Bridging LOng-term Scenario and Strategy analysis – Organisation and Methods

Workshop introduction29th and 30th of April 2008Copenhagen

The broad perspective

• Long-term environmental problems require a long-term (environmental) policy perspective

• A couple of challenges:

• The question is not only how to better assess key drivers, impacts and uncertainties of long-term future developments...

• ... but also how to take decisions that are robust, or sound, against a variety of these alternative future developments?

Quite often the ones who are producing the information are not the ones who take the decisions

Assessing future developments

• There is no shortage of future-related information:

• Environmental outlooks, scenarios, foresight studies, horizon scanning and other approaches are standard support tools for government and research nowadays

• But how do we use this body of knowledge?

From assessments to long-term policy-making: Myth, dream, or reality? *

• Challenges for (long-term) policy-making:• Sometimes, we wait too long for evidence to justify

action (climate change, hazardous substances)• Sometimes, we act too quickly on new opportunities

and oversee spill-over effects (biofuels)...• ... because attention is fragmented - government is

coherent in its parts, but not as a whole.• Often, we approach the future on the basis of our

experiences in the past: policies function in the short, but not in the long run (ecosystems)

• There are examples of successful long-term policy-making – what about environmental policy?

* Adapted from Woodrow Wilson Center 2003

Main questions...

• What is the actual impact of environmental scenarios and other forward-looking studies and tools on policy-making?

• Anecdotal evidence that many decisions that could benefit from scenarios/other tools are not using them

• Is this due to:• Lack of evaluation?• Lack of appropiate methods?• Lack of appropiate institutions?

... and EEA’s response

• EEA scenario and outlook based assessment activities:• EEO• PRELUDE• GLIMPSES• GEO-4 • MEA• Indicators and model review

• EEA will strive to complement these activities with a ”strategic futures” component – how to maxime the use scenarios, especially for informing long-term strategic decision-making

Main rationale of BLOSSOM

Bridging LOng-term Scenarios and Strategy analysis – Organisation and Methods

• A systemetic effort to:

• Take stock

• Scrutinize institutional arragements

• Analyse methods and develop case studies

• Foster information exchange and learning

BLOSSOM 1.0

• Organisations review

• Literature review

• Expert workshop

First results

• Literature review: 52 journal or book chapters match our criteria of ”evaluative scenario literature”, so far...

• Some of the main findings:• Little to less work on factors that influence the successful

use of scenarios• Most empirical cases come from the world of business• Little to less work on failure of scenario exercises• Growing literature evaluating environmental assessments

does not make a significant mentioning of scenarios• Methods – don’t see the wood for the trees?• Institutions – the missing debate?

Objectives for this workshop

• Information exchange

• Identification of key success criteria and obstacles

• Looking forward: suitable institutional arrangements and methods

• Suggestions for further work of EEA

Interactive discussions wanted – facilitated plenary and working group sessions