The En-ROADS climate solutions simulator team has won the 2025 System Dynamics Applications Award from the System Dynamics Society. This award recognizes the best “real world” application of System Dynamics within the past decade, “based primarily on demonstrated measurable benefit to an organization through the use of System Dynamics.”
The team contributing to developing En-ROADS includes: John Sterman (Jay W. Forrester Professor of Management and professor of System Dynamics; co-faculty director of the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative; senior advisor of Climate Interactive), Andrew Jones (executive director and co-founder of Climate Interactive; research affiliate), Bethany Patten (executive director of MIT Climate Policy Center; senior lecturer), Jason Jay (director of the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative; senior lecturer), Krystal Noiseux (senior associate director of MIT Climate Pathways Project), Michael Sonnenfeldt (Climate Pathways Project leadership team; founder and chairman of MUUS & Company), Travis Franck (Tufts Climate Policy Lab; Climate Interactive climate ambassador; research affiliate); Jack Homer (Homer Consulting; Climate Interactive technical and modeling partner; research affiliate), and Florian Kapmeier (ESB Business School; Climate Interactive climate ambassador and technical and modeling partner; research affiliate).
En-ROADS is an interactive online simulation tool co-developed by Climate Interactive and MIT Sloan and used in the Climate Pathways Project (CPP), a collaboration of the MIT Climate Policy Center, MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative, and Climate Interactive, to test and visualize global impacts of policies and advance the adoption of evidence-based climate policy through public- and private-sector leaders—almost 20,000 of whom have used the climate solutions simulator to date.
“[En-ROADS] goes beyond, far beyond, exceptional climate science, and rigorous climate modeling … It exemplifies the use of system dynamics to make a difference … It finds numerous ways to make the modeling and insight accessible and understandable. It is a truly unique specimen of system dynamics for the masses” (Brad Morrison, award selection committee chair).
Contributing team members currently or formerly with Climate Interactive include: Bindu Bhandari (United Nations), Chris Campbell, Janet Chikofsky, Ava De Leon, Kaveh Dianati, Sibel Eker (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis—IIASA), Khaled Gaafar, Clara Iglesias, Ellie Johnston, Charles (Skuk) Jones, Joshua Loughman (Arizona State Univ.), Katherine Markova, Stephanie McCauley (Multisolving Institute); Caroline Reed, Philip Rice, Danielle San Filippo, Elizabeth Sawin (Multisolving Institute); Lori Siegel, Sam Wellington, and Yasmeen Zahar. Additional team members include Lucia Cheney (UMass Lowell Climate Change Initiative), Adem Delibas (Ventana Systems), Tom Fiddaman (Ventana Systems), Todd Fincannon (Energy Innovation), Elizabeth Keating (MIT PhD ’99), Ken Rath (Rath Educational Evaluation and Research), Juliette Rooney-Varga (UMass Lowell Climate Change Initiative), and Chris Soderquist (Pontifex Consulting).
The award was presented at the 2025 International System Dynamics Conference in Boston. More information can be found in this article.