of the 2050s, where humans can experience the sensory worlds of other species. During screenings, policymakers and experts were struck by the profound policy implications of such multispecies encounters. In the film, interspecies communication becomes a tangible reality; in our experiment, we ask what early institutional steps toward such a future might be.
This interest opened the door to a new question: If such futures are imaginable - and increasingly plausible due to advances in AI-mediated animal communication, biosemiotics, and environmental sensing technologies, as well as the growing movement of rights of nature - what can we practice today?
Nature Consultation begins from the premise that achieving the European Green Deal and the just transition goals requires moving beyond human-centred systems. And that the nature-inclusive governance is not a distant fiction but a horizon already forming at the edges of science, technology, law, and design.
Our approach
What would it take to give ecosystems and species a meaningful place within EU decision-making?
Desk research and +40 expert interviews across environmental governance, ecology, rights of nature, multispecies justice, design, activism, and indigenous-informed perspectives kickstarted the experiment
We adopted a transdisciplinary stance, weaving together multiple epistemologies and worldviews without pre-selecting a single framework. The work followed an exploratory, practice-based design research methodology: instead of fixed hypotheses, each session aimed to generate new insights, tools, concepts, and questions.
The workshops
Between 2024 and 2025, we ran five experimental sessions involving:
- Participants from across the European Commission (DG ENV, REGIO, RTD, EEAS, DGT, MARE, EAC, JRC)
- Representatives from the European Parliament
- EU agencies including REA, CINEA and EISMEA
- External futurists, artists, scientists, designers, researchers, writers, systems thinkers, and innovation managers
Each session combined embodied, speculative, and art-science methods. Participants:
- Explored their personal, professional, and institutional relationships with nature
- Learned about Rights of Nature, multispecies justice, ecological jurisprudence and emerging representation mechanisms
- Mapped non-human stakeholders in their policy cases
- Reflected on technological, ethical, and relational pathways for giving voice or presence to ecosystems and species
- Discussed institutional boundaries and opportunities for systemic transformation
The iterative design of the workshops allowed us to refine tools, evolve the narrative, and deepen the inquiry over time.
What we learned
Participants consistently expressed strong interest in continuing this work. Feedback emphasised the value of speculative, imaginative and embodied formats in opening new strategic perspectives:
“Mind-blowing session.”
“A great discovery — inspiring and refreshing.”
“Thought-provoking and innovative; I left inspired.”
“I regret not engaging earlier with the Policy Lab’s work.”
This enthusiasm signals a growing appetite within the Commission for creative, systemic, and nature-inclusive approaches to governance — and for tools that help institutions think beyond incremental solutions toward relational, multispecies futures.
A knowledge for policy paper including the findings, tools and methods for policy making is forthcoming to be shared with a wider audience as the first consolidated outcome of this evolving inquiry.
Looking ahead
Policymakers are invited to use the policymakers field guide to nature consultation and take nature into consultation when designing their policies.
Inspired by
Symbiotic is a short film, set in the Symbiocene era of the 2050s, about our interconnected humanity and our relationship to the ecosystems of planet Earth and all life.
- EU Policy Lab tags
- Foresight
- Design for policy