Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
The proposals for strategy formation draw extensively from the prac-
tice in strategic planning of backcasting.
108
This technique has been
developed as an alternative to forecasting and is promoted by its propo-
nents as being better suited than forecasting to addressing the deep-
seated problems that drive global decline in environmental quality.
109
Forecasting is widely used in policy-making to predict what future
demands are likely to be and how policy options might be deployed to
satisfy them.
110
Its principal concern is with meeting requirements
rather than exploring how these might be changed if they or the options
available for meeting them are not environmentally sustainable.
111
Backcasting takes a very different approach. Its starting point is the
envisioning of a future in which objectives (for example, the signi
cant
reduction of stresses that energy generation places on ecosystems) are
being realised.
112
Practitioners then work backwards from this endpoint
to determine what policy measures might be taken to achieve it, the
timescales over which it might be realised, and its feasibility in view of
the economic and social impacts that its realisation would have.
113
Backcasting is an iterative process which allows for different futures
to be explored until possibilities are identi
ed that advance objectives as
far as possible given the challenges of achieving substantial change in
108
The use of backcasting in decision-making on precautionary action is also advocated in
Tickner,
'
Precautionary Decision-making
'
,pp.167
-
8; and B. F. Noble,
'
The Canadian
Experience with SEA and Sustainability
'
(2002) 22 Environmental Impact Assessment
8.
109
P. Vergragt and J. Quist,
Review,7
-
'
Backcasting for Sustainability: Introduction to the Special
Issue
'
(2011) 78 Technological Forecasting and Social Change,748
-
9; A. Suwa,
'
Soft
Energy Paths in Japan: A Backcasting Approach to Energy Planning
'
(2009) 9 Climate
Policy, 187; K. H. Dreborg,
'
Essence of Backcasting
'
, 814; J. Robinson,
'
Future
Subjunctive: Backcasting as Social Learning
'
(2003) 35 Futures,841.
110
Suwa,
'
Soft Energy Paths
'
,187.
111
Suwa,
'
Soft Energy Paths
'
,188;J.Robinson,
'
Futures under Glass: A Recipe for People
whoHatetoPredict
'
(1990) 22 Futures,821;S.L.Mandereta ,
'
The Tyndall
Decarbonisation Scenarios
-
Part I: Development of a Backcasting Methodology with
Stakeholder Participation
'
(2008) 36 Energy Policy, 3756.
112
Vergragt and Quist,
'
Backcasting for Sustainability
'
,747
-
8; Suwa,
'
Soft Energy Paths
'
,
187
-
8; Robinson,
'
Futures under Glass
'
,821
-
2; J. Robinson,
'
Energy Backcasting: A
Proposed Method of Policy Analysis
'
(1982) 10 Energy Policy, 337
-
8.
113
Vergragt and Quist,
Past and
Future of Backcasting: The Shift to Stakeholder Participation and a Proposal for a
Methodological Framework
'
Backcasting for Sustainability
'
, 747; J. Quist and P. Vergragt,
'
'
(2006) 38 Futures, 1031; Dreborg,
'
Essence of Backcasting
'
,
817; Robinson,
Backcasting as a Tool
for Sustainable Transport Policy Making: The Environmentally Sustainable Transport
Study in the Netherlands
'
Futures under Glass
'
, 822; K. Geurs and B. vanWee,
'
'
(2004) 4 European Journal of Transport and Infrastructure
Research,48
-
9.
