In my opinion I've come to detest the "right" "left" spectrum, ideological positions we assign to either right or left can be, and often are, shared by the other. There are authoritarian rightists, and authoritarian leftists, and vice versa. There are morally outraged rightoids and morally outraged leftoids. The lines between them blur significantly. So this is going to be long winded, because I want to outline some ideas before answering your question.
As far as "forward-thinking" I don't know exactly what you mean by "forward".
I do not think western "progressivism" can offer any realistic forward thinking solutions anymore. In my opinion the "progressives" have reached a peak with deconstructing everything. Political and Cultural Progressivism is the Orthodoxy in academia, culture, and politics. I think it's final horizon to conquer is what it is that makes us, us. With everything deconstructed to the nth level I feel there is less and less things that are sacred to the left. There is a hatred of self that is rampant among the progressive circles. And it deeply effects the environmental movement with it's blatant anti-natalist positions.
The problem I see it is two fold:
1) that you cannot take on the global without understanding the cost to the local. This is what has been an abject failure of globalism, and what fueled the rise of right-wing populism across the Liberal world. Globalism has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in a span of 20 years, at the cost of putting millions of people into relative poverty, i.e. we decimated the industrial heartland of the US which provide jobs for the lower and lower middle classes, a stable life, all so we can buy cheaper sneakers. So we can buy cheaper clothing. Buy a cheaper piece of plastic, a fun little technological device that provides entertainment over any realistic value.
2) Local Democracy makes global action a near impossible thing to accomplish. In democratic institutions policy is indirectly driven by the will of the people. The politician enacts or votes on policy that best suits the constituency that keep that politician in power. The long-term benefit of solving global issues comes at the expense of near-term loss of the locals. The desire to build 100 solar plants for the long term benefit of the environment is great, but you're going to sacrifice thousands of jobs of oil drillers, coal miners, people who work at petroleum plants, and power stations. Unless you find a way to replace those jobs you will only create a backlash. We saw this most explicitly in 2016 when the Rust Belt flipped from being traditionally Democrats and voted for Donald Trump. This is why I push extremely hard for people to understand the deep-deep seething anger of people living 50 miles outside of major cities.
So unless the above is somehow resolved, there are only a few solutions to the environmental movement, depending on how big of a problem you think it is:
Eco-Fascism – specifically the necessity of an all encompassing totalitarians state that can drive all social and economic activity towards a environmentalist solution.
Techno-Capitalism – that technological sectors of capitalist societies will drive the technological power to fix the environment.
Elon Musk is an example of a techno-capitalist that is focused on the environment. Whether altruistic or not, you cannot deny the impact that he had on EVs, Solar, etc.
What I think is emerging is radical centrism, which is at least somewhat "forward-thinking", but it is also highly part of techno-capitalism, that is, the emergence of technology shaking up the capitalist world. I think this is best encapsulated by someone like Andrew Yang who correctly identified the problems emerging in modernity such automation, hollowed out industrial heartlands, inability for people to even gain the skills needed to participate in the economy.
Imho the best policies should be as follows:
-Radical focus on techno-infrastructure cooperatives. Government can grant extra privileges, leases, change tax codes, etc, for private venture to build inter-state infrastructure; better transportation, better internet, etc. I prefer this to be largely done on a private level because the US as a government simply cannot drop another 4 trillion dollars.
-Government policy that encourages migration away from large cities and into smaller ones mixed with a policy of better smarter city planning, i.e. smart-cities. Los Angeles grew rapidly in the first 20th century, and it's city design is built for the technology and reality of the 20th century. It is massive, inefficient, bloated, and any new construction, or transformation is costly beyond comprehension. You cannot turn Los Angeles, as it is, today, into a smart-city. You can go to Barstow (50 miles north east of Los Angeles) and start building building a smart city. These kind of cities would encourage high-tech, high paying economic sectors to spread out and not be so concentrated in single cities. This will have the dual nature of making politics less radicalized. Smart cities can also be built with far more modern more efficient infrastructure.
The above policy would do wonders for the Rust Belt.
This is detroit in 2009:
The financial crisis destroyed that city, a massive metropolis of a city, becoming an urban hell scape. Imagine if there was a policy to reclaim the broken empty lots, the broken buildings, and revivify them into a smart city.
You can go big too. The Saudis for example have been in the works of building NEOM, an ultra modern smart city with the aim of being a 0 emission city. Yeah it's a bunch of techy buzzwords, but the fundamental technology is there. You can build a better more efficient city, and you should.