Scenarios are powerful tools to envision how nature might respond to different pathways of future human development and policy choices. Most scenarios developed for global environmental assessments have explored impacts of society on nature, such as biodiversity loss, but have not included nature as a component of socioeconomic development. They ignore policy objectives related to nature protection and neglect nature’s role in underpinning development and human well-being. This approach is becoming untenable because targets for human development are increasingly connected with targets for nature, such as in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. The next generation of scenarios should explore alternative pathways to reach these intertwined targets, including potential synergies and trade-offs between nature conservation and other development goals, as well as address feedbacks between nature, nature’s contributions to people, and human well-being. The development of these scenarios would benefit from the use of participatory approaches, integrating stakeholders from multiple sectors (for example, fisheries, agriculture, forestry) and should address decision-makers from the local to the global scale, thereby supporting assessments being undertaken by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).