Foresight exercises are methods of exploring and anticipating possible futures in a complex and uncertain world. They can help you identify opportunities and challenges for sustainability, and design strategies and actions to achieve your goals. But how can you conduct foresight exercises effectively and ethically? Here are some best practices to follow.
Before you start any foresight exercise, you need to have a clear and specific purpose and scope. What are the main questions or issues you want to explore? Who are the stakeholders and beneficiaries of the exercise? What are the time horizons and geographic scales you want to consider? How will you use the results of the exercise? Having a well-defined purpose and scope will help you select the appropriate methods, data, and participants for your foresight exercise.
It's important to consider advice from peers and mentors as well. Before launching into a massive investment in time, resources and energy take a minute to reach out to individuals you admire to see if they have any advice. I think the most important thing that needs to be established is the metrics you will be using to define success.
There are many methods and tools for conducting foresight exercises, such as scenario planning, trend analysis, visioning, backcasting, and participatory modelling. Each method has its own strengths and limitations, and you may need to combine or adapt them to suit your purpose and scope. You should also consider the availability and quality of data, the level of uncertainty and complexity, and the ethical implications of your methods and tools. For example, you may want to use qualitative methods to explore diverse and plausible futures, or quantitative methods to test the feasibility and impacts of different options.
Storytelling is an important method to consider here. We all have heard the data for years, but why does it feel like we fail to move forward? Humans need compelling reasons to act, and charts and graphs no matter how dire, simply do not project the scale of the problem. We need to compel a wide array of stakeholders to action and the best way to do that is through compelling storytelling.
One way to project forward is to look at published climate and nature change scenarios, and create a picture of what the world is likely to do that under those scenarios. There are a bunch of both generic, sector-specific and region-specific scenarios out there from scientific, inter-govermental and private industry sources, which can work as a starting point. You can then build upon the financial and non-financial assumptions of a scenario, as to model the effects of sustainability-related information to the level of your particular company or domain. It won't be perfect, but you'll probably be within the range of possibilities.
Foresight exercises are not only about generating information, but also about creating dialogue and learning among different perspectives and interests. Therefore, you should engage your participants in a meaningful and inclusive way, ensuring that they represent the diversity and complexity of the system you are exploring. You should also facilitate their participation, providing them with clear instructions, feedback, and support. You should also respect their views, values, and rights, and acknowledge their contributions and limitations.
L'engagement passe aussi par l'interaction inter-personnelle lors de l'élaboration du projet. Le travail pourra donc s'appuyer sur des exercices et ateliers participatifs avec restitutions au sein du Groupe. Il serait intéressant de donner des exemples concrets, en lien avec les transitions environnementales, numériques et démographiques. Ainsi, la fresque du climat ou la fresque de la diversité sont de bonnes bases pour acculturer les participants aux concepts avant d'avancer sur la prospective.
This is where savvy social media use is extremely important. Attention is an important commodity and you have to be compelling for your message to be seen. If you can create a dialogue on social media platforms, you will be able to create a successful campaign organically.
The results of your foresight exercise are not final or definitive, but rather indicative and exploratory. They are meant to inform and inspire, not to predict or prescribe. Therefore, you should communicate your results in a transparent and accessible way, highlighting the assumptions, uncertainties, and implications of your scenarios, visions, or options. You should also invite feedback and dialogue from your participants and other stakeholders, and use their insights to refine or revise your results.
Finally, you should evaluate your foresight exercise, both in terms of the process and the outcomes. You should assess how well you followed your purpose and scope, how effectively and ethically you used your methods and tools, how satisfactorily and inclusively you engaged your participants, and how clearly and usefully you communicated your results. You should also measure the impact and value of your foresight exercise, such as how it influenced decision-making, action-taking, or learning for sustainability. You should use your evaluation to identify strengths and weaknesses, and to improve your foresight practice.
This is critical. Take a minute to reflect on your efforts and honestly grade yourself and your team. Establish mechanisms for ongoing monitoring and evaluation to track progress towards sustainability goals and to adapt strategies accordingly. By combining these practices, a foresight exercise in sustainability can provide a robust framework for understanding future challenges and opportunities while guiding decision-making toward a more sustainable path.