Policy and design are fundamentally about the future – about changing the course of individuals and communities, setting patterns for new actions and, in the case of sustainable development, steering toward preferred futures. This paper sets out to explore the theoretical and methodological basis for creating, understanding and representing sustainable futures in terms of altered practices of consumption, through the integration of futures studies, design epistemology and social practice theory. As an introduction to this exploration, we present these three perspectives and generate questions for discussion and future work.