McKinsey Sustainable Futures Lab simulator
This simulator recreates the original 20-minute Futures Lab. Candidates now report a redesigned 30-minute version on some invitations: what's reported so far.
Each run draws 12 of our 14 decisions, in an order that follows your choices, so runs differ but some decisions repeat.
Ready to start?
Rank your priorities, then make 12 decisions with four options each. There are no right answers and no feedback until the end, the same as the real thing. You have 20 minutes.
New here? Read how the game works and how it's scored first.
What the Sustainable Futures Lab is, and what this simulator does
The Sustainable Futures Lab (some people write it Sustainable Future Lab, or just SFL) is the judgement game in the McKinsey Solve. There's no arithmetic. You join a fictional environmental research team, and the game hands you a run of decisions where several options sound reasonable and none is obviously right. It tests how you weigh trade-offs, whether you read the situation before acting, and whether your choices hang together from one screen to the next.
Not every candidate gets it. As of 2026, candidates report that a 65-minute invitation means Red Rock and Sea Wolf only, and an 85-minute invitation adds a roughly 20-minute Sustainable Futures Lab with a priority ranking followed by 12 decision questions. Since September 2026 there are also reports of a longer, redesigned version on 95-minute invitations. McKinsey hasn't published anything about either version, so treat all of this as candidate-reported. The Sustainable Futures Lab guide covers what is known about both.
What this simulator recreates
The original 20-minute format. You rank what matters most, then work through 12 branching decisions with four options each. Five stakeholders react to what you do: your team, your funder, your science partner, the public and leadership. You get no feedback during the run, the same as the real game. At the end you see the fallout of every call, where each relationship landed, and a score built from two things: how consistent your judgement was across the run, and how the stakeholders ended up. Every play generates a different scenario.
What it doesn't do
It isn't the real test and doesn't use McKinsey's scenarios. McKinsey doesn't publish how it scores this game, so the consistency and stakeholder model here is ours, built to give you useful feedback rather than to predict a result. It also doesn't yet practise the redesigned three-day, team-management version that some 95-minute invitations reportedly include.
What's free
This game is Pro only. Red Rock and Sea Wolf each have a free scenario, so you can try the site before paying. Pro is $29 for 30 days or $69 for lifetime access, one payment either way, no subscription. It opens this game and the legacy Ecosystem game, and builds a new Red Rock study and new Sea Wolf sites on every run. This game draws 12 of our 14 decisions each run, so some decisions repeat. Details on the pricing page.
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