Fo r e si g h t

Since the early 1990s interest in foresight has undergone one of its periodic
resurgences and has led to a rapid growth in formal foresight studies backed by
governments and transnational institutions, including many from the United
Nations. However, texts that counterbalance in-depth practical experience with
an exposition and integration of the many theoretical strands that underpin
the art and theory of foresight are rare.
Foresight: The art and science of anticipating the future provides entrepreneurs,
business leaders, investors, inventors, scientists, politicians, and many others
with a succinct, integrated guide to understanding foresight studies and using
them as means for strategy development. The text dispels the belief that
anticipations are ‘mere guesswork’, and conveys the depth of thought needed,
implicitly or explicitly, to understand human foresight. The book examines:

• The role of foresight and its institutional counterpart in the modern

world
• The epistemology underlying foresight
• The need to extend foresight activity into wider spheres, including
sustainable development
• The role that foresight plays in planning processes (including scenario
planning)

Much of the material in the book is based upon the internationally known
Foresight course at the Manchester Business School’s Institute of Innovation
Research (MIoIR), formerly PREST, which the author developed and directed
from 1999 to 2003.

Denis Loveridge is an honorary Visiting Professor at the Manchester Business

School’s Institute of Innovation Research (formerly PREST), UK. He joined
PREST in 1991 as an honorary Simon Fellow after 44 years in industry.
For es i g h t

The art and science of

anticipating the future

Denis Loveridge
First published 2009
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon 0X14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2009 Denis Loveridge
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
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including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Loveridge, Denis.
Foresight : the art and science of anticipating the future /
Denis Loveridge.
   p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
  1. Forecasting--Methodology. 2. Forecasting--Philosophy.
  3. Knowledge, Theory of. 4. Planning. I. Title.
CB158.L628 2008
303.49–dc22
2008002330

ISBN 0-203-89415-4 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0–415–39814–2 (hbk)

ISBN 10: 0–415–39815–0 (pbk)
ISBN10: 0–203–89415–4 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–39814–5 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978–0–415–39815–2 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–203–89415–6 (ebk)
To

Marion …

… a n d Tr a c e y, Jaso n a nd Na tasha
C o ntents

List of figures viii

List of tables x
Preface xi
Acknowledgements xv
Introduction 1

Par t I
Sy s t e m s a n d f o r e s ight 9
1 Foresight and systems thinking: An appreciation 11
2 Foresight and systems – epistemology and theory 38
3 Institutional foresight: Practice and practicalities 79
4 Foresight in industry 115
5 Generalisable outcomes 130

Par t I I
Sc e n a r i o s a nd s us tainability 145
6 Foresight, scenarios and scenario planning 147
7 Sustainable world 169
8 The world of 2030, 2050 and beyond 224
Epilogue 250

Notes 252
Bibliography 254
Figure credits 265
Index 267
List o f fi g u r e s

1.1 Streams of systems thinking and applications 16

1.2 Appreciation, learning, anticipations and foresight: adaptation
to a cascade of situations of ever changing shape 23
1.3 Evolution of learning, appreciation, anticipation and foresight 24
1.4 Notional representation of ‘behavioural pattern’ and its
components 25
1.5 Four types of models of the future 31
1.6 Needs of information and methods for models of the future 34
1.7 Matching the nature of models, their information and methods 35
1.8 Relationship between Foresight, Technology Assessment and
Evaluation 36
1.9 The ‘telenomy’ concept redeveloped 36
2.1 Mitchell’s original VALSTM1 behavioural typology 47
2.2 Notional ‘picture’ of the territory of the future 53
2.3 Equally valid means of presenting an uncertain future 54
2.4 Examples of consensus and multimodal distributions 57
2.5 Notional policy matrix 59
2.6 Elements of a policy hierarchy 60
2.7 Aggregation of individual value/norm sets and negotiation into
group values/norms 60
A2.2.1  Illustration of Attractiveness vs. Feasibility matrix 77
A2.2.2  Illustration of Attractiveness vs. Feasibility plot 77
A2.2.3  Interpretation of Attractiveness vs. Feasibility 78
3.1 Influence of choice between broad or narrow consultation 90
4.1 Business cube: an illustration of the need for foresight in business 119
4.2 Illustration of a notional scanning process 127
5.1 Stylised representation of the four adaptive ecosystem functions 143
5.2 Addition of resilience to the adaptive cycle as a third dimension 143
6.1 Role of speculation and conjecture in foresight 150
6.2 Managerial response to placing of scenarios 158
6.3 A process for learning to appreciate situations 159
7.1 Legitimisation of new forms of behaviour 173
 List of figures  ix

7.2 Influence of the 3-RRR’s 174

7.3 Kernel of a model of sustainability 205
7.4 Long duration world needs 214
7.5 Interrelatedness of world needs 214
7.6 Symbolic representation of Venturi-like process for sorting ideas
flowing from thought experiments 216
7.7 Notional policy matrix 217
7.8 Interrelatedness between the notional policy matrix and the
STEEPV set 218
7.9 Venn diagram illustrating role of possibility, feasibility and
desirability in sustainability 219
7.1
A A notion of inter-relatedness for sustainability 221
8.1 The Earth’s cosmological home in relation to foresight 234
8.2 Long duration human needs and forces acting on them 235
8.3 Interrelatedness of long duration human needs and world needs 236
8.4 Content of long duration needs 236
8.5 Some possible elements of geo-social change 239
8.6 Some possible elements of a geo-science and technology set 239
8.7 Some possible elements of a geo-economic set 240
8.8 Some possible elements of a geo-ecology set 241
8.9 Some possible elements of a geo-political set 242
8.10 Some possible elements of a geo-value-norm change set 243
8.11 World population growth 1950–2050 244
8.12 World population growth rate 1950–2050 245
8.13 World average total fertility rate 1950–2050 245
8.14 Notional pictorial description of the post-World War II
demographic transition 247
8.15 Notional illustration of the demographic transition after some
decades 247
8.16 Pattern of world population by regions 1950–2050 248
List o f t abl e s

1.1 Nature of models of the future 32

1.2 Correspondence between the Jantsch–Loveridge policy hierarchy
and the revised concept of telenomy 37
2.1 Criteria of the ‘Jones method’ of intelligence gathering 61
2.2 Some frequently used methods of prioritisation 70
3.1 Questioning involved in revealing the elements of an institutional
Foresight programme 83
4.1 Representation of government’s intelligence organisation 125
2.1 Criteria of the ‘Jones method’ of intelligence gathering 126
5.1 Issues for foresight 138
5.2 Estimates of world population (1971, 1995 and 2030) 140
7.1 Content analysis of a listing of the principles of sustainability 176
7.2 Estimates of world population (1971, 1995 and 2030)
– from Table 5.2 181
7.3 Summary of Perrow’s arguments about complicated vs. complex
system 187
Pref ace

There has to be a reason and a purpose for a book. One of Peter Checkland’s
students claimed that any book should make two earlier books redundant,
while a one-time colleague, Trevor Williams, always tested a book’s quality
subjectively by asking whether it would win a place on his ‘six inch’ bookshelf
of invaluable books. As this book will not follow conventions I cannot be sure
whether it will meet either of the above criteria. The lack of convention will
come from the informal, story-telling style used by Donald Michael in many
of his papers and followed (unwittingly I suspect) by Susan Greenfield in
Tomorrow’s People, which she claimed should have been a novel. Rather than
‘a book’ this will really be a series of short books (chapters); interrelated if the
reader wishes, but stand-alone, in current vernacular, for those whose interests
lie in chosen chapters. The choice of presentation is deliberate so that those
who dismiss say, the underlying notions of foresight as ‘gobbledegook’, may at
least content themselves with some practical ideas relating to its execution in
either business or the public sphere. Throughout there will be much emphasis
on interrelatedness and interconnectedness, two systems properties that my long
time colleague, Philip Holroyd, and I have discussed endlessly (Note 1). The
success or otherwise of the scheme ‘will be history’, as the saying goes, once
the text is complete. I would not have set myself this unfamiliar task had I not
believed that systems thinking, which will be constantly in my mind, has been
separated from futures studies for far too long. To attempt to bring the two
together is both the reason for and purpose of the book, while strengthening
the case for foresightful futures studies is another purpose of the book.
If the book concerns systems thinking and futures studies you may well ask
why is its title ‘Foresight’? Unashamedly, because foresight and systems thinking
are tightly interrelated; it is also a widely used term and because the community
of institutional practitioners have chosen, dangerously and unwittingly I
believe, to slide towards the more complicated activity of scenario planning,
which is inherently based on systems thinking. Now is not the time to take that
argument further, but I should differentiate between foresight as an individual
or small group activity that depends on appreciation, anticipation and learning
and Foresight as a procedural activity currently much in vogue in national
xii  Preface

planning. Tiresome though the differentiation is, it has become unavoidable. So

foresight is the genesis of the two subtitles (‘care or provision for the future’ or ‘the
muzzle sight of a gun’) and is needed now more than ever if nations are to avoid
sleepwalking into future situations they would rather avoid. The relationship
to freedom and democracy are clear. Both have to be struggled for continuously
against those people and situations that would restrict them, possibilities that
are only too obvious, and in some surprising places, in 2008.
Appreciation, anticipation and learning form a feedback loop that enables
foresight to play a fundamental part in human development in every sphere.
As the art of looking forward (the meaning intended throughout the remainder
of the book), foresight is an essential ingredient in the development of the
relationships between humanity and the world in which we live. However, this
distinctive human activity takes place on a planet that depends effectively on
a complex form of dynamic ‘homeostasis’ or homeorrhesis (Note 2) (more will
be said about this later) for the survival of its population of living organisms
of all kinds. Homeorrhesis is devoid of foresight so that there is an immediate
discord between humanity’s attempts to shape its own future within a system
that is largely blind to those attempts and can severely punish the presumption
that ‘we [humans] are in control’. For this reason, amongst others, my
expectations of foresight are tempered by knowing that it is neither forecasting
nor prediction nor is it a science, but is a marriage of intuition, substantive
knowledge projected into the future and sensitivity to developing trends,
issues and events in a symbiogenetic way. Often these traits give plenty of
opportunities for disparaging comparisons with vitalism or prophecy or give rise
to references to futurology, a notion thoroughly rejected in hard headed circles
in business, government, science and secular society. In scientific circles, this
view, while understandable, is a cause for some amusement since ideas dignified
by the word theory are often little more than speculation or conjecture (both of
which are discussed later) or better described as scenarios as is evidenced, dare
I suggest, in cosmology despite its extensive scientific validation. Happily, these
speculations, conjectures and scenarios can change science and its counterparts
elsewhere for example, in business, the social milieu, politics and notions
of sustainability. None of this is possible without embarking on the arduous
step of understanding, through appreciation, anticipation and learning, the
intermingling of themes from the Social, Technological, Economic, Ecological,
Political and Value/norm events (the STEEPV set that will often be referred to),
issues and trends that inform and make foresight possible. It is drawing together
all of the above threads in an integrative way that gives rise to the many themes
and the inter-working of practice and theory explored in this book. Inevitably,
the emphasis on interconnectedness, relationships and integration are ‘glued’
together by the notions of systems thinking that ultimately underlie all that is
said in the following chapters.
I have spent most of my working life in industry and industrial research.
Much of that time involved activities that did not conform to conventions, no
 Preface  xiii

more so than during the last 20 years before retirement in 1991. Rarely was I
involved in a project that lasted more than five years and, unlike many of my
generation, by 1991 I had worked for five different organisations in 44 years.
Consequently, appreciation and anticipation of constantly changing situations
have occupied a large part of my thought processes. The key to these two ‘a’s
has been a willingness to learn the language of each situation as it occurred,
either sequentially, or more frequently, in parallel. My early life as an analytical
chemist, in a small chemical works that produced a bewildering array of
products, taught me the irreplaceable skill of managing several complicated
tasks simultaneously without getting them confused (the consequences of doing
so could be dramatic as was demonstrated by a colleague’s carbon disulphide
explosion that filled the laboratory with SO2 in a matter of seconds!). Later in
life this basic training proved invaluable, but had to be extended, as in research
and corporate venturing complicated simultaneous tasks almost always involve
interrelatedness, transforming complication into complexity. Once again there
was no help but to learn the language as often as needed.
As happens to so many people I was not bent on becoming involved in
corporate venturing and similar activities; it happened by chance. The way was
paved at the British Coal Utilization Research Association in the early 1960s
where I was concerned with energy research. There, my one time director, the
late Donald Hicks (Note 3), taught me the difference between thinking about
and conducting research in a narrow, problem centred context, as opposed to the
more preferable way of researching in the context of a system and its perceived
boundaries. The notion of systems has never left me and later drew me into
the futures field (Note 4), a fortunate accident as it is so closely aligned with
the notions of appreciation, anticipation and of learning the language of the
project in hand. Later, in industry, the late Dennis Oliver (Note 5) allowed me
an extraordinary degree of freedom to think about the future in many contexts
for the company we worked for, while simultaneously the late Leslie Wall (Note
5) taught me all I shall ever know about business, benefiting hugely from his
acutely sharp business mind. To these three people I owe a great debt; their
mentorship helped prepare me for the excitements of corporate venturing that
occupied the last two decades of my time in industry. Once embedded in the
futures field from 1971 onwards Philip Holroyd (Note 6), Andy Lipinski (Note
7), Roy Amara (Note 7), Peter Schwartz (Note 8), the late Willis (Bill) Harman
(Note 9) and the late Clive Simmonds (Note 10) all left their mark upon me; I
cannot thank them enough. Similarly, in the 1970s David Pilkington (Note 5)
placed much confidence in my one-time colleagues Philip Holroyd, Ron Halford,
Phil Wieldon, Alan Clague and myself, to conduct some highly exploratory work
on social futures, the outcome of which still has much relevance today.
I retired from industry in August 1991 when corporate venturing came to
an end in the company I then worked for. Successful open heart surgery had
intervened before that event, but it would not have changed the course of
events as I had already begun to explore the possibility of working with the
xiv  Preface

University of Manchester’s Programme for Policy Research in Engineering

Science and Technology (PREST). In that way I started my sixth ‘career’ in late
1991. At PREST my involvement in what has become called Foresight (more
will be said later about the relation of this term to the two ‘a’s and learning) has
been more formal and public. First, through taking part in the UK government’s
sponsored Technology Foresight Programme from its formative events in 1992
and onwards. My colleagues and I at PREST have also taken part in other
countries’ Foresight programmes on numerous subsequent occasions. During
this time I was fortunate enough to create and direct, for five years, a successful
international course on foresight. Some of the material in this book comes from
that course.
Though PREST’s participation in Foresight programmes and its foresight
course have been successful, they still left me dissatisfied, with a feeling that
there was much more to understanding how the concepts of systems thinking
might augment futures studies. The frequency with which the word foresight
appeared in all kinds of books, papers and conversation, all of which were
divorced from institutionalised Foresight, struck me forcefully. It was not just
the frequency and breadth of references to foresight that struck me. It was
also the very long history of the concept, together with its multiple synonyms
and antonyms that indicated the depth and breadth of thinking embodied
in foresight that, connected to systems thinking, went well beyond anything
included in the course material. Parts of the book will explore these notions
while other parts may be more familiar to either systems thinkers or practitioners
of foresight or those engaged in Foresight.
Is the book worth pursuing? I asked myself that question many times before
embarking on the task that now confronts me. At times I may seem to be an
unrepentant sceptic of Foresight. My scepticism is deep with regard to high-
flown claims for foresight and its institutional derivative. Often they amount to
little more than unwarranted hype, and for that reason are a cause for concern
as recent behaviour of the world’s stock markets has shown. However, after
40 years, I know that real foresight is a hard trade with few rewards, even for
entrepreneurs, and plenty of personal risk, brickbats, criticism and disbelief.
When the rewards come they are often deeply personal, occasionally financially
rewarding, but most often too far into the future for those involved at the
beginning to see the outcome. There are ghosts of tattered or ‘tacky’ visions
with little credibility that haunt the foresight world. Detractors use them
disparagingly and in doing so too often display a shocking ignorance of the
ineluctable nature, purposes and processes of foresight, and of the extent to
which human development has depended on it and continues to do so.
Last, the book owes much to conversations with colleagues too numerous
to mention in the Futures Network that flourished in the UK between 1976
and 1996; my thanks go to all of them. After the Introduction the book falls
into two parts: the first develops the synergy between foresight and systems
thinking, while the second is based on the use of what is set out in Part I.
Ackno wl e dg e m e n t s

I wish to thank many people who, through discussions over decades have helped
to shape the thoughts embodied in this book: many of them are mentioned in
the Preface. The Open University’s Open Business School generously agreed to
my request to reproduce parts of the course material on scenario planning that
I prepared for them in 1992. My colleagues Maria Nedeva, Michael Keenan
and Kerstin Cuhls also generously agreed to my using, in Chapter 3, parts of the
annexes to our 2001 review of national foresight programmes. My appreciation
goes to Michael Keenan for many hours of discussion on the awkward subject
of prioritisation, a matter we never resolved. My thanks also go to Michael
Keenan, Ian Miles and Rafael Popper who shared in the considerable trials
and tribulations as we conducted our first international foresight programme:
we learned a great deal that has provided some of the insights in the text.
To Michael Keenan and Ozcan Saritas – many thanks for hours of creative
argument about systemic foresight: here the interpretation of the notion of
systemic foresight is entirely mine ‘warts and all.’ Discussions with Cristiano
Cagnin and Paul Upham helped to place Corporate Social Responsibility,
the Global Reporting Initiative, the precautionary principle and the Natural
Step in the context of foresight and systems thinking: again I accept complete
responsibility for the presentation here including any misunderstandings. On
more mundane matters, the population data used to construct the graphs in
Chapter 8 are drawn from the ‘World Population Prospects Population Database
the 2006 Revision’ by the United Nations Population Division, 2007. The data
used in constructing the illustrations of the demographic transition are drawn
from the 1998 World Development Indicators on CD-ROM.
Intro d uct i on

… if it be not nipped in the bud, it will

burst into a conflagration which will
deluge the world
Sir Boyle Roche (1743–1807)

What is systemic thinking? What is foresight? After all, we know there are
boundaries to our lives and thoughts, and both are essential parts of the
wholeness explicit to systemic thinking. Similarly, we all anticipate the future
in small and large ways so that anticipation or foresight is hardly an unusual
activity. So what is all the fuss about? Sir Boyle Roche clearly knew the answer
lay in the freedom of creative thought and anticipation, combined with the
need to control their consequences, intended and otherwise, at whatever scale
is involved.
History has a strong influence in any endeavour and that of foresightful
activity is no exception. Indeed, I would contend that hindsight and foresight
work in harness through the notions of wholeness. ‘But why study history
at all? Why concern ourselves with anything beyond the range of our own
time and place?’ were cogent questions Toynbee asked in the Foreword to his
monumental, systems-based study of world history conducted between 1924
and 1972 (Toynbee 1972:10). Rhetorically, Toynbee’s response was that ‘Within
the last 500 years, the whole face of the globe, together with its air envelope,
has been knit together physically by the amazing advance of technology, but
Mankind has not yet been united politically, and we are still strangers to each
other in our local ways of life, which we have inherited from the times before
the recent “annihilation of distance”.’ While I would demur from Toynbee’s
first contention, the evidence for the second is greater now than ever. Toynbee
concluded that ‘… Man does not live in just the immediate present’ but in
a ‘… mental time-stream, remembering the past and looking forward – with
hope or with fear – to an oncoming future.’ In the global context of history, acts
of anticipation, some of global influence others much more local, have been
recorded throughout human history. The continual reference to and appearance
of jesters, prophets and seers makes clear the ever-present interest of rulers and
others in knowing what the future has in store for them. The penalties paid
2  Introduction

by the purveyors of anticipations were generally painful and often fatal even
when they turned out to be right, as Nicolai Kondratieff found in 1923 when he
developed his long cycle theory of capitalism (Kondratieff 1935:105) that did
not give Stalin the answer he wanted! Beyond a small set of current certainties,
knowing what the future holds, as purveyed by sages, can only be opinion
even when supported by complicated modelling – mathematical or otherwise.
Selective listening is an enduring and endearing human trait that leads to the
Biblical dictum, ‘A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in
his own house’ (Matthew 57). Everyone concerned with foresight does well to
remember that saying. Similarly, that the ancients were sceptics is illustrated
by the philosopher Horace: ‘What shall be to-morrow, think not of asking. Each
day that Fortune gives you, be it what it may, set down for gain’ (Odes, I, ix:13).
Denigration of acts of anticipation, of foresight, have a long history. It is only
the strength of human curiosity to know the future, to engage with the mystery
and paradox of wanting to know the unknowable, that has stayed the powerful
hand of denigration and often ridicule. The history of human foresight and its
influence is complicated and deep. All that will be attempted in a few short
paragraphs is to set the activity in the context of the last 2500 years.
Anticipation, or foresight, is fiercely argued over wherever it occurs or
whenever it is claimed or referred to; it is after all a political activity, related to
agenda setting, that is why it is either ‘care or provision for the future’ or ‘the
muzzle sight of a gun’. Clauswitzian though this comment may seem (Clauswitz
1832), there is little doubt about the wholeness of the combination of force
and politics to the extent of Mark Twain’s contention that ‘soap and education
are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run’ in
bringing about change in ways of behaviour. The first may be more permanent,
but too often massacre is the preferred situation. In 2008, at a time when the
idea of the preventive or pre-emptive war has undergone one of its historical
recrudescences (Note 1) these dual properties of systemic thought and foresight
can hardly be more evident even though their use may have left much to be
desired.
Foresight was alive and well in the ancient world. The BOGSAT committee
(bunch of guys sat around a table) was as well used then as it is now. Various
ways were used to reach a consensus about what to do as a result of their
anticipations. These may well have been rather more brutal and physically direct
than those of modern times, which have their deeply combined psychological
and physical aspects of economic and social exclusion. To ancient (and modern)
societies their ‘worlds’ were simultaneously simple and baffling. Simple, because
physical survival was always the dominating theme of life (it still is in 2008),
but baffling because survival was often difficult, if not elusive, in the face of
threats and dangers that were and remain ever present. In such worlds, simple
blunt responses to situations often worked immediately within tightly drawn
boundaries, but were soon found (and still are) to have many unanticipated
outcomes, a feature that remains prominent. However, there was no pretence
 Introduction  3

that human beings were anything other than part of a much larger natural
world in which only human foresight (or anticipation), and understanding
accumulated from it, would ensure survival from day to day. The world remains
the same today. So has the world really changed and become more complicated?
Or has population growth and human persistence in the pursuit of knowledge
created complexity? Whether this complexity will improve the human being, as
is now proposed by an ardent posse of transhumanist advocates – and opposed
with equal passion by others – remains a huge uncertainty that I cannot escape.
For the Earth as a living system, the returning notion that a separate human
world can be created is based on the hubris that humanity continues to believe
in its dominant position in the world, as set out in Genesis (1:26–31), that we
are ‘in charge’ of the Earth and can fashion it (or even worse improve its design
or even redesign it as humankind has been attempting to do for millennia) to
our desires, while avoiding the unanticipated or unwanted outcomes: this is a
disastrous lack of systemic thinking, of foresight and of learning.
While foresight is an inherent human activity, conducted both consciously
and unconsciously, it appears to be both simple and complex, one of its many
paradoxes. Some years ago, I was asked what would be the characteristics of
a manager in the future; I had no hesitation in placing the ability to manage
paradoxes at the top of the list. I believe this to be true now and for some
distance into the future since the more we think we know, rather than
understand, the more hobbled and inappropriate humanity’s actions seem
to become. In the rich parts of the world an hedonistic economic system
promotes a culture of possession of artefacts. These have an ever-shorter
life cycle, but not lifetime, creating mountains of junk while the majority of
the Earth’s people live in unpleasant circumstances and often in poverty and
starvation, while supermarkets force good food to be thrown away. The threat
of disease and natural disaster is ever present for all people, with the possibility
that the relationship to survival may be inversely related to wealth, though
transhumanists, who believe in a post-human future providing immortality,
would disagree. Demographics alone point to the emergence of immensely
difficult situations while our understanding of growth phenomena lead inevitably
to ask ‘What will bring population growth to an end?’ and ‘At what level may
that occur?’ Foresight, as the progenitor of forecasting and futures studies, has
said a little about that so far. Will it be disease? Or a major natural disaster,
such as the eruption of a giant caldera or the impact of an asteroid of kilometre
dimensions? Or the crowding effects referred to in World modelling (Meadows
1972 & 1992)? Or will it be homeorrhesis (ibid.) as anticipated by Lovelock’s
notion of Gaia, in which mankind might finds itself in a world too inhospitable
for survival? All are possible and at least some may occur simultaneously.
There are shining examples of systemic thinking and foresight in the ancient
world. Anaximander’s first cosmological view (Anaximander c. 600 bc) broke
the ancient belief that the Earth was held in place by some kind of physical
support. More important were the writings of the fifth century Pythagoreans
4  Introduction

who effectively postulated that the Earth was not the centre of the universe,
but moved around a central fire like all the other heavenly bodies, a feature
that led Copernicus to embark on his work (Copernicus 1543) that rejected
Ptolemy’s epicycle theory of the central position of the Earth and hypothesised
that the Earth revolved around the Sun. Copernicus’s De revolutionibus ended
an era as knowledge of its thesis diffused through the civilised world of the time.
Aided by Guttenberg’s and later Caxton’s printing presses, it brought to an end
the era of pre-science, effectively breaking the authority of the Church as the
source of understanding and changing much that depended on that position
of authority. These changes took centuries for their completion and for some
people they are not yet complete.
From the Renaissance there is probably no better example of foresight than
Leonardo da Vinci’s outpouring of ideas. Leonardo, more than anyone at the
time, conveyed the wholeness of the relationship between science and art,
something that should not be lost on anyone involved in systemic thinking and
foresight. Leonardo’s fertile mind produced designs for submarines, aeroplanes,
bicycles, screw-cutting machines and also a tank, that were not only feasible
but were remarkably similar to the real items when they eventually appeared
often centuries later. Leonardo’s work is, perhaps tenuously, an illustration of
the enduring belief that the methods of science can be used in Foresight and,
worse still, in spuriously exact predictions. Despite a total lack of evidence
to support her conclusion, Susan Greenfield (Greenfield 2004) has claimed
that scientists are now able to make precise predictions regarding the future
of science more widely. Leonardo’s work also illustrates the long-established
tendency for technology forecasts to be too optimistic about the time when
a technology may be introduced and too pessimistic about the extent of that
technology’s penetration into society, the phenomenon of innovation. From
my own experience I know that the true colour flat screen display was invented
by the early 1970s at the latest, and I expected it would be in widespread
use (a Foresight term) in the early 1980s. My one-time company chairman
disagreed, believing it would not be in widespread use until the 1990s. While
his estimate was better than mine, these displays have only come to market in
significant numbers since the late 1990s. So much for the uncertainties of the
transition from scientific possibility to technological feasibility and thence to
social desirability.
More recently foresight has been in evidence in the debate about population
growth in relation to food supply and other matters. The ‘modern’ Western
debate began in 1761 when Robert Wallace (Wallace 1761) introduced the
notion of wholeness when he posited that the perfection of society carried with
it the seeds of its own destruction, in the stimulation of population growth
such that the earth would become overpopulated and unable to support its
population. In 1798 Malthus published his long celebrated and hotly debated
pamphlet on population and food supply (Malthus 1798). Malthus’s original
work was hastily written to refute the views of the Utopians. The pamphlet
 Introduction  5

repeated many of Wallace’s arguments adding that in his (Malthus’) view, the
ever present threat of population growth would inhibit the growth of a human
society, free of coercive restraints. Malthus’ essay was cryptic and not well
supported by empirical evidence, so his arguments were easily misrepresented,
as his critics did routinely. Marx was one of Malthus’ most vehement critics since
he shared the Utopian’s view that any number of people could be supported by
a properly organised society (shades of Kahn a century later). Malthus’ ideas
influenced public policy (such as reforms in the English Poor Laws) and the ideas
of the classical and neo-classical economists, demographers and evolutionary
biologists, led by Charles Darwin. The evidence and analyses that Malthus
produced dominated scientific discussion of population during his lifetime.
Many of his gloomy predictions have so far proved to be mistaken, but his later
work introduced analytical methods that clearly anticipated the demographic
techniques developed more than 100 years later. The debate started by Malthus
continues to rage and has been reinforced recently by Hardin in his classic
discussion of the tragedy of the commons (Hardin 1968), so that it is a strong
element of the present all-embracing debate on sustainability.
The current formulations of systemic thinking and of Foresight stem from
the 1950s. For systemic thinking, von Bertalanffy was the moving spirit (more
will be said about this in a later chapter). For Foresight, the small group of
people who, in the 1950s and 1960s, created technology forecasting (Note 3)
occupy a similar position. It is as well to ask why these people should have had
so much influence, if indeed they have, bearing in mind the huge foresightful
literature stemming from historians, science and other fiction writers,
politicians, economists, social theorists, playwrights, artists and other scholars
too numerous to mention. Perhaps the source of their influence lies in the ‘cold
war’ years that saw the rise of the need to think the unthinkable in terms of
weapons systems and politically inspired military action. Many of the successful
methods of technology forecasting arose from just this source, as is reflected in
Jantsch’s review (Jantsch 1967) which, after 40 years, remains a classic work.
By the early 1970s at least some of the people involved felt able to extend
the methods of technology forecasting into social forecasting, an area of much
greater complication and uncertainty, where the notions of wholeness were
acknowledged but not necessarily used. They were not the first to anticipate this
development, as Whitehead did so in 1933, declaiming that ‘Science seeks the
laws only, but Foresight requires in addition due emphasis on the relevant facts
from which the future is to emerge. Of the two tasks required for Foresight, this
selection amid the welter is the more difficult’ (Whitehead 1964:94 [1933]).
Whitehead’s view, and those of the later technology-cum-social forecasters,
then anchored foresight firmly to the relation between science and technology
and social needs, a view that foresight retains today. The inference was for
anticipation of what societies might expect of science and technology in
achieving fulfilment of their expectations of life, whether they be reasonable
or not. Emphasis was placed on the identification of concrete developments in
6  Introduction

science, on inventions and on the applications for technology in artefacts large

and small, all derived from far hazier notions of social needs, or more often
wants, which themselves were often born of the subtle (and sometimes not so
subtle) influences of advertising, the media and naked political ambition. It
was the age of the ‘can do’ mentality which rarely questioned the advisability
of what was done to assuage public demand (Loveridge 1983:498). For these
reasons, it might reasonably be said that industry was in the vanguard of
using foresight and the partial use of systemic thinking. In industry, the use
of such hazy terms for activities that had been everyday practice in business
development, from time immemorial, was averred as was reference to the
haphazard and opportunistic character of its activities. Foresight or not, the
bottom line had to be, and still is, one of a positive cash position, otherwise the
tomorrow of foresight becomes irrelevant. Now this emphasis is shifting, albeit
hazily, to include social responsibility as additions to the bottom line stretch
further into the notions of wholeness. There is clearly a relationship between
planning and foresight that needs an historical reference.
From the time of Marx and the notions, however distorted, of the social
control of the means of production, the idea of planning, especially ‘national’
planning, has had ideological overtones. Paradoxically, planning is ubiquitous
though its implementations may be very different from company to company
and nation to nation. For some time in the 1960s planning was seen as a
Cartesian process made up of impartial frameworks and certainty of outcome;
the reality of aggregations of overt and covert ambitions of myriads of people,
with their own agendas, was not entertained. Aided by growing computer
power, the belief in Cartesian approaches seemed sufficient to build operating
models, of great complication and detail, of businesses and governments. In the
culture of the 1950s and 1960s, for managers to admit uncertainty in making
and taking decisions was to be branded ‘incompetent’ or ‘unprofessional’, a
sentiment that has not died completely even today when the uncertainties
facing decision makers and takers are much more evident. Events in the early
1970s brought the collapse of this era of pseudo-certainty and it has never
returned. Often the key event is said to have been the oil crisis that followed
the Yom Kippur war in the autumn of 1973, an event anticipated by several
years by some oil company executives, but this was not the only event to
topple the era of pseudo-certainty. The international merger boom of the late
1960s shattered long-held notions of loyalty; international terrorism strode
onto the scene never to depart; single-issue groups reared their heads for the
first time; student campus riots and their parallel in the wider community
occurred in many countries; all these events helped in their own ways to
destroy the ambience of stability and certainty so that, aided by the advent of
post-modernist thought, planning went askew and became disreputable. New
methods were sought and emerged during the mid-1970s in what became
known as ‘scenario planning’ (Wack 1985a:73 and 1985b:139). At the same
time computer modelling was turning to wider issues and yielded outcomes
 Introduction  7

such as the Meadows World 3 (Note 4) and the early weather forecasting
models that have matured into the current versions of Global Circulation
Models (GCMs) (Note 5). The surface of these events can only be scratched
here, so great has been the shift away from the certainties of the Cartesian
era of modelling and management whether in business or governments.
However, underlying all these shifts has been the perception of many trends
and events that have and still are reshaping the world; that perception is
the characteristic of systemic thinking and of foresight. It is the role of the
agile mind to perceive and anticipate future events sometimes correctly, as it
turns out, and sometimes to be wrong catastrophically! (Note 6) It must be
made clear that foresight is not planning of the scenario or any other genus:
foresight is anticipation and nothing more, but should be informed through
systemic thinking; that will be its meaning throughout this book. The current
tendency to mutate the label foresight unwittingly into something that sounds
uncommonly like scenario planning, but without recognising the depth of
that process and the effort it requires, is downright dangerous.
Now at the dawn of the twenty-first century, formal Foresight has become
frenetic and global as its ideas are adopted in ever more continents and countries.
However, the related bureaucracy tends to direct its focus to established sets
of concerns, including biotechnology, information technology and, more
recently, nanotechnology and cognitive science. Whether these distinctly
Western concerns are of universal importance must be questioned as must the
possibility of developing countries by-passing the industrial era altogether, a
possibility I, amongst others, first recognised 30 years ago. Foresight of the non-
bureaucratic kind is ever present, and thankfully so, as the source of ideas and
influences later taken up in formal Foresight programmes, but often ridiculed
currently (the behavioural aspects of Foresight are conveniently not discussed
by its proponents). The concerns of real foresight (Loveridge 2001:783) look
beyond the obvious toward the new kinds of society that may emerge over the
coming century from the dynamic situations that may describe the ‘problems of
living’ not just for humankind but for the continuance of the Earth as a living
system. I have been involved, in a minor way, in promoting the current frenetic
Foresight activity. In industry, my home for most of my working life, foresight
is ever present. It is the Japanese who, from 1971 onwards, through their five-
yearly ‘technology forecasts’, stoked the fire that has led to the current blaze
of Foresight. However, the way the methodological fuel has evolved has left
me uneasy. Its application is fragmented and punctuated to a degree that often
has led to pedestrian outcomes that, if continued, may lead to extinction of
the blaze. It is for this reason that a relationship between systemic thinking
and Foresight is set out in a later chapter. For me this is a return to my roots.
It remains to be seen whether systemic thinking can help to cope with the
complexity of situations that foresight is now both creating and identifying,
but it now seems obvious that the fragmented, punctuated and non-systemic
bureaucratic processes of Foresight cannot serve their intended purpose for
8  Introduction

much longer, while wrestling simultaneously with the shifting balance of

influence of modernist and post-modernist thought.
Foresight is not new, only newly rediscovered after one of its periodic
sojourns in the intellectual and political wilderness. In this brief contextual
introduction, some of the topics that will be discussed in ensuing chapters are
hinted at while others are not. Inevitably, where ideas here draw upon work
by other authors there will be signposts to the originals. The task ahead is
daunting, but it will not be shirked. It is time now to turn to what matters from
here onwards.
Pa rt I

Syst em s a n d fo r e sight
Ch a p t e r 1
Fo re sigh t an d
sys te ms t h i n ki n g
An a ppre ciation

The more and deeper you think, the more there seems to be no real ‘answer’ to
a situation.
Denis Loveridge 2007

E x ploration
A.A. Milne often used his much-loved creation Pooh Bear to deliver homilies
to his readers, old and young alike. Pooh’s homespun thoughts have much to
commend them, especially in the marriage of foresight and systems, if only for
their illustration of the interconnections between all forms of life, the qualities
of art and the situations they create. The words ‘foresight’ and ‘systems’ are
common enough in human discourse; there is nothing remarkable about
them. In English, the language I am most familiar with, foresight is referred to
ubiquitously. Its occurrence in all manner of conversations and writings is one
thing, but its difficulty has been acknowledged by Whitehead (1964); similarly
for systems, a word that is scattered like confetti throughout normal discourse
without paying much heed to its various meanings. In this chapter a system
is regarded as an assemblage of interrelated elements comprising a unified
whole with emergent properties. The interrelationships may or may not be fully
specified or understood. Systems thinking when ‘… applied to human activity
[is] based upon four basic ideas: emergence, hierarchy, communication and
control as characteristics of systems … [in which] … the crucial characteristic
is the emergent property[ies] of the whole’ (Checkland 1981: 318). However,
the words foresight and systems hide massive debates and literature, not about
their lexicographic meaning which the Oxford dictionary sets out simply, but
about the concepts that both words mask. Unmasking this debate to remove
some of the mystique that surrounds both is my purpose in this chapter, and in
doing so to set the content of both in context. It is not my intention to review
the immense literature relating to foresight and systems which show little, if
any, interconnection between the two (Saritas 2006: 4) (Note 1). Nor is it my
intention to describe methods used in foresight; these are mostly derived from
technology forecasting and other kinds of forecasting, or in modelling systems
that have been described elsewhere.
12  Systems and foresight

Fores ight
Foresight is – and remains – essentially practical and qualitative anticipation;
there is no comprehensive discussion of it in theoretical terms, though
Chapter  2 will deal with some theoretical matters. However, that does not
mean that I view foresight as some kind of ‘wild card’ guessing game, far from
it. The Oxford dictionary attributes several characteristics to foresight that
divide neatly into soft (the action of looking forward and caring for or provision
for the future) and hard (the muzzle sight of a gun) connotations. These two
attributes are interrelated, a matter that is often overlooked in anticipation
of the future, where the unpleasant fact of human conflict, greed and war are
often set aside. It is here that another unavoidable matter intrudes, that of the
importance of, and fascination for, numbers with all their vagaries between
information and misinformation. Numbers invoke notions of precision that are
not characteristic of foresight nor of its close relative, forecasting. Confirmation
of this lies in the Oxford dictionary which refers to forecasting, among other
similar descriptions, as ‘to estimate or conjecture beforehand’, an ability that
can only take place after foresight has marked out the subject for forecasting.
The fascination for, and abuse of, numbers is a serious matter that Funtowicz
and Ravetz (1990a: 28) discuss at length through their NUSAP scheme; more
will be said about this in Chapter 2.
Elsewhere (Loveridge 2001: 781) I have separated foresight, the individual
or small group activity of anticipation, from Foresight as the formal process
that is now popular in policy and planning circles. I forthrightly called the
first real foresight and the second institutional Foresight, claiming that the
first is separated from the second by random time intervals that may run
into centuries (the latter claim arose from Leonardo da Vinci’s outpourings
in the late 1400s, many of which came to fruition in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries); typically the time interval may be about 20 years with
a spread from 10 to 40 years. Often real foresight occurs at a time when the
polity either cannot recognise its importance or has a mindset that denies
its implications. By contrast, institutional Foresight takes place later and in
a different milieu in which the polity’s mindset has moved beyond denial
and the institutional association makes the implications more acceptable and
recognisable. If real foresight is original, institutional Foresight becomes a
process of rediscovery and aggregation. Both serve their purpose, but it is not
to be supposed that the institutional variant is or can be designed to have the
characteristics of its real counterpart. These are not empty claims. It is now
30 years since I pointed out to the company I then worked for that the world’s
population and its needs distributions were likely to alter world markets
drastically in distribution and kind, pointing specifically to China and Asia,
where India predominates. Equally, it was not difficult to recognise, at about
the same time, from the UK’s Social Trends, the way the UK’s population had
become locked into a cyclical pattern at a total fertility rate of around 1.7,
 Foresight and systems thinking  13

less than the replacement rate. The consequences, in terms of the necessary
future wealth-generating capability of the rising generations through the
1980s and onwards – dependency ratios, an ageing population, immigration
and emigration, and other matters – were clear enough by the early 1980s to
be indicated to the company and later to enable me to teach about them to
an undergraduate course from 1992 onwards. There are many other examples
where the centrepiece of institutional Foresight studies fail because, even in
2008, they are conducted on the basis of classic reductionism; the systemic
interrelations are rarely made.
In the Introduction I referred to institutional Foresight’s slow and unobtrusive
mutation toward what is believed to be scenario planning. The shift has been
real enough and in the UK Government’s Foresight group this emphasis is
referred to directly. The words ‘visions’, ‘alternatives’ and the post-modern
word ‘narrative’ have come onto the scene to the extent that the Foresight
process is now referred to in much the same way as the planning process used
to be. The extent to which this similarity has advanced can be gleaned from
Miles and Keenan (2002: 15) in their ‘Practical Guide to Regional Foresight in
the United Kingdom’ where they claim that:

The term ‘Foresight’ [is understood] “to describe a range of approaches

to improving decision making … Foresight involves bringing together key
agents of change and sources of knowledge, in order to develop strategic
visions and anticipatory intelligence. Of equal importance, Foresight is
often explicitly intended to establish networks of knowledgeable agents”.
(Note 2)

However, this shift has not embraced the full context and content of scenario
planning, leaving the Foresight process with both feet in mid-air, an expression
used by Donald Michael in his reflections on thinking about the future (Michael
1985: 94). Foresight, real or institutional, enables visions of the future. While
life is the present, anticipations of the future are an inevitable part of that
present. The purpose of visions of the future is to attempt to identify, as far as
one sensibly can, different kinds of futures in which life may take place. For
example, in 2001 the argument in the UK about joining the single European
currency and involvement in Europe’s further political integration ignored the
1974 report by Lord Kennet, a UK parliamentarian, that openly acknowledged
that political union was Europe’s ultimate aim (Kennet 1976). If people in the
UK did not know that, it was because the question was not asked. In 1956,
Jan Monet and his associates’ vision was of an integrated Europe free from
war. There are other visions for the future of Europe, some of them distinctly
unpleasant.
Visions of the future are there because they are inevitable; without them
the polity can neither develop nor policy be created. However, one property a
vision must have was neatly summed up by Al Haig, the one-time US Secretary
14  Systems and foresight

of State, that ‘… vision without discipline is daydream’ (Haig 1984). Foresight is

an essential precursor to creating vision and is needed to prevent daydreaming;
in that way foresight enables policy to be shaped.
In its current context, the Foresight process is said to be systematic, within
the often undefined boundaries of study. Within this frame, the reductionist
overtones of systematic inquiry cannot be evaded. However, this creates an
oxymoron as neither a systematic nor a reductionist way of caring or providing
for the future is possible for something that does not yet exist. By contrast
it is possible to anticipate possible future events that, when taken together,
describe a set of perceptually bounded, imagined future situations; this is a
systemic, not a systematic, way of proceeding because it is opinion centred,
deals in uncertainty and alternatives, and relies on what Vickers means by
comprehension (Vickers 1963), which will be discussed shortly.
What can be concluded about foresight at this point? First, that the real
variant identifies a series of either random or pseudo-random and specific future
events, anticipated by individuals or groups often within well-defined boundaries,
that are widely ignored or denied when first recognised. The interrelationships
between these specific future events and the present are not always sought or
displayed, though in the best circumstances they are. Although the notions of
a paradigm and a paradigm shift (Kuhn 1962) are usually reserved for scientific
theory, real foresight is closely allied to these events. Characteristically, the
events described by real foresight, at their time of identification, are of low
probability of occurrence, but of high information content describing highly
unusual matters or patterns of them. Second, the institutional variant is mostly
concerned with rediscovery of past real outpourings and aggregation of them
into collections of ideas, often in an ad hoc way, that are perceived to be related
to a problem, however broadly that may be described. Characteristically, these
collections of ideas are of high probability of occurrence and low information
content, because much more is known about the ideas involved.

Sy s tems th inking a nd i t s influen c e

What then of systems and systems thinking? Systems thinking can touch every
form of human and natural activity; it is this propensity that has, in the past,
led to extravagant claims for its capabilities with the attendant risk of disrepute,
typified by the highly critical papers by Phillips (1969: 3) and Lilienfeld
(1978:   191) in which general systems theory is dissected closely (Phillips’
and Lilienfeld’s criticisms will be explored at greater length in Chapter 2).
Other than simple lexicographic descriptions it should be obvious that formal
definitions of ‘system’ robs the term of its depth and complexity. Flood (1999)
attempted to clarify the position relating to systems thinking as follows:

‘Systemic thinking is then not something that can be explained easily and
understood comprehensively … Very quickly we will lose touch with the
 Foresight and systems thinking  15

notion of wholeness in a trivialised account of its so-called properties.

Many textbooks … make this mistake … explain the world in terms of
systems and subsystems, what a system is and how it behaves. An account
in these terms … strips it [systemic thinking] of all essential meaning.
Systemic thinking begins with an intuitive grasp of existence’
(Flood 1999: 82)

Flood’s comment indicates the well-known systemic tenet that phenomena

can never be wholly known for the very reason that we are part of them, a
notion that stems from gestalt psychology and Smuts’ original writing on
holism (Smuts 1926) and, more remotely, from a sociological adaptation (or
corruption) of the uncertainty principle (Heisenberg 1927). Flood’s point
is well made, giving more cause to avoid formal definitions of ideas that are
shaped by the plasticity of the human mind.
Von Bertalanffy (1929) set out the beginnings of systems and systems
thinking especially to challenge reductionist thought that dominated science
at the time and in many ways still does. For von Bertalanffy reduction was not
a viable way to study living biological phenomena that needed to be set in
the context of other phenomena with which they interacted, with increasing
complication, and from which they gained their life support. What may loosely
be called the systems movement sprang from von Bertalanffy’s original work
and led to the formation of the Society for General Systems Research in the
1940s. Many times since attempts have been made to define systems thinking,
particularly during the early post-World War II development of operational
research (e.g. Churchman 1968); mostly, as Flood maintains, these efforts have
been counter productive.
Checkland sets out a chronology of the rise of systems thinking (Checkland
1981: 59), which I will not repeat here, in a way that also indicates problem
areas that systems thinking faced at the time and mostly still does. In his review,
Checkland claimed that Aristotle argued that the sum is greater than the parts
in any set of interconnected elements, but it remains unclear when the modern
notion of thinking about situations as a whole, systemic thinking, began to
be used. Jan Smuts (1926) may be the person who marked out holism in its
modern idiom. Dictionary descriptions indicate that systems are collections of
items that are interconnected or interrelated. Checkland (1981) goes further to
claim the nature of these collections, with their interconnections, to be a model,
hierarchical in structure, with emergent properties and with communication
and control aspects. With the passage of time, the focus of attention in systems
research fragmented into many themes that are summarised in Figure 1.1 and
not simply into hard and soft systems.
Throughout the different streams of systems activity, interdependencies are
prominent features; these become ever-more so as the differences between the
traditional notions of hard and soft systems blur. Process control theory and its
applications are the most easily recognised, though nowadays the term ‘process’
16  Systems and foresight

has to be interpreted more widely than its original intention. For example,
the ever-growing use of algorithmic stock market trading is a far cry from
manufacturing process control, but it is turning what was seen as a soft activity,
based on human intuition and judgement, into a hard, if not mechanised
process. Similarly, fly-by-wire aircraft represent an extreme development in
control systems as do remotely controlled ‘drone’ weapons systems. There
are also attempts, some successful some not, to manage recruitment and the
flows of patients in health systems as a hard, mechanised process. At one time,
hard systems would have been regarded as complicated, but well specified and
understandable. These contentions have become less sustainable as processes
have become ever more complicated, a feature exemplified by analyses of
accidents (Perrow 1984) in many fields (e.g. Three Mile Island, Apollo 13
and forms of medical diagnosis) that indicate the presence of complexity that
human operators find difficult to comprehend.
‘Situations’ are systems which may be characterised as ‘a regularly interacting
or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole’ (Merriam-Webster’s
Collegiate Dictionary) taking the form of ‘a social, economic, or political
organisation or practice’. Checkland (1981: 317) takes these formal descriptions
further, but in a different direction when describing a system as a model of a
whole entity that ought to relate (this ought not to be a matter of choice!) to
real-world activity that, in human made entities, have emergent properties as a
crucial characteristic. Many of the notions laconically mentioned above recur
in one form or another throughout this and later chapters. It is at this point

Hard Soft

Structured Closed Open Unstructured/fuzzy

18 Power Self-diagnosing 13 1 Neural Monitoring 7

Generation and self- networks ecological
management repairing systems
machines Artificial
2 Crime 8
19 Visual Intelligent 14 intelligence control
languages prosthetics
3 Robotics Traffic 9
20 Fly-by-wire Gas grid 15 control
systems management (all fields)
21 Propulsion Electricity grid 16 4 Remote Crash 10
system management diagnosis management
management (medical) systems
22 Bioinformatics Banking 17 Retail
5 Pattern 11
6 Networks/ systems systems recognition
boundaries monitoring
6 Networks/ Automatic 12
boundaries translation

Figure 1.1 Streams of systems thinking and applications

 Foresight and systems thinking  17

that the temptation to embark on a definition of systems thinking, is strong, but

it is one that I will resist.
Living systems are usually thought to be soft, by default. They can be of
infinite variety. Here, though, there is a more subtle separation within soft
systems thinking between natural systems and human societies, organisations
and their management, and behaviour. The effort put into understanding
these activities has been and remains immense, and has become the subject
of major modelling work. However, the separation of systems into hard and
soft variants is immediately seen as naive as science and technology and social
thought continue to blur the separation between the two. It is here that the
more contentious aspects of systems now lie. The claim for systems to have
emergent properties that lie beyond the properties of an assemblage of well-
understood components, the gestalt aspect of systems, leads inexorably toward
an argument for what Sheldrake (1988) and others have called the presence of
the past. The importance or otherwise of Sheldrake’s notions will be discussed
further in Chapter 2. On occasions this has been dubbed a return to the notion
of vitalism, of there being within a system some property that acts to glue
component parts together so that there are emergent properties derived from
the assemblage as a whole. These are deep arguments that lead towards Flood’s
conclusion that systems thinking requires an intuitive grasp of existence.
There have been some outstanding results from the systems movement;
some have been indicated briefly in Figure 1.1. Similarly, the encroachment
of systems thinking into what would otherwise be regarded as the territory of
social studies has been considerable, but often unrecognised. Examples are
too numerous to mention without being invidious. In parallel, theme-based
professional societies have been created for which there are no parallels in the
foresight world, though the act of foresight underlies the themes of the systems
world.
If there is an intertwining of foresight and systems thinking then there are
no better places to look than in the writings of H.G. Wells, Aldous Huxley,
Vannevar Bush, John von Neuman, Richard Feynman, Eric Drexler, Hans
Moravec, Ray Kurzweil and many other authors. Similarly, every major paradigm
shift (Kuhn 1962), whatever its field and consequent new theory, results from
foresight, the act of anticipation. None of this prevents foresight as a generic
activity being regarded as disreputable, a mere guessing game about the future
that may or may not travel with the wholeness of systems thinking. In this
association, the notion of systems, so well established elsewhere, can promote
a sigh with the response ‘so what?’ when the claims to wholeness are seen to be
vague and more of an obeisance to correctness. As will be seen in later chapters,
the conjunction of foresight and systems thinking has considerable power. It
is hard to know whether this conjunction should be regarded as symbiosis or
symbiogenesis. By contrast, at present there is not a shred of evidence that any
form of foresight is characterised by wholeness, but is fragmented into either
single ideas or multiple sets of them with only the barest attempt to cope with
18  Systems and foresight

interrelationships with the makings of a representative model. Entrepreneurs,

inventors, scientists, businessmen, committees and bureaucracies, including
policy makers, are concerned mostly with specific ideas or issues that come into
focus from time to time and are rarely concerned with the interrelationships
that characterise wholeness. Multiple single and collective acts of foresight
shape the world in which humankind exists; its saviour is the phenomenon
of emergence in which self-organisation plays an immense part in creating the
‘safe-fail’ system identified by Holling (in Linstone and Simmonds 1977: 129).
Perhaps this is the real source of Keynes’ invisible guiding hand rather than
the fateful and insecure one of economics with its invocation of exogenous
variables.
Thinking of all kinds works with concepts, facts and values – a simple
enough conclusion to reach. However, language enables many different
interpretations of any concept; while facts are rarely what they seem and value
judgements influence both the interpretation of concepts and the acceptance
or otherwise of facts. Wilson sets out an approach to thinking with concepts
(Wilson 1971), an important aspect of any act of anticipation and of systems
thinking since both are concerned with the transformation of what was, into
what is and then into what might be. An important adjunct to Wilson’s ideas
is the use of six themes (Social, Technological, Economic, Ecological, Political
and Values – acronym STEEPV) that pervade foresight and systems, and place
their concepts, facts and values in context. It is now time to explore these
laconic comments in greater depth.

Situation s a s proble ms of livin g

Why situations and not problems? The answer is both theoretical and practical.
The essential reason for my emphasis on situations and not problems is that
the latter are always perceived as capable of ‘solution’. Problems are usually
presented as being well structured or of becoming so given enough attention;
this is typical of the reduction process used in much of conventional science.
Reduction has been usurped into other endeavours, e.g. social studies, economics,
politics, where it has never been appropriate even as its appropriateness in
scientific inquiry has been modified. Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of
reductionism in spheres outside science, where its past successes cannot be
denied, lies in the assumption that a problem solved is a problem ‘done with’, a
product of the application of compartmentalisation, typical of the organisation
of science, teaching, government, companies and much of human societies: it
is this defect that directs attention to situations and not problems.
Situations are neither solvable nor well structured in the manner expected
of problem solving. Instead situations can be recognised from their many
elements and their interrelatedness, and their apparent lack of structure. Well-
specified causal relations may be present, but may not dominate, leaving many
interrelationships to depend on the appreciative setting or behavioural pattern
 Foresight and systems thinking  19

(see next section) of the appreciator. Furthermore, since the appreciator will lie
within the situation, perception of its boundaries is a matter of uncertainty and
debate. As a further characteristic, the insoluble nature of situations means
they are dynamic, occur in cascades and are never ‘done with’ (cf. problem
solving), but simply change their context and content after every intervention,
appearing to become unrecognisable from their initial form over a period of
time, though the initial form remains buried in the stream of new contexts. In
a rather risky way this behaviour could be likened to that of a cellular automata
that, with its original simple rules, produces highly complex patterns after
many iterations or similarly of the behaviour of fractals. Cascades of situations,
each of which might be said to have emergent properties, are analogous to the
conditions described by Popper in his criticism of holism (Popper 1957: 79) and
may, in hindsight, have traceable trajectories much like the path of a hurricane,
sweeping in an ever growing context and content before finally dissipating. The
emergent properties of each situation will be the input to the next, an ecological
phenomenon, each embodying the question of how the interactions of agents
in the situation produce an aggregate entity that is more flexible and adaptive
than its component agents, a question that Holland regarded as difficult but
not impossible (Holland 1998: 248).
Much thought about systems invokes holism, that elusive way of all-
encompassing judgmental comprehension of the entirety of a situation.
Popper’s (1957) criticism of holism concludes that it is an impossible way of
studying a social system (a situation is one) and that gestalt properties are a
particular example of holism that does not encompass the notion of totality.
Similarly, Simon’s principle of bounded rationality (Simon 1947) makes it clear
the that ‘The capacity of the human mind for formulating and solving complex
problems is very small compared with the size of the problems whose solution
is required for objectively rational behaviour in the real world,’ replacing the
maximising goal with satisficing, to obtain an outcome that is good enough.
These two criticisms of holism, one direct the other by implication, need to
be constantly in mind when working with situations. However, this is not the
end of the matter. M’Pherson (1974: 238) attempted a rebuff to Popper that
ends as a damp squib, by admitting that systems thinkers are aware of Popper’s
criticism and of the imperfections of the notion of holistic models, but use
models because they are expeditious when there are current urgent problems to
be solved. Hardly a convincing rebuttal, particularly as M’Pherson later claims
that the best systems thinkers use both reduction and holism in their work, a
conclusion I would not dispute.
Perhaps the biggest step in favour of the notion of situations rather than
problems came from an unexpected direction in 1972 when Weinberg invoked
trans-science to describe issues that arise in the interaction between science
or technology and society (e.g. The UK’s BSE epidemic, supervision of the
content of the World Wide Web, amelioration (if that’s possible) of global
climate change, the AIDS pandemic and other situations: author’s replacement
20  Systems and foresight

of Weinberg’s more general statement) that hang on the answers to questions

that can be asked of science and yet cannot be answered by science (Weinberg
1972: 209). Issues, or situations as they more properly are, of this kind are now
a common feature of life and throw the activities of policy makers into sharp
relief. As the situations cascade, positions taken up by agents and agencies
shift as new theories and new data are preferred, arising perhaps from the
Assessment and Pedigree categories of the NUSAP (Funtowicz and Ravetz
1990: 28) way of examining data. Situations frequently involve preference
shifts among the people involved, appreciators in the following section, and
may involve the equivalent of a Kuhnian (1962) paradigm shift in science, but
these are unlikely to have the same depth of foundation as the arrival of a new
theory in science.
Throughout the holism debate there is a frequent recourse to the Aristotelian
claim that the sum is greater than the parts. However, Buckminster Fuller’s
idea of synergy, from the Greek synergos, working together, may be a more
appropriate way to describe the claims of systems thinkers, if only because it
is gradients between a system’s elements that drive the synergy between them
in any situation. By an analogy with the Second Law of Thermodynamics,
a system of ever-declining gradients is one of increasing entropy and rising
disorder, notions that are important in situations.
What of the practical characteristics of situations? M’Pherson’s rebuff of
Popper’s criticism of holism had its roots visibly in the world of the systems
practitioner, with a sense of exasperation over the philosophical debate
concerning the validity or otherwise of holism. In a discourse about rational
science, which many would call normal science, Maxwell expressed concerns
for the way rational science passes real world problems by (Maxwell 1984:
65). Maxwell turned his attention toward how the practice of science
could be changed to get closer to what he termed ‘the problems of living’ as
characterised by what is of value to people in their lives. As an aside, Maxwell
conducted his debate under the titles of the philosophy of knowledge (rational
science) and the philosophy of wisdom, which is concerned with the problems
of living. ‘Situations’ is the term I prefer to the ‘problems of living’ as it
conjures in one word the theatrical nature of the problems of living in all their
dimensions. Practically, situations need learning, judgmental comprehension
and anticipation that, through synergy (or symbiosis?), create foresight and
adaptation (or prepare for it) to changing circumstances. Throughout there is
a necessity to combine reduction and holism together in the difficult process
of fixing a situations boundaries, a matter Dempster (1998) discusses in an
extension to Maturana and Varela’s theory of autopoiesis (1980). Simon’s
(1957) strictures of bounded rationality, with its escape route via satisficing,
always needs to be borne in mind, but without sacrificing the rigour and
quality of the investigative process of inquiry into a cascade of situations.
By their nature situations are rich in symbiosis where elements live together
in a mutually supportive way. There will also be evidence of symbiogenesis
 Foresight and systems thinking  21

(Margulis and Sagan 1995: xiii) in which elements of the situation are acquired
totally by another, creating a new and more complex element in the evolution
of the situation (symbiogenesis is probably more complete than merger and
acquisition activity in human organisations, especially, but not exclusively, in
business).
The practical process of learning, anticipation and the judgmental compre­
hension of a situation is similar to that described later (Chapter 6) for scenario
building; both can be aided through systems modelling, discussed later in
this chapter, in any appropriate form, as this transforms the concepts and
perceptions from abstract internal patterns into a form that can be worked
with in the physical (practical) world. The need to learn poses questions
about what to learn and how to go about it? Why are the themes chosen?
Who to turn to for advice (which raises the political-cum-technical matter of
expertise)? Where are advisors and information to be found? And when, in the
life of the situation and its cascade, are particular forms of learning needed?
The synergy of the learning process is through discriminating judgement of
the appreciative kind which leads to anticipation and foresight concerning
the situation, all of which is a complex process controlled through the
combination of reduction and holism. Learning and discriminating judgement
of the appreciative form are the key parts of working with situations. It is
these that permit well-founded thought experiments on which anticipation
of both further learning and foresight depend. It also raises the questions of
personal learning, organisational learning and in extremis social learning by
entire societies. These are subjects in their own right; all that can be done
here is to indicate their presence while raising three particular issues: the need
for reflexivity to constantly test what is being learned; the transition from
information to knowledge, which is usually glossed over; and the necessary
shift from broad to directed learning.
Reflexivity is needed to ask whether what is being learned can be used
without thinking through its use in the situation, what Argyris and Schon
(1978) call theories-in-use. The addition of reflexivity transforms this into
double-loop learning (ibid.) in which the premises of the theory are examined
in relation to the situation. Throughout the use of reflexivity, the NUSAP way
of examining data helps in its conversion to knowledge. The common ground in
the process will be the transformation of information, which is currently related
to problem solving. Even if this transformation is not well understood, it is an
everyday practical occurrence and, to that extent, is familiar. By comparison
the transformation of information into knowledge, and subsequently into
wisdom, as in Maxwell’s (1984) argument, to ameliorate the problems of living
has, perhaps, barely been considered in the foresight world. Problem solving
remains a dominant feature of society, as does the fallacy that integration of
individual problem-solving solutions can be a solution to a complex situation.
Common ground is an important building block in the transformation of
information into knowledge. It depends on successful sharing of information,
22  Systems and foresight

which is itself difficult and uncertain. Information itself has two parts (Devlin
1999: 14) as set out in an information equation as follows:

information = representation + procedures for encoding/decoding

Here representation is any kind of symbol or set of symbols, and the procedures
are how the representation is encoded or decoded. The representation may take
any form including numerical, linguistic, ideographic, drawings or pictures.
How information becomes knowledge is likely to be along the following lines
for the individual:

[information] × [transfer function of unknown format] ⇒ [individual

knowledge]
[individual knowledge] × [appreciative setting function of unknown
format] ⇒ [individual wisdom to act]

Devlin (ibid.) prefers to interpret Davenport and Prusak’s (1998) definition

of knowledge as a single step (knowledge = internalised information + ability
to utilise the information). I believe the two steps indicated above are a better
scheme since an individual may create personal knowledge unrelated to any
need for action.
Representation is a primary building block in the form of language in all its
guises. Language is fundamental since it must meet demanding requirements
in information sharing in and between all the elements of a situation. As things
stand now, language, not simply differing national languages, but the immense
spread of social, scientific/technical, economic, ecological, political and value
‘dialects’, is probably the greatest barrier toward amelioration of situations. As
a building block, language puts ‘information technology’ into a very different
perspective and requires processes very different to what is currently called
information management.
Language is also a vital part of the initial broad learning that proceeds in
the first stages of appreciating a situation, as each tends to have a language of
its own. The broad learning programme (illustrated later in Figure 6.3) needs
to make every aspect of that language comprehensible to facilitate the deeper
learning that follows in the directed phase. Determining when to make this shift
is a fuzzy process that depends very much on how the interdependence between
reduction and holism shapes boundary setting and the ever-shifting context of
the situation. For the individuals involved, the greatest gift education can give
them is knowing how the process of learning proceeds best for them because
of its potent linkage to Vickers notion of appreciation (Vickers 1963) that has
been termed judgmental comprehension earlier.
 Foresight and systems thinking  23

F o r es ight, s yst ems a nd a ppreci a t io n

Both foresight and systems thinking are influenced by the behavioural traits
of those involved, an aspect that has largely been ignored but will be explored
now. Foresight is intensely dependent on pattern recognition: it provokes and
is provoked by the recognition of a new situation, itself composed of patterns
of inter-linkage between elements, which is akin to sensing a new object or
new idea. To be recognised the new situation has to have sufficient familiarity
to be interpreted through old experience, a form of mental handshaking,
otherwise it will be neither perceived nor comprehended; this process is
similar to Jean’s (1943: 55) description of how communication occurs through
perceptual space, which will be described shortly in developing the notion of an
individual’s behavioural pattern. Dissolving (or absorbing) new experience into
accumulated existing experience, is then more than assimilation and involves
the more subtle process of appreciation (Vickers 1963). As already described,
situations occur in cascades, each posing a new experience requiring a further
shift in appreciation to what Vickers called a new appreciative setting (Figure
1.2).
The notions of appreciation, appreciative setting and behavioural pattern
are similar since the latter makes use of Vickers notions of values and norms
(1973: 175), but makes more explicit use of simple aspects of brain science.
Appreciation, or sensitive awareness, may seem to be an old fashioned idea
but understanding what it involves is fundamental to anticipation or foresight.
Situations, themselves systems, need appreciation that comes from being open
to the reception and interpretation of signals of low probability but with high
information content. Few people understood appreciation better than Geoffrey

Figure 1.2 Appreciation, learning, anticipations and foresight: adaptation to a cascade of

situations of ever changing shape
24  Systems and foresight

Learning

Foresight

Anticipation Appreciation

Figure 1.3 Evolution of learning, appreciation, anticipation and foresight

Vickers. His fundamental paper (1963) leads to the conclusion that appreciation
has a circular relationship with anticipation and learning, with their internal
feedback loops, all of which is fundamental to the assembly of coherent ideas
about the future. (Figure 1.3)
Vickers (ibid.) drew on conventional feedback control theory to describe, for
soft systems, the combined process of deriving the information that describes
the current state and its comparison with the norm to provide a signal for
action; it is this process that Vickers called appreciation. In soft systems,
the resulting appreciative behaviour, the control action, is not the same as
regulation since regulations formulated by statute are not dynamic, only being
altered at irregular or fixed intervals (in hard systems, these two mechanisms
would coincide). Appreciative behaviour allows responses to vary according
to the extent of the departure from the norm recognised by appreciation. In
a living system, as opposed to a hard control system, appreciation may seek
action, but there is no certainty that it will occur, whereas the enforcement of
regulations will invoke action in a binary ‘go’ or ‘no-go’ fashion. Consequently,
appreciation requires judgements of reality and value to assess first, the state
of the system (referred to as judgements of fact) and second, to value these
facts with respect to the individual and society. Vickers saw the two kinds of
judgement as inseparable constituents of appreciation (this amounts to a form
of soft gap analysis).
To Vickers an individual’s appreciative judgement depends on:

• Their relevant mental faculties

• The materials available to the individual via memory or external sources
or derivable from these through mental processes
 Foresight and systems thinking  25

• The willingness to see and value alternative appreciations (appreciative

setting which he thought depended on past experiences and
associations).

Similar ideas underlie the notion of an individual’s behavioural pattern

(Loveridge 1977: 56); the entire scheme is shown below.
The ideas incorporated into the individual’s behavioural pattern differ from
Vickers’, being more explicit and incorporating some simple understandings
from brain science. The left-right brain behaviour debate has largely remained
intact since the 1970s, though more precise roles for different areas of the
brain are now being revealed, not without argument, through the application
of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies. In Figure 1.4 the
process of appreciation can readily be recognised through the loop that suggests
the modification of an individual’s value-norm set and information store. The
complex nature of the modification of values and norms, resulting from both
internal and external experience, is derived from Jeans’ discussion of space and
time (Jeans 1943), though only the former is relevant here. Jeans suggested
four spaces – conceptual, perceptual, physical and absolute; the concern
here is for the first three. Conceptual space is abstract and exists only in the
mind of the individual; whatever the individual thinks in this space can be
multidimensional, but it goes out of existence immediately the individual turns
Ext ernal
ex perience

Perception in physical
space shaped through
current values, norms
and information set

R L
Behaviour Information
pattern made Current
up of Values and
interaction Norms Changed values andnorms
between: resulting from experience
(new information) largely
v alues logical change and a left
exp ectation
norms hemisphere activity (matter
appreciativ e
heavy change) –
setting physical-perceptual process.
information
New v alues and norms
genetic inheritance resulting from internal
physical New set of v alues, ex perience ('internal'
content biological drives information synthesis
norms and information
become ' current' – largely holistic and right
hemisphere activit y) –
conceptual space process.

Figure 1.4 Notional representation of ‘behavioural pattern’ and its components

26  Systems and foresight

his thinking elsewhere. Perceptual space is that of a conscious being experiencing

or recording sensations in two or three dimensions; as before perceptual space
goes out of existence when the sensations stop. Both conceptual and perceptual
spaces are private to individuals, physical space is public. My conclusion in
1977 was that the content of conceptual and perceptual spaces can be and are
recorded in physical space where the world of ideas exists, giving rise to values
and norms which, in Vickers’ view, were respectively general and explicit,
and specific and tacit. It is this interpretation that underlies the structure of
value-norm shifts outlined in Figure 1.4 and that have potent influences on
the way situations are described through systems thinking and foresight, with
an obvious link to the evolution of mental models of them.
It is necessary to dwell briefly on the synthesis between appreciation and
behavioural pattern. Both acknowledge the mutual interconnections between
the worlds of events and ideas which cannot be separated from the state of mind
of the individuals involved. Often these many and subtle interconnections are
not recognised with events and ideas being subsumed together, an unfortunate
state of affairs as interconnections play an important part in any form of
appreciation or value-norm shift. It means that individuals need to evaluate
evidence of what may happen in the world of events into evidence of what
is actually happening in the world of ideas (Vickers 1963), a key notion for
foresight considering the diversity of material involved in reaching reality
judgements, which are constantly reviewed under the pressure of:

• Events (which require new appreciation)

• Codifying alternative mental experiences, including particular ways of
perceiving and responding to a complex situation or set of stimuli (these
challenge or confirm an individual’s experiences which may need revision
as a result)
• The incompleteness and deficiencies revealed in an individual’s
behavioural pattern that constantly call for its revision.

Vickers concluded reasonably that everyone in society has a latent

appreciative setting which remains hidden by his/her actual judgements even
when they change (or help to change) public opinion. Revolutionary ideas, the
outcome of real foresight, involving extended periods of change and uncertainty
have large costs in all aspects of life, politics, science and individual life.
Appreciation involves a clash between the value pair certainty-uncertainty
of expectations relating to the future course of events. Reality judgements
provide checks on whether events are providing confirmation or otherwise
of expectations, a test that resembles soft gap analysis. Whether the event
is disagreeable or otherwise is immaterial, its confirmation strengthens the
validity of the reality judgement, whereas its falsification erodes confidence in
the expectation, the reality judgement and the process by which it was reached.
Thus, mismatch signals are significant in the appreciative process as behavioural
 Foresight and systems thinking  27

patterns shift. Appreciation also contains the value of coherence-incoherence

in the inner world of the appreciator as indicated in Figure 1.4. The individual’s
internal mental codification of experience is largely coherent, but where it is
not the mismatches are indicated by persistent discomfort. Some judgements
cannot be embraced by the value pair coherence-incoherence, these Vickers
(1963) calls fitness-unfitness, which seem to have connections with the idea of
fitness for purpose (Loveridge 1997: 34) as that also involves valuations. The
simplest of these valuations come from attitudes toward mental codifications
of reality. For example, duty to a neighbour widens or shrinks with conceptions
of who one’s neighbour is (Vickers 1963). Valuations have their own mental
codifications developed through criteria of value that, like criteria of reality, are
latent in the mind, appearing to guide and change as the need for appreciation
arises. The key is how appreciative judgements temporarily and dynamically
settle valuations that involve issues of good and bad (and all shades in between)
that are not resolved by ranking norms or goals.
It is customary to think of judgement in a dynamic context of weighing
[evidence] and alternatives, but Vickers suggests this is inappropriate. What
is needed is a way in which incoherence and unfitness in information can be
minimised to benefit judgement. Resistance to new ideas is to be expected. In
behavioural terms, it attempts to retain coherence in an individual’s existing
patterns of ideas in the face of their possible disruption.
In all studies involving systems and the future ‘what is important?’ is probably
the most basic question after the nature of the situation has been set out in a
preliminary way; it is also a deeply philosophical and psychological problem
involving appreciation, anticipation, learning and judgement of reality and
value. Vickers suggests that interest is the key factor, but this raises the question
of ‘whose interest?’ In turn, this leads to the involvement of self-interest.
Finally, there is the hidden question of measurement where the use of the
terms ‘facts’ and ‘norms’ needs examination. Facts are rarely what they seem
and are often associated with considerable uncertainty as confirmed by Wilson
in teasing apart the meanings of fact, value and concept in a very instructive way
(Wilson 1971). Reality judgements admit of the possibility of some facts being
more acceptable than others due to selective seeing and listening, a feature of
the idea of ‘pedigree’ in the NUSAP system. Vickers’ use of the phrase ‘actual
and hypothetical’, the latter to cover reference to the future state of a system,
is troublesome as facts about the future are restricted to a relatively narrow set,
whereas both forms of judgement and the ‘state of the system’ are concepts
capable of many different interpretations. The implied need for measurement
of norms is a contentious matter. Any norm is characterised by a complex
set of elements so that appreciation itself becomes complex and is inherently
uncertain and risky. Vickers’ later careful distinction between values and norms
(Vickers 1973) simply accentuated this complexity. The natural complement to
appreciation then becomes learning, provided it leads towards understanding,
in an endeavour to modify uncertainty and risk. Learning itself cannot afford to
28  Systems and foresight

be random so that anticipation of where to direct it becomes important, in this

way completing the three pillars (Figure 1.3 ) that enable the export of foresight
at irregular intervals. All the foregoing influence the nature of modelling which
is a further neglected aspect of foresight, but is inherent in systems thinking.

Fores ight, syst ems a nd model l i ng

I wonder how many sponsors of institutional Foresight take the trouble to
model the task they are embarking on? Or understand the complexity of that
task? Too often it seems that Wittgenstein’s dictum that ‘problem and methods
pass one another by’ (Wittgenstein 1953: 232) is de facto as too frequently
there seems to be a rapid departure into deciding whether this method or that
one should be used before the scope of the situation is grappled with. Some
indication of this latter task is described in Chapter 3; my purpose here is to
describe the modelling processes that could be used in developing institutional
Foresight. For the individual or small group engaged in the ‘skunk works’ of
real foresight, similar strictures apply, except that I believe they are less likely
to be enticed into the Wittgensteinian trap. But first some general comments
on models as a genus.
Creation of the future is the intention of any model; the term itself is
another omnibus word used indiscriminately to describe an interrelated set of
ideas, a system. The word model conveys ways of representing ideas that grow
in private conceptual space before proceeding via perceptual space to physical
space (Jeans 1943). The final representation of the set of ideas may range
widely from aeroplanes and every kind of physical model, to high fashion and to
abstruse mathematical models of anything from neurological systems to climate
change and any other computable form; some are purely descriptive. Some
models are concerned with what was or what has been (history); some with
what is; others with what may be (futures thinking or foresight). The notion of
continuity, in the sense of the inevitable progression from the past through the
present to the future, is central to any modelling endeavour though this does
not prevent modelling including discontinuities as exemplified by catastrophe
models (Thom 1972).
Model-making is an intrinsic feature of human cognitive life. It encodes
knowledge in various forms, typified by signs, texts, codes, mathematical
equations and various other representational forms; these are the direct
outcomes of human model-making. Any model begins descriptively, in this
way becoming part of the physical world. From then onwards its representation
can take any appropriate form, as already indicated. The notion that the
past and the present are understood well enough to eliminate uncertainty, to
the extent that any model of them represents a universally accepted reality,
is simply fallacious and has to be avoided. Research into history, to create
models of the past, is uncertain enough without the overtones of ideology
and culture that can be present. The rise of modernity, that did much to
 Foresight and systems thinking  29

destroy the era of appearances from the 1400s onwards, illustrates the point
and required a new model of human societies that is not yet complete, even
while the disputed notions of post-modernity, with their denigration of
expertise and much else, are gaining credence (see Chapter 2). The difficulty
is that the descriptive model is likely to lean towards the current dominant
sociological-cum-philosophical influences on discourse, which is currently
a hodgepodge of modernist and post-modernist expression. How often are
these influences incorporated into model building or recognised by the model
builders? Is model building, the representation of the discourse, science or
art? Many authors, for example Moravec (1988), Kurzweil (1990, 1999) and
others suggest that increasing raw computer power will, over the next two
decades, blur the distinction between art and science as artificial intelligence
approaches (or exceeds?) the capabilities of the human brain.
What is it that a model represents? Are they value free as many might claim?
Do models stray into sophistry? What kind of model does a composer have
in his mind as he creates a symphony? With the diversity of meanings and
intentions in models the answer to these and many other questions may well
be ‘who knows?’ After models enter physical space they are public and enter
the continuity of ideas. Almost as an aside, the above underpins the notion
of anticipation (foresight). Backward anticipation (hindsight) is no lesser tool
than foresight, as, once enunciated in the physical world, ideas never die and
can never be erased. Their influence past, present and future may be argued
over interminably, with emergent outcomes that the initiators can never
anticipate; they are truly complex. Once enunciated, even future related ideas
become history.
Systems thinking leads ineluctably to models, so how may it influence
foresight of any form? From its formative moments, foresight of any kind is
beset by the reduction versus holism argument, which is why M’Pherson was
led to his comment about the practical world requiring their combination into a
hybrid format. Foresight begins when an individual senses a mismatch between
his or her appreciative setting (or behavioural pattern) and the situation being
faced. Essentially this depends on mental modelling and pattern recognition
to identify differences between an expectation and the likely reality, a form
of gap analysis. The subsequent reformation of the mental model, through
foresight and thought experiments leading to a new appreciative setting, then
permits adaptation to new possibilities. Enlarged into the formal activity of
institutional Foresight, closing the gap between expectation and reality becomes
the purpose of the activity. The process involves organisation and structure
appropriate to the situation, where organisation relates to time and functional
hierarchies; structure to spatial distributions and part-whole interdependencies.
Throughout these two hierarchies, the context and content of each level has
to be established. Developing a model of an institutional Foresight programme
in relation to the situation is then a process of inquiry that forestalls the rapid
departure into the Wittgensteinian trap.
30  Systems and foresight

It is not my intention to describe the content of the modelling universe, which

is populated with a diverse set of models making various claims to success or
usefulness in the problems they claim to address. The evolution of models from
those that are directed towards the solution of specific problems in hard systems
towards those that attempt to cope with soft systems in a reductionist manner
has now moved into the era where soft systems, situations in the terminology
I have used, are the focus of attention. Typically, the pathway in hard systems
has been into ways of controlling systems and processes that remove either
the uncertainties of human intervention or human participation altogether:
many of these are referred to in Figure 1.1 and increasingly, include aspects of
war-fighting capability. Now, claims are also being made that there is sufficient
understanding of human performance to include human beings more directly
as an element in hard systems (e.g. Albus and Mystel 2001) forming a kind of
hard-soft system. Modelling soft systems has proceeded very differently. A raft
of qualitative descriptive models, scenarios for example (Chapter 6), survey
methods, econometric and decision models have been developed, sometimes
under the name of decision sciences or operational research or technology or
some other variant of forecasting. In a different vein lie models for technology
assessment, environmental impact assessment, life cycle analysis, energy
analysis, ecological economics, behavioural economics and industrial ecology,
and most wretchedly, cost/benefit analysis. The latter sometimes has ludicrous
assumptions concerning the value of the unique and un-priceable artefact, a
point made forcibly by Stafford Beer (1971) in ridiculing a value placed on
Stewkley church, which dates from Saxon times, for the purposes of a public
enquiry related to airport planning. From the 1940s onwards a new stream of
models has appeared. Cellular automata appeared in 1941. Systems dynamics
made its appearance in the early 1960s and the roots of climate models were
set down in 1963. Fractals, which bridge the gap between science and art,
catastrophe theory, dissipative structures, all of which have emergent properties,
and genetic algorithms, each with their own unique modelling capability, all
burst onto the scene during the 1970s. Much older, and still argued over, is
the Kondratieff or long-cycle, a model of the interrelationship between the
many facets of invention and subsequent innovation and the behaviour of
capitalist economies. Ecology, both mathematical and descriptive, has often
provided a rich source of models and ideas for them through analogy; these
have come into their own in an increasing way and most recently through the
notion of ‘panarchy’ (Gunderson and Holling 2002), a mixture of qualitative
explanation, and quantitative modelling, that extends the notion of the ‘r’ and
‘K’ species behaviour into a powerful cyclic phenomena through the addition
of two phases, release and reorganisation, as described in Chapter 5. The list
of modelling processes is indeed a long one. The use of any of the forms of
modelling indicated is rarely encountered in the foresight world.
 Foresight and systems thinking  31

S y s tems thinking in rea l foresi ght a nd i ts

i n s titutional count erpa rt
A model of the future is someone’s vision of the future: to a starving man or
woman the vision (or model) of the future may be bread, while to a NASA
technologist it may be a space station or space travel. The basis of models may
range from records of dreams to formal processes, such as simulation using
special languages, including systems dynamics, econometrics or Monte Carlo
simulations, through to interactive visual representations, as used in flight
trainers or in virtual reality. As already indicated, models of the future begin as
conceptual and later perceptual (Jeans 1943) thinking before being expressed
as descriptions of mental constructs, often taking on or expressing some form
of ideology, using that word in its broadest sense. An example is the current
use of climate modelling. Models are not value-free as they draw strongly on
their creators’ subjective expectations of the future which can encompass an
enormous diversity of ideas. Any model of the future will be synthetic and
will have the capability of synthesising many different, but possible futures, in
this way influencing the future of the polity through communication of their
content and output, as is happening currently with climate modelling.
Figure 1.5 indicates that there are four aspects to models of the future, two
that describe how they are created (Intentional and Accidental) and two that
describe the nature of the model. Foresight plays a crucial part in creating any
of these models, whether it is used unconsciously and informally or consciously
and in formal processes, such as institutional Foresight programmes. There is a
circular relationship between visions (or scenarios) and foresight as the creation
of a vision requires content that foresight provides. Often there is a wish to
prepare visions without explicitly acknowledging the role of foresight, while the
creation of a vision will call for new foresight as new ideas evolve. Foresight and
visions are interdependent and co-evolve once the initial content provided by
foresight has been created.

Intentional

Formal Informal

Accidental

Figure 1.5 Four types of models of the future

32  Systems and foresight

Table 1.1  Nature of models of the future

Formal
Intentional Created for specific purpose,
the model has specified and
communicable structure
which is usually computable
even if dealing with qualitative
statements. Formal sponsorship.
May use interactive real-time
simulation, including virtual
reality or other methods of
visualisation and tactile sensation.
Examples are systems dynamics,
econometrics, Monte Carlo
methods, cross impact in various
formats
Accidental Unsponsored, but models
developed in ‘skunk works’
through unstructured dis-
cussion.
Examples are multiple scenarios
that permit characterisation
numerically using any appropriate
formal modelling method
Informal
Scenarios of corporate or
national futures nested in global
scenarios developed by ad hoc
groups or individuals, with or
without sponsorship.
Examples are Books, pamphlets,
etc. written by individuals or
groups; no specified structure
and not computable.
Serendipitous development and
are unsponsored. Art form and
difficult to communicate. Usually
impressionistic and conceptual;
not computable.
Examples are dreams Utopian
writing, all forms of fiction and
plays

Table 1.1 illustrates the meaning of these terms.

Models of the future (or visions or scenarios) are important because of their
potential to disrupt conventional thought processes – indeed it is their purpose.
They play a crucial role in the debate, perhaps battle, between competing ideas
and between the long and the short view of the future, and hence influence
policy formation strongly. While ‘… the future can only be reached through
the present, the shape of the future will differ significantly if it is approached
through a series of short, halting and apparently random steps by comparison
with the brisker stride toward a long term vision’ (Loveridge 1988: 679). The
battle in the polity is over whose vision and between competing visions; for
this reason models and what they say have to be credible. To quote Al Haig
(1984) ‘… vision without discipline is daydream’; on this criterion Accidental/
Informal models need translation into more structured information to become
part of the competing visions. In the battle for changing ideas, Intentional
models might be thought of as forming and consolidating future values,
whereas the Accidental-Informal types tend to be less disciplined, often with
the characteristics of dreaming, and through their exploratory and expansive
nature, disturb values and lead towards value shifts.
What are the characteristics of credible models of the future? All models
of the future encounter the problem of boundary setting, of deciding what
is important and what is not, and the interdependencies; this is a deeply
 Foresight and systems thinking  33

philosophical matter. Boundary setting is to a degree undecidable (Gödel 1931

[Note 3]), since the future, by definition, cannot be cannot be perceived in its
entirety. Too often the arbitrary basis of boundary setting is not made explicit in
the background to the development of a model. What is embodied in a model
is a subset of the perceived future that results from value judgments concerning
the part of that future that has been judged important in the context of the
situation. In this way a complicated situation is comprehended so that it is
judged to be good enough for the outcome(s) to be used by protagonists (or
antagonists) in the battle of ideas in the polity, a situation that conforms to
Simon’s notion of bounded rationality. Credible models of the future will contain
reasonable (defensible and explicable) extensions to present knowledge and
beliefs, relevant to the time horizon embedded in the model assumptions and
to the objective, and scope of the situation under study (Note 4). The formal
structure of the model will need to be sufficiently robust to withstand criticism
and should embody the essential feature of handshaking (Note 5). Most
likely it will indicate seeds of the future in the past, emphasising the essential
continuity of past, present and future, but also endeavouring to indicate likely
discontinuities in the future and their roots.
The limitations of models of the future lie in their partiality. While the
notion of holism will often be referred to by those who create models of the
future, the fallibility of the notion is readily apparent. Whatever the nature of
the model, it can only be a subset of the entire set that makes up the future
and that entire set cannot be determined. Models of the future will always
fail at some point as will any policy. Given the foregoing, what reliance can
be placed on models of the future? A quick response could be ‘none’, but that
would be too harsh a judgment. It is better to regard models of the future as
idea or possibility machines (Shackle 1952), capable of challenging or breaking
established perspectives and modes of thought. The discipline needed to create
such models helps to establish this role, as the information required for their
construction, in the best instances, will have been carefully examined.
The kinds of information needed and its sources, its reliability and the
methods of validation used vary according to the position of a model in
the taxonomy. The information needs of Formal/Intentional models are
diametrically opposed to those that are in the Informal/Accidental category, the
former needing much numerical data, whereas the latter may rely entirely on
literary representation. The relationship between the methods used to create
models, their purpose, information needs and the audience for whom they are
intended may be represented as in the Figure 1.6.
Visions of the future can be likened to maps prepared by explorers
(Lipinski and Loveridge 1982: 206). All maps have an inherent uncertainty,
which is heightened when mapping hitherto unknown territory; this leads
to their frequent revision and occasionally to complete reconstruction.
The information needed for the creation of models of the future is similar
to that needed to draw maps. The terrain of the future will be made up of
34  Systems and foresight

Methods

Audience Information

Purpose

Figure 1.6 Needs of information and methods for models of the future

peaks, troughs and plains of behaviour of the polity; these will be formed by
the underlying trends and discontinuities in the activities described broadly
under the STEEPV acronym. The acronym then broadly defines the kinds of
information needed to create models of the future in parallel with arduous,
wide and deep learning programmes, to develop this kind of information. How
reliable that information is then depends on the effort put into the learning
programme, the interdisciplinary capability of the researchers and the use of
the underlying tenets of the NUSAP system. The same comment applies to the
numerical data used in models. It is a major task to create or derive that data
and validate it, particularly for Intentional/Formal models that are data hungry.
The relationship between the information needs and the taxonomy given earlier
can best be described as a mapping process as illustrated in Figure 1.7.
Put simply, foresight portrays anticipation of future possibilities as distinct
from probabilities. The distinction is a fine one since the latter depends on
there being people whom De Finetti (1962: 357) would describe as good
probability assessors (Note 6) (Similarly, does it make sense to speak of good
foresighters?). Possibilities identified by foresight are important ideas that help
to shape models of the future. If these models admit the use of probability (not
all do) then good probability assessors will come into their own whether or not
they are the foresighters. Foresight then attempts to anticipate the features
that may be encountered in the territory of the future which, in the hands of
appreciative organisations, becomes a powerful tool in shaping the future they
wish to create and their associated policies. For example, knowledge of the birth
and death rate patterns in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) countries since 1900, but particularly of the spectacular
peak in 1964, as I referred to earlier, should have informed governments of
the impending multifaceted crisis they were likely to face now and well into
the future with respect to social life and its organisation. Demographers and
others were well aware of the possibilities in the early 1970s, possibilities that
will be augmented by the likely birth rate cycle arising from a total fertility rate
 Foresight and systems thinking  35

Methods

Audience Information

Purpose

Intentional

Formal Informal

Accidental

Figure 1.7 Matching the nature of models, their information and methods

remaining below the replacement rate (of 2 children per woman) as it already
has in many OECD countries and elsewhere.
From the way the earlier remarks have been set out it would be easy to
jump to the conclusion that foresight alone is sufficient to create visions for
policy making; this would be a mistake, particularly in view of the institutional
versions’ current shortcomings mentioned earlier. Assessment has already been
referred to and its two components – assessment methods (often technology
assessment and environmental impact assessment) and evaluation – are
necessary and close associates of foresight in policy work. Conceptual notions
of the relationship between foresight, technology assessment and evaluation in
the policy connection are suggested in Figure 1.8, which introduces the notion
of monitoring as both a passive and an active function.
The passive function of monitoring observes how, with hindsight, the models
of the future have performed (the feedback linkage is not shown explicitly
for simplicity) while the active function is that associated with foresight and
involves scanning processes to detect early signals of change.
In many ways the ‘telenomy’ concept developed in the Europe Plus Thirty
report (Kennet 1976) brings together many of the notions of foresight and its
role in policy. As originally conceived, the concept illustrated the definiteness
of its time so that the notion is redeveloped in Figure 1.9 to embrace the notions
of policy and its uncertainties described earlier.
36  Systems and foresight

Pre-event Pre-event
TA/EIA evaluation

Monitoring
Actions to
Models of implement
the future
chosen model

Foresight

Hindsight

Pre-event
evaluation
Pre-event
TA/EIA Post-event Post-event
evaluation TA

Figure 1.8 Relationship between Foresight, Technology Assessment and Evaluation

Distribution
Fuzyedges
ofpossible
tochoicesof
policyinst- endstatesat
ruments futuretime

Zonebelievedtobeimposs-
ibleattimeofpolicy
development

Rangesof
policyinst-
rumentsfor
timehorizon

Zonebelieved
tobeimpossibleat
timeofpolicydevelopment

Now Myears NxMyears

N=1,23.(-)
Notionaltimeintothefuture

Figure 1.9 The ‘telenomy’ concept redeveloped

 Foresight and systems thinking  37

Table 1.2  Correspondence between the Jantsch–Loveridge policy hierarchy and the
revised concept of telenomy
Revised concept of telenomy Policy hierarchy Operational word
Perception of future situations Policy planning Ought to
at stated time intervals from
the present
Ranges of policy instruments Strategic planning Can
available for time horizon

Here the correspondences with earlier notions of policy are as shown in

Table 1.2.
The notion of policy as enabling and constraining limits (discussed in
Chapter 2) is also embodied in the revised version of the telenomy concept and
expresses concisely the interactions between the possible cones of choice and
the cones of means over different time horizons. However, cones of choice and
means described by Kennet lack the fuzziness enforced by the shifting nature of
situations as they cascade into the future. The cones of choice (policy intention)
and means (policy instruments) then have to be thought of as distributions
in which the three ‘R’s (reasonableness, relevance and robustness – especially
the latter) play a dominant part. As time progresses, the boundaries to the
cones are permeable to the arrival of new elements (from the STEEPV set) that
reshape the division between what is believed to be feasible and desirable and
what is not, the latter being tinged with the notion of impossibility at least at
the time in question, but not necessarily for eternity. These latter elements fall
into that category of being beyond the control of feasible policy instruments,
which has a dynamic boundary.
Foresight and systems thinking are interdependent, this is a point made
strongly by Saritas in his development of systemic foresight (Saritas 2006). So
far this interdependence has not been in evidence in institutional Foresight
programmes where it would have been most obvious. Saritas illustrated this
lack of connection through bibliographic research. Whether this state of affairs
ought to be changed – should be and can be – will depend on how sponsors
of institutional Foresight programmes view the limited evidence that systemic
foresight will improve appreciation of the nature of situations; behavioural
matters are deeply embedded in these decisions. The ‘marriage’ between
foresight and systems thinking is not made easier by the relative lack of a
theoretical basis for foresight by comparison with voluminous theoretical basis
of systems thinking and multiplicity of its applications. Some of these issues will
be looked at in the next chapter.
Chapter 2
Fo re sigh t an d s ys t e ms –
e p iste m ol og y an d t h eo r y

Her beauty smoothed earth’s furrow’d face!

She gave me tokens three: -
A look, a word of her winsome mouth,
And a wild raspberry.
Francis Thompson (1859–1907)

E x ploratio n
Fretting about the epistemology of foresight and futures studies will not make
much difference to what actually happens in the real world: in that respect I am
reminded of a part of Louis MacNeice’s ‘Bagpipe Music’:

The glass is falling by the hour, The glass may fall for ever,
But if you break the bloody glass, You won’t hold up the weather

There are serious reasons for taking an interest in the epistemology –

the theory or science of method – of foresight, futures studies and systems
thinking provided they do not impede the real work, an attitude that caused
M’Pherson (1974) to erupt at Popper’s criticism of holism (Popper 1957). It is
my purpose to examine why epistemology matters, if indeed it does, in foresight
and systems thinking, and to describe some of the theory related to foresight
especially. Theory abounds in systems thinking. Drawn initially from process
control theory, it spread subsequently into all the themes of systems indicated
in Figure 1.1. It should be said immediately that the notion of epistemology
in foresight stems from the belief, that varies in intensity in different milieux,
that science and its methods have some place in futures studies and foresight:
this is a highly contentious matter, that, knowingly or unknowingly, is buried
in some of the most fundamental arguments about the nature of science. The
arcane processes through which deeply theoretical matters come to influence
real world decisions, to which sociologists and economists have given so
much time with dubious rewards, leads to the importance of epistemology to
policy formation with its inevitable failures: these matters will form part of the
discussion in this chapter.
 Epistemology and theory  39

The notion that science and its methods should be associated with foresight,
futures studies or forecasting probably grew from the small band of people who
applied operational research to such good effect during World War II. Later some
of this group mutated into technology forecasters (operational research went its
own way) and others into systems thinkers, which was an already established
endeavour with a considerable body of theory in both its hard and soft milieux.
The mutation further established the wish, it could be no more, to employ the
methods of science in problems that were far less structured than those selected by
researchers in science. Ultimately, both streams reunited as their focus moved on
to the complex problems posed by the interaction of the elements of the STEEPV
set in any situation. In doing so theoretical bases spawned burgeoning theories
relating to complexity, emergence and the behaviour of living systems. In Chapter
1, I abandoned the idea of problems in favour of situations that are complex;
occur in cascades of an ever changing shape; are incapable of solution through
reductionist methods; but can be ameliorated through systemic thought and
intervention, though amelioration will lean heavily on the ‘safe-fail’ capabilities
of living systems (Holling 1977: 129) for the successful continuity of humanity.
The notion of situations characterises real world activity and underpins all that
follows. It is far from being a new idea and I make no special claim otherwise; it
is simply an ‘idea who’s idea has come (again!).’ As in other chapters it is not my
intention to review or summarise established theory, which, for systems thinking,
is extensive, but simply to use it as needed.

S cien ce, f or esi ght a nd syst ems: ro l e o f

epis temology
Is epistemology relevant to foresight and systems thinking? For foresight the
response might well be Sam Goldwyn’s ‘I’ll give you a definite maybe.’ For
systems thinking there is an affirmative response in its hard domains, with
caveats for these once they shift from being complicated to becoming complex
where unexpected forms of behaviour emerge. Once systems thinking enters
the realm of living systems, including human societies, Sam Goldwyn’s definite
maybe intrudes again as systems thinking ranks alongside other streams of
thought in these situations. Wittgenstein claimed that ‘… problem and method
pass one another by’ (Wittgenstein 1953). Whilst I prefer the word situation to
problem, Wittgenstein’s message is clear: a hasty departure into formal methods
or technique brings an early escape from thinking to grow an appreciation of
a situation. I shall argue that epistemology is only relevant to foresight and
systems thinking in as much as it has something, if anything, to say about the
formal methods that are used in a subsidiary and optional way to the more
fundamental thinking that foresight as a systemic activity, systemic foresight
(Saritas 2006: 4) hereafter, involves.
As hinted above, there are many disciplines that claim foresight abstractly;
in truth it is simply people who indulge in foresight and have done so since
40  Systems and foresight

the dawn of history. Foresight has always been a shady activity practiced by
soothsayers, prophets and clairvoyants. The variété ancien used entrails,
witchcraft and other dubious methods to divine the prospects of the future
for their clients. Prophets came and went, and played influential roles in the
evolution of belief systems, particularly those that formed part of the world’s
enduring religions. Methods became more ‘scientific’ as time passed. Perhaps
the first major intrusion of science came in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries when Guttenberg’s printing press enabled widespread distribution
of the Bible, a major social innovation. Soon Copernicus’s heliocentric theory
destroyed Ptolemy’s theory of epicycles that placed the Earth at the centre
of the universe, while Harvey’s demonstration of the human anatomy was a
further blow to established authority in Western societies. These events, with
their combination of foresight and systems thinking, did much to undermine
the old order of authority by appearances and initiated, in Western societies,
what later became the era of ‘modernity’, in which science, its methods and
expert knowledge became touchstones. However, long before this, the ancient
Greek philosophers laid the foundations for many themes in modern science,
including Aristotle’s system of logic, Euclid’s geometry and other themes.
Similarly, events in China had opened other themes in science, amongst
which rocketry is well known, while various themes in mathematics blossomed
in the Middle Eastern regions. The spectrum of events in science and their
geographical disposition illustrate the way the poles of scientific excellence
have wandered across the world in the past and persist today. Similarly, belief
systems are distributed globally, but less obviously than is so for science.
The foregoing digression is not an aimless one. Western culture, based on
modernity with the pre-eminence it gives to science, its methods and expert
knowledge, has grown to be a major world influence since the sixteenth
century. But, from the early twentieth century, starting from the world of art
and architecture, there has been an argument against the modern project with
the introduction of the term post-modern. I can only indicate the growth of this
essentially philosophical argument and its relevance to foresight and systems
thinking which, in my view, has been considerable.
A number of phenomena are claimed to distinguish post-modernity from
modernity, including:

• The rejection of the existing models that typified modernity which has
been accompanied by an evolution of superficiality and a lack of depth in
explanation
• The objective world has undergone a ‘fundamental mutation’, and has
‘now become a set of texts or simulacra’
• The post-modern age lacks a particular kind of emotion and that the
increasing unavailability of personal style leads to pastiche [hodgepodge or
imitation] becoming a universal practice (Jameson 1993: 38).
 Epistemology and theory  41

Giddens (1990: 17) argues that modern communications systems have

abolished the importance of time, space and distance; the consequence in
the new space of post-modernity is the creation of a global space in which
individuals may lose their own sense of location, with accompanying changes
in culture.
Post-modernity focuses on the conditions of life in the late twentieth
century in societies where mass media and mass production had occurred,
creating conditions where manufacturing of artefacts (which includes all kinds
of products and services) and their distribution and dissemination had become
inexpensive, but basic human needs had become relatively more expensive,
and increasingly so in terms of their carbon footprint. Is post-modernity
then the natural reaction to mass broadcasting and a society conditioned to
mass production, mass politics and mass consumerism, based on principles
adumbrated by Toffler (1970)? Toffler described a condition of more rapid
transportation, wider communication and the ability to abandon standardisation
of mass production, leading to a system that values a wider range of artefacts
than previously; he indicated these in his discussion of transience, novelty and
diversity. Toffler’s identification of some of the artefacts of post-modernity (the
dominance of television as a primary information source, the evolution of a
popular or celebrity culture, the wide accessibility of information and mass
communication via digitally based real-time video links and the World Wide
Web, and the re-emergence of a technological backlash, partly represented by
environmentalism) were extended in two further books (Toffler 1980, 1990).
Toffler’s breezy descriptions of society then and in the future added to the
deeper philosophical discussions of the social condition, but by the start of
this millennium it was clear that industrialised societies had become media-
dominated; highly dependent on consumerism and the attendant role of
celebrities, where appearances mattered above all else. Culturally, these
societies are pluralistic and are so interconnected globally that they do not
have a single dominant centre of political power, communication or knowledge
production. In the post-modern view inter-subjective knowledge, and not
objective knowledge, dominates discussion and that copies of it are ubiquitous
and their dissemination changes fundamentally the relationship between
readers and what is read, between observer and the observed, between those
who consume and those who produce.
The rise of post-modernism cannot be divorced from coincident demographic
changes and the influence of the international milieu from 1945 onwards, allied
to the advance of television as the primary source of information, as already
referred to. These changes enabled international events to be brought into
the living space of all of the polity and often in real time. The influence of the
latter is highly significant. It allowed the post-war generations to grow up with
direct images, of the Vietnam war, rock music, the use of hallucinogenic and
other drugs, drama, the politicisation of sport (as in the Munich Olympics),
terrorism, the rise of television ‘soaps’, the increase in television violence and
42  Systems and foresight

much else besides, that presented a kaleidoscope of images that could blur
the distinction between the real events of life and the synthetic ones of the
small screen. The latter is accentuated by the virtual nature of a media where
digital editing is simple and effective, and capable of destroying all trust in
what is being presented as the real world. The depth and pervasiveness of the
influence of this incredible virtual and ‘cardboard’ world, where the distinction
between life and death, real and imaginary, is all too often blurred, has altered
and continues to alter the behavioural pattern of millions of individuals with
consequences for social life and organisation internationally. All of this, for the
first 40 years after the end of World War II, took place against the background
of global tensions, the Cold War and the possibility of thermonuclear war.
However, it is probably the increasing use of digital communication systems
that has had most influence on reshaping post-modern ways of thinking and its
outcome in societies.
Antagonists of post-modernity attack its notions as abandoning the idea
of objective truth in favour of relativism and hedonism. Is post-modernity a
growing influence or merely a fad that will die away? The extent to which
post-modern language has entered political dialogue, as it certainly has, is
no real guide. Given the events of the last 50 years (the immense political
and economic changes in the collapse of the USSR; the rise of China, India,
Japan, Russia and other countries in the Far East to become major players in
the world economy; the possibility of significant climate change from whatever
cause; the extensive elucidation of genetic phenomena [which is still far from
complete] and the movement of science and technology into molecular and
atomic scales the outcomes of which are far from understood) it would be
surprising if bewilderment had not occurred. It is far from clear whether that
bewilderment is expressed through the language and ideas of post-modernity.
Habermas contends that ‘all responses to modernity abandon either the critical
or rational element in philosophy, and that the post-modern condition is one of
self-deception over the uncompleted nature of the modern project’ (Habermas
1984).
If Habermas is right in his conclusion about the delusory nature of post-
modernity, which may well be aided and abetted by the virtual nature of
modern communications, then the desire to introduce the methods of science
more deeply into foresight and systems thinking faces a fuzzy situation created
by the potential or actual overlap of the traditions of modernity and post-
modernity bringing with it implications for epistemology. Modern methods of
communication are one of the most powerful forces at work in shaping the
future of humanity; I suggest that a deep understanding of its methods is a
role for epistemology that is closely related to foresight and systems thinking
in their role in creating the future. At present, it seems likely that modern
communication technologies are creating immediacy while their long-run
underlying effects are being ignored as they accumulate, possibly to have
unanticipated effects on social life and organisation when the accumulated
 Epistemology and theory  43

potential is released at some unknowable point in the future. There are further
hurdles to cross.

From abs tr ac t t o a ct ua l : subject i v e o p i ni o n i n

f o res ight and syst ems t hinking
There is a long-established desire to improve the pedigree of foresight. Often
it is the nature of the methods involved that captures attention, but without
enquiring into the nature of the activity; this is the next hurdle to jump
and where epistemology may or may not have something to contribute. My
response to the question ‘What is foresight?’ is that ‘Put bluntly, foresight is
an art that requires much practice.’ The basis of foresight is ‘understanding by
interpreting the welter of information that bombards the senses; that is a value
laden process. Paradoxically then, foresight is not scientific, but determines the
directions that science follows’ (Loveridge 2001: 782), an issue that Whitehead
indicated in 1933 (Whitehead 1964: 94 [1933]). The idea that foresight is not
scientific can be disturbing in some cultures, for example in Germany and some
other countries, where the role of science is embodied in law. Nevertheless,
contrary conclusions about the nature of foresight are not supportable even
though the methods used may be drawn in from science to enliven and enlighten
the activity. The influence of the modernity versus post-modernity argument
intrudes at this point, through the way they hotly contest roles for science and
expert knowledge, since one (modernity) is based on it while the other (post-
modernity) rejects this view. The role of epistemology at this point has been
discussed by Kuusi (2000: 16) and Nováky (2000: 39). Whatever the power
of their arguments, most of which had been in evidence since the 1960s, they
add little if anything to the debate about the methods of science in relation to
foresight or systems thinking. Kuusi’s emphasis on truth seems misplaced in the
realm of the modernity versus post-modernity argument and the dubious nature
of a claim that something that has not happened (the future) can contain a
‘truth’. Faith or trust in the future does not amount to truth, but requires a set
of beliefs; these vary widely across cultures. Nováky made a point of discussing
the reliability of forecasts (ibid.: 49), but as both foresight and systems thinking
precede forecasts, the reliability of forecasts cannot represent the reliability of
foresight and systems thinking. However difficult the questions of the reliability
of foresight and systems thinking are, given their inevitable uncertainties, these
ask different questions than those posed by Kuusi and Nováky. The next hurdle
for epistemology to jump lies in asking what the science of method can offer to
foresight and systems thinking.
Barrow has described a thought experiment that discusses a fundamental
debate about the Laws of Nature that haunts science (Barrow 1990: 23). The
experiment proposes that three entities (God (G), the Universe (U) and the
Laws of Nature (L)) be given their traditional meanings of omnipotence (God),
the entire material world of space and time (Universe) and the laws that govern
44  Systems and foresight

its working (Laws). At the risk of being accused of being selective to make a
point, the focus here is what is revealed by simple set theory applied to U and
L. There are five situations:

1 U is a subset of L
2 L is a subset of U
3 L is the same as U
4 L is non-existent
5 U is non-existent.

Of these my concern is with the arguments surrounding 1 and 2, and

to a lesser extent with 3. If U is a subset of L then the natural Laws exist
independently of the Universe and existed before the Universe was formed as
one of their special cases. By contrast, if the Laws are a subset of the Universe
‘then we are nudged towards the view that the Laws of nature really possess
some spatial or temporal dependence within the Universe’ (ibid.: 25). The
implication of this is that the Laws may vary throughout a chaotic Universe,
which runs counter to the experience of science. Finally, if L is the same as
U then both came into existence at the same instant. As Barrow comments,
option 2 is sometimes sceptically interpreted as meaning that the Laws may be
regarded as ‘an invention of human minds, which have themselves emerged
from the stuff of the Universe by natural processes’. These three situations,
especially the first two, have deep implications for futures studies and,
indirectly, for foresight and systems thinking. Bell thought he was exploring
these implications in his two-volume treatise (Bell 1997, 1998). In the first
volume Bell listed an entirely conventional set of nine conditions he claimed
applied to futures studies (he claimed futures studies to be a ‘new field of
enquiry’, a major surprise since they have been in evidence for centuries). He
also listed three general assumptions:

1 People and their projects: claims that people are creative project pursuers;
they are acting, purposeful and goal-directed beings
2 Society as expectation and decision: claims that society consists of
persistent patterns of repetitive social interaction and the emergent routines of
human behaviour that are organised by time and space, expectations, hopes and
fears for the future, and decisions
3 The existence and knowledge of external reality: says that an external past
reality did exist and a present reality does exist, apart from the human knowing
of them, and in principle they can be objectively known by humans more or less
accurately. Additionally, futurists assume that a future reality will exist, apart
from the human consciousness of it, and that in principle assertions can be made
about it that can be objectively warranted more or less accurately.
 Epistemology and theory  45

In his discussion of epistemology Bell never returns to the subtleties of

these three general assumptions, either because he does not recognise them
or because they remained to be discussed in the second volume of the treatise
(they are not). If Bell is serious in these statements, then they effectively
demolish much of the rest of his discussion. The first, is generally acceptable:
people are usually purposeful though their purposes may not be easy to discern.
The second introduces the idea of emergence, the gestalt property of systems.
While the concept of systems is not mentioned throughout the treatise, they
are implied here since systems thinking is concerned with organisation and
structure, coupled with the realisation that the behaviour of a whole system
does not arise simply from a ‘sum of the parts’; it has a gestalt. The extension
of systems thinking into futures studies has long been a difficult subject, largely
achieved during the 1960s and 1970s with a current extension into systemic
foresight (Saritas 2006), and not at all like Bell’s discussion. The third condition
is hotly discussed in science, as indicated above in my reference to Barrow’s
thought experiment, as the difference between the existence of a world of
phenomena whether science has recognised them or not and the existence of
a world created by science and nothing else. If, as Bell asserts, futurists assume
that a future reality will exist, apart from the human consciousness of it, then
the future is predetermined thus totally undermining the notion that futurists
(or anyone else) can influence the future. All futures studies can do is to guess
at what that predetermined future may be under the guise of serious endeavour
to shape the future. The implications of such notions are severe and Bell simply
ignores them! Whilst Bell claimed to be discussing futures studies and to be
laying a ‘theoretical’ basis for them, the outcome is wide of the mark for what
is, in any event, a specious claim. Foresight practitioners generally refrain from
making claims of the kind Bell extols. If that leaves them and foresight activity
open to criticism on the grounds of a lack of a sound theoretical base for their
endeavours, so be it; but it also provokes eruptions like those of M’Pherson
(1974: 238) and many like him who are trying to ameliorate real world situations.
To them, the academic search for a theoretical base for an art form is merely an
irritant. As Boettinger (1969) has explained, foresight, systems thinking (hard
and soft) and their combination concern the gentle ‘art and craft of letting
others see things your way’. The conclusion has to be that epistemology may
have something to say about specific methods and techniques that either real
or institutional foresight studies may use (Loveridge 2001: 782), but it has little
to offer to foresight as an art form that may invoke any specific method or
techniques in a subsidiary way.
Earlier my response to the question ‘What is foresight?’ ought to have
included living systems, especially human beings, as only they have foresight
as we know it. Non-human living systems have great powers of adaptation,
based on intelligence humanity tends to ignore, but the extent to which they
have similar powers to anticipate is uncertain. If foresight and systems thinking
are about understanding the welter of information perceived by human beings,
46  Systems and foresight

what characteristics is it necessary for them to possess? For activities that are
intensely dependent on human thinking, capability, foresight, and especially
its institutional variant, is doggedly presented in the abstract; systems thinking
less so because of its huge range of activity (see Figure 1.1). The abstract
presentation of foresight is not a mode I accept or will follow. All human beings
possess foresight to a greater or lesser degree; an ordered life would not be
possible without it. Individual foresight is then characterised by (Note 1):

• Substantive knowledge in chosen spheres of interest

• Assessing ability to relate how these chosen spheres may evolve in the
future
• Imagination, as this lies behind how the individual extends his or her
substantive knowledge into the future and subsequently assesses it.

These capabilities need to be read in conjunction with behavioural

typologies, of which Mitchell’s original VALSTM1, referred to below as VALS 1,
is my preference (Mitchell 1984). VALS 1 is a derivation from Maslow’s
original motivational hierarchy (Maslow 1954) and is illustrated in Figure 2.1
with additional detail given in an appendix to this chapter.
The importance of human behaviour is often ignored or not made explicit in
foresight, systems thinking and systemic foresight, diminishing the understanding
of its working and outcome. Maslow’s hierarchy was amongst the earliest
behavioural typologies to be developed. At SRI International, Mitchell and
others perceived deficiencies in Maslow’s hierarchy and extensions of it were
developed into a bifurcated form (VALS 1) as illustrated in Figure 2.1. The
VALS 1 hierarchy has subsequently been superseded by new systems, but these
will not be described or used in the following discussion, as I believe VALS 1 has
a robust clarity and simplicity. The current VALS is owned and operated by an
SRI International spinout, SRI Consulting Business Intelligence (SRIC-BI).
The bifurcation took place in the following way: Maslow indicated that
esteem has many features, that led Mitchell to split the esteem level into two
new categories, namely emulator and achiever. These two new categories
emerge naturally from the characteristics of esteem; survey work confirmed the
appropriateness of the separation. The surveys also revealed some discrepancies
that led to the idea of a bifurcation above the Belonger level, with the two
paths converging again at the highest level. The new arm introduced lifestyles
that have no direct correspondence with Maslow’s work. Whilst the survey
work was carried out in the USA, there is evidence, obtained during the 1980s
by an international organisation concerned with social change (de Vulpian and
Corry 1986: 33), that the VALS 1 typology may be applied widely (MacNulty
1981).
Returning to individual capabilities, no one fits a VALS 1 stereotype
exactly, but each one of us has a recognisable dominant trait or traits that
locates him or her in the typology. It is known that an individual’s behaviour
 Epistemology and theory  47

Integrated
Integrated

Societally
Conscious
Achiever

Outer- Experiental Inner-

Directed Directed

Emulator
I-Am-Me

Belonger

Sustainers
Need-
Driven
Survivors

Figure 2.1 Mitchell’s original VALSTM1 behavioural typology

moves around the typology with the passage of time and according to their
economic circumstances, age and other personal characteristics. Individual
capability, in terms of substantive knowledge, assessing ability and imagination
may or may not change absolutely, but the way it is expressed and changes,
relative to that of other people, depends on an individual’s position in the
typology at any particular time. Consequently, the circumstances prevailing
at the time influence the way an individual uses substantive knowledge,
assessing ability and imagination in deciding his or her actions. None of this
is surprising, being mostly in line with human experience. Confirmation comes
from De Martino et al. (2006: 684) who have found that ‘[h]uman choices are
remarkably susceptible to the manner in which options are presented. This
so-called “effect” represents a striking violation of standard economic accounts
of human rationality, although its underlying neurobiology is not understood’.
The reported framing effect was ‘specifically associated with amygdala activity,
suggesting a key role for an emotional system in mediating decision biases’,
following Goleman’s association of emotional intelligence with the amygdala
(Goleman 1995: 18). The findings of De Martino et al. (2006), based on
fMRI scans highlight ‘the importance of emotional processes within models
of human choice and suggests how the brain may modulate the effect of these
biasing influences to approximate rationality.’ These are important findings for
understanding an individual’s behaviour in relation to foresight and systems
thinking, for example in growing an appreciation of a situation in terms of its
48  Systems and foresight

context and content, and its boundaries in particular, a conclusion informed by

the findings of De Martino et al. (2006: 687) which they claim:

suggest a model in which the framing bias reflects an affect heuristic by

which individuals incorporate a potentially broad range of additional
emotional information into the decision process. In evolutionary terms, this
mechanism may confer a strong advantage, because such contextual cues
may carry useful, if not critical, information. Neglecting such information
may ignore the subtle social cues that communicate elements of (possibly
unconscious) knowledge that allow optimal decisions to be made in a
variety of environments. However, in modern society, which contains
many symbolic artifacts and where optimal decision-making often requires
skills of abstraction and decontextualization, such mechanisms may render
human choices irrational.

The latter is an issue attributed to Stanovich and West (2002). There

are linkages here to Vickers’ notion of appreciative setting and my own of
behavioural pattern described in Chapter 1, strengthening the well-known
conclusion that human capabilities in foresight and in soft systems thinking are
characterised by subjective opinion and all that implies.
Subjective opinion has a large body of theory and its application, in its
elicitation, is too large to be covered in a few short paragraphs. The fundamental
question is always ‘who’s opinion?’ Should it be that of an ‘expert’? Or should it be
sought from a broader church? These broad questions are influenced now by the
argument between the modern and post-modern points of view, which cannot be
separated from the reasons for seeking opinion and how the outcome ought to be
used. If expert opinion is thought appropriate to the situation there are immediate
questions about the nature of expertise. Who is an expert? How can such people
be identified? How should they go about their work? And to whom ought they
be responsible? All these essentially ‘political’ questions precede the technical
work of eliciting expert opinion for which there is theory and practice in its
implementation in, for example, nuclear safety, aircraft reliability, the erosion of
dams and other major civil engineering structures, in climate-related matters, and
in risk assessment. So far, applications set out to elicit an expert’s opinion about a
specific event, in which there is uncertainty, to which the expert’s knowledge can
be applied. The techniques used are drawn from subjective probability and rely
on being able to elicit, from an expert, an expression of his or her opinion in the
form of a subjective probability distribution.
There are many deep technical matters involved in the use of subjective
probability; Savage (1972) set these out by building an idealised theory of
the behaviour of an individual when making decisions. He distinguishes
three interpretations of probability: objectivistic (frequentist), personalistic
(subjective regarding propositions), and necessary (measurement of the
extent that a set of propositions ‘of necessity’ confirms the truth of another)
 Epistemology and theory  49

(ibid.:  3). Savage’s theory is based on the individual, though he goes on to

suggest that under some circumstances, organisations, from families upwards,
may also behave in ways that his theory for the individual represents. Savage’s
theory incorporates the influence of the world and states of the world; events
as sets of states; consequences, acts and decisions; and the ordering of acts,
and preferences. Unfortunately, discussions in the polity often muddle the
different interpretations of probability, particularly those attached to the
now common objectivistic (frequentist) and personalistic probabilities, to the
general detriment of the outcome. For example, the frequentist interpretation
relates only to the occurrence of repetitive events and cannot be used to decide
between propositions. These matters have considerable influence on the claims
of foresight, its outcomes and in systems thinking.
Foresight is about invention, or ideas or hypothesis generation, and is in the
nature of a proposition. The separation between real and institutional foresight
simply describes who creates these propositions, how they do it and the
dynamics of what is involved. Groups of propositions or sets of states, in Savage’s
terms, create an event which elsewhere I have called a situation. To develop
understanding, opinion has to be elicited concerning each of the propositions
involved in the situation. There are several more or less severe implications
here involving multiple propositions, their interdependencies, including
causalities, and technically how the elicited opinions of ‘n’ respondents for each
proposition can be combined into single joint opinions for each proposition,
which up to that point have had to be regarded as independent of each
other. From this complexity of multiple propositions, their interdependencies
and opinions concerning them, policy makers are expected to propose sets
of actions and to indicate their consequences with the expectation in the
polity (including politicians) that the situation, if it is recognised for what it
is, will be dissolved rather than ameliorated and reshaped, which is what the
outcome will be. Systems thinking and foresight converge in the propositions,
interdependencies, causalities and the inevitable boundaries to them whether
or not they are made explicit. There are further issues to consider.
Much of the work on subjective opinion reflects its role in science and
tacitly assumes it is expert opinion that is being sought. However, foresight and
systems thinking are concerned with each of the six themes of the STEEPV
acronym so the question re-emerges concerning whether the opinion sought
ought to be that of an expert or from broader church. Inevitably this raises
the controversy over the relative worth of expert opinion versus that of a lay-
person. Here there are strong differences between the post-modern view that
all opinion is valuable and that expertise ought not to be given preference,
and the modern view that expert opinion is more valuable, sometimes very
much so, than that of the lay-person in the general public. The outcome of
this debate is ambiguous. Amara and Lipinski (1983) indicate that experience
shows how corporate decision-makers tend to weight expertise in a highly non-
linear way attaching a relative weight to the highest level of expertise up to
50  Systems and foresight

16 times that of the lowest ranked non-expert (ibid.: 57). Others argue for
an equal weighting for all opinion, an argument that prevailed in the UK’s
1994–5 Technology Foresight Programme, so that weighting was not used in
that programme’s Delphi survey (Loveridge et al. 1995). The use of weighting
factors to differentiate between expert and lay opinion remains one of the most
argued-over factors when subjective opinion is sought. It has also emerged in the
wish to make participation in public institutional foresight programmes more
inclusive. The German Futur programme attempted to do this (Cuhls et al.
2004) while Loveridge and Street. have drawn up schemes for how inclusivity
might be achieved, indicating some of the management issues that will need to
be dealt with (Loveridge and Street. 2005: 44).
Weighting of opinions imputes the need to calibrate the opinion givers. In
the three characteristics needed for foresight and systems thinking (substantive
knowledge, assessing ability and imagination) calibration procedures of greater
or lesser complication exist for the first two characteristics (Anon 1978: 1,
Lipinski and Loveridge 1982: 214, Amara and Lipinski 1983: 57, Cooke 1991);
how imaginative a participant is can only be assessed by direct interviewing. It
is important that the potential participant-cum-advisor assesses his or her own
level of expertise according to some simple but well-defined rules as a further
part of the procedure. Lipinski and Loveridge (1982) used their self-evaluation
of expertise criteria extensively, and a similar set, modified to take account of
spheres outside science and technology, was used in the 1994–5 UK Technology
Foresight Programme (TFP) Delphi Survey (Loveridge et al. 1995: 68). It is
important to make any calibration test acceptable and non-threatening to an
expert participant; this is the characteristic of the ‘assessing ability’ test used
by Lipinski and Loveridge (1982). The unravelling of the experts’ substantive
knowledge, which forms the core of the elicitation process, has similarly to
be acceptable and non-threatening. It is also necessary to observe or deduce
how the expert uses his assessing ability and imagination, in conjunction
with his substantive knowledge in formulating his opinion about the future
of the proposition under consideration. The magnitude of the endeavour of
interviewing ‘n’ participants about each proposition that makes up a complex
situation is clear. Three further issues arise: kinds of expertise; identification of
expert participants; and testing information.
‘Kinds of expertise’ are related to the participant’s role in the community,
however narrow or broad that may be. Broadly, experts can be generalists,
people of thought and people of present and future action (Lipinski and
Loveridge 1982: 214). Generalists have a wide variety of interests; a high level
of perception and awareness of the relevant component propositions. Persons
of thought are the conventional experts who have deep knowledge of matters
relating to a particular proposition or set of tightly related propositions. People
of present and/or future action are those people whose present or possible future
position means that they are able now to affect the amelioration of a situation
or will be in a position to do so at some time in the future. Seeking subjective
 Epistemology and theory  51

opinion on a situation and its future from these three types of expert has to be
tailored carefully to each and the elicitations carried out sensitively, but within
the general principles already outlined. Identification of expert participants
is another highly ambiguous activity where objectivity is hard to achieve.
Throughout history personal recommendation has been used to point towards
particular people. When allied to the notion that several recommendations
pointing to a particular person are better than one recommendation, the
process takes a step forward, but it remains open to all kinds of patronage and
sycophancy. However, personal recommendation remains the most common
process of identifying people for appointment to committees of all kinds. Two
other steps are possible. The first is available only in science and technology
and relies on the veracity of databases and peer-reviewed journals from which
it is possible to identify people who have consistently published substantial
papers (Katz et al. 2001: 2). The method depends strongly on the upkeep of
any databases, but especially on the peer-review process. The latter, together
with the journal’s publishing policy, may prevent unusual papers of importance
being published (e.g. Einstein’s 1905 paper on relativity). It is also assumed that
frequent publications imply substantial expertise, a questionable assumption,
but since frequent publication is likely to be biased towards academia, significant
other sources of expertise may be missed. There is also the question of scientific
fraud which has become more frequent in recent years. Katz’s approach has
not been used outside the science and technology themes of the STEEPV
acronym so that its wider application is untested, limiting its application in
the amelioration of situations. The second step is to the ‘co-nomination’
process which, when combined with appropriate mapping tools, has enabled
bibliometrics to be used to classify clusters of researchers or to identify networks
of academic-industrial researchers (Georghiou et al. 1988).
At this point it is as well to look back to the characteristics of an expert,
set out in the earlier discussion of subjective opinion. With these and the
accompanying self-assessment criteria in mind, co-nomination fares better
than its competitors in finding expert participants from whom to elicit opinion,
particularly as the search process should, as far as possible, find a slice through
the demographic variables of age, gender and occupational position. While the
co-nomination procedure enables these criteria to be met, it can be thwarted
by the difficult step of identifying an initial group from which to grow the
population of experts and, later in the process, by political machinations.
Co-nomination has not been widely used so that here the text is based on
how and why it was used in the UK TFP. The reasons were:

• Political advice that the TFP should seek advice from people beyond those
already advising government, especially as this was the first nationwide
study of its kind to be held in the UK
• Many study working groups were to be formed for which members would
be needed
52  Systems and foresight

• The planned Delphi survey would require a correspondingly large number

of potential respondents with known characteristics. The group could not
be identified in any time-honoured way; this had been demonstrated by
experience in Germany.

Co-nomination uses a questionnaire in repeated surveys, which leads to the

notion of ‘snowball’ sampling. The underlying principle of co-nomination lies
in the generation of a network based on recurring pairs of names (revealed from
the questionnaire). It is assumed that similarities in the nominated persons
work and that of the co-nominees implies a cognitive link (Nedeva et al. 1996).
The process is outwardly straightforward, but, as ever, requires much attention
to the detail of questionnaire design and survey management, particularly
in the management of the databases of participants that the process creates.
The outcome of the co-nomination process has clear benefits in determining
appointments to working groups and advisory committees, as it has the potential
to reveal who is an accepted expert, while diminishing patronage by those in
whose hands the power to appoint lies. As Cooke remarks ‘[a]n expert who
knows more about a particular subject than anyone else may be able to talk an
opponent under the table. This does not mean that his opinions are more likely
to be true’ (Cooke 1991: 17).
There is one further twist to be concerned about. Elicitation of subjective
opinion about a proposition will be characterised by a distribution. What do the
numbers in that distribution convey? Characteristically, there will be a numeral
or some other way of expressing magnitude (N). Associated with the magnitude
will be the units of measure (U) and some measure of simple statistical uncertainty
(S) that goes with any measure; these three elements are commonly known
and form the first three elements of the NUSAP scheme of examining the
meaning and uncertainties in quantitative data (Funtowicz and Ravetz 1990a:
28). The A and P in this scheme are the unusual elements. Assessment allows
a judgement of the reliability of N, U and S in some appropriate format, which
may be a statistical convention or a more qualitative form. Pedigree is complex
and is intended to express concerns about how the data were produced and
who produced them. Funtowicz and Ravetz claim that the NUSAP scheme of
assessing quantitative data is basically epistemological. The process of eliciting
a subjective probability distribution, as an expression of opinion, must then
recognise not only how it produces the numerical distribution that is its intent,
but also how each of the elements of that distribution was produced by the
participant. As De Martino et al. (2006) indicate there are some deep matters
of science involved in how a participant responds during elicitation and how he
or she produces that response.
Epistemology could play a significant role in developing two methods used
frequently in all foresight: scenario writing and the Delphi process. Wherever
scenario construction is discussed scenarios are said to be ‘logical sequences
of events’. In his discussion of subjective opinion, Savage (1972) indicates the
 Epistemology and theory  53

impossibility of claiming that events, characterised through subjective opinion,

can still be arranged according to a logical ordering. The reason lies in the
probability distribution that characterises the event. Ordering of the events then
becomes one of causation based on belief and not logic. Too often it is forgotten
how scenarios are a product of the theatre, ballet and opera, and should be the
skeleton of a play, describing the scenes, the actors and everything that makes a
play what it is; the playwright, choreographer or composer does not necessarily
follow logical sequences, often making dramatic and unexpected changes in
direction. The playwright, choreographer or composer is able to create only a
limited number of alternative versions of the drama before deciding which one
to follow, but he/she is not inhibited by notions of logic relying on the audience’s
imagination to fill in the changes in direction each in their own way. The major
difference for scenario writing in systems thinking and foresight is the ability to
propose many different scenarios that respond to an identifiable situation and
its possible futures; this capability raises a major issue relating to the probability
of each scenario. Often in sets of scenarios used in the evolution of policy one
is selected as ‘preferred’, either as a simple matter of qualitative belief or by the
attachment of a higher probability than any of its competitors; both steps are
fallacious. The way a situation will develop into the future is unknowable so
that foresight and systems thinking are concerned with exploring the unknown
landscape of the ‘territory of the future’ (Lipinski and Loveridge 1982: 205) (a
fantasia Figure 2.2).

Points sampling
future terrain

Horizon: Time Tn: Distance Sn

Unknown
terrain of
the future
Time T2:
Distance S2

Time T1: Distance S1

Understanding
the present

Figure 2.2 Notional ‘picture’ of the territory of the future

54  Systems and foresight

Scenarios can then be viewed as samples of the probabilistic outcome space,

which is equivalent to the territory of the future, which is then a continuum
of individual improbable scenarios residing in parallel, an idea similar to the
notion of the multiverse and the anthropic principle used in cosmology. The
present is somewhat riskily represented as a single point, which assumes it is
well understood, from which the set of scenarios describing the possible futures
diverge increasingly, due to uncertainty increasing as the distance into the future
increases. Even within the uncertainly defined boundaries of the situation, the
number of scenarios in the set is very large, imputing a small probability of
occurrence to any one scenario. Within the entire distribution of scenarios that
characterise the territory of the future their probabilities must sum to unity.
However, any single scenario of very low probability is not a useful operational
tool for policy makers. For that reason Lipinski and Loveridge (1982) proposed
the use of meta-scenarios that were composed of bundles of individual scenarios
aggregated on well-established principles. In this way, an uncertain future can
be presented in a series of equally valid meta-scenarios (Figure 2.3).

(Numbers and dashed lines indicate averages

of each segment: p = probability)

Basic information
Scenario 1

N futures f1, f2, . . . Fn, where Cumulative

p(f1) = p(f2) =p(fn) =1/N probability

1 2

A
Arbitrary allocation of
futures to three scenarios
Scenario 1 Scenario 2 Scenario 3

B
Arbitrary allocation of
futures to two scenarios
Scenario 1 Scenario 2
Figure 2.3 Equally valid means of presenting an uncertain future
 Epistemology and theory  55

Each meta-scenario can then be exchanged for a corresponding segment

of the entire probability domain and has a deeper significance for policy
makers with a probability based firmly on theory. It is for these reasons that
the haphazard notions of attaching probabilities to a few scenarios needs to be
avoided, since it is not known whether scenarios prepared in this way are meta-
scenarios or simply one of a multiverse of individual scenarios of negligible
probability of occurrence. The latter ought to have negligible significance for
policy makers and business managers alike. How then is the benighted policy
maker to proceed when faced immediately with a wall of uncertainty in the
form of a near infinity of scenarios of which only a few have been described? A
hypothesis runs as follows:

• Succumb to the temptation to assume that the present will persist for a
finite but short time into the future
• Create policy, strategy and tactics on this basis but acknowledge that
these short-term, fast-moving actions, common to human activity, will
fail quickly while being embedded in longer term, slower moving bio-
geo-ecological trends that are likely to create unanticipated crises at
unexpected moments
• Use short-term monitoring of events in combination with ‘over the
horizon’ scanning to provide feedback from emerging situations and to
compare these with the scenarios available, preferably of the meta- variety,
preparing new scenarios if necessary along with new policy.

If the foregoing sounds distinctly like old fashioned reactive planning so be

it. However, creating policy in the knowledge of the range of scenarios means
that some information about a situation is being rejected knowingly allowing
contingencies to be prepared to cope with the new shape of the situation if
its influence emerges later; this is not typical of reactive planning nor of the
Macmillan comment that ‘events, dear boy’ are what drives government and
governance (Note 2). There is no doubt that immense human effort goes into
attempting to keep up with tricks and surprises that the Earth, as a living
system, has for humanity, and that keeps humanity in its thrall rather than the
reverse. In this field there is a need for epistemological study to place a better
understanding of the process which is called scenario planning (Chapter 6).
The Delphi process is often used to survey opinion regarding the likely
occurrence on given propositions; it cannot create propositions that are not
included in its structure, an obvious but not always understood point, unless
specially constructed provisions are included to allow this. The purpose of
the Delphi survey is usually described as the creation of consensus among the
participants concerning the likely occurrence of each of the listed propositions.
However, this is not what it does. Instead, the Delphi survey provides a way of
sampling opinion about the unknown landscape of the ‘territory of the future’.
56  Systems and foresight

Delphi survey questionnaires are most often created as lists of independent

propositions, interrelations between the propositions being ignored or at
least not emphasised, meaning that how a participant makes or avoids these
interrelationships remains a ‘black box’. Sampling the territory of the future
is then at best incoherent and at the worst pseudo-random, allowing what
seem to be illogical causations between propositions if the set is assumed to
be expressing the sponsor’s and the participant’s ‘model’ or perception of the
territory of the future. There have been some unfortunate episodes where authors
have fallen into this trap (Saritas and Oner 2004: 27) by applying the pseudo-
random output from a Delphi survey in a highly structured way, for example
in road-mapping, to achieve defined outcomes. If there is an epistemological
explanation of the behaviour exhibited by participants in Delphi surveys then
it has yet to be made. Furthermore, it is fallacious to present the outcome of
a Delphi survey as the responses to a set of propositions about which there
is unanimous consensus for each. It is confirmed by experience that there is
dissent among responses by participants to all of the propositions leading to
distributions of opinion, not consensus, which is assumed if the distribution is
normal. However, the presence of dissent may lead to multimodal distributions
of opinion as illustrated in Figure 2.4.
Representing divided opinion as consensus by any means is bad practice
that results in a significant loss of important knowledge for policy makers and
should make a recipient of the study wary.
All foresight and system studies, perhaps more so in their soft variant,
eventually become political instruments in the process of argument involved in
creating policy. At this point, a practitioner’s wishes for deeper understanding
have to be subsumed into a world that sets different criteria and has less
patience. The best the practitioner can do is to infect this different world with
the ideas of the nature of opinion, expert or otherwise, so that they spread to
influence the use of the insights that elicitation and subjective opinion can
offer in decision making.

A policy hi era rchy: some t heory a bo ut a ro l e

f or f or es ig ht a nd syst ems t hinking
‘What is “policy”?’ is a frequently asked question and deservedly so. The two
quotations below are instructive in as much as they portray some typically
blurred notions.

A course of action adopted and pursued by a government, party, ruler, statesman,

etc.; any course of action adopted as advantageous or expedient
Oxford English Dictionary

A pseudo-logical statement used to create unachievable expectations

Anon, 2001
 Epistemology and theory  57

Conventionalconcensus

Multi-modaldistributionno
concensusstronglydivided
opinion

Noconcensusmany
dif ferentopinions,none
dominant

Dif fuseopinionswith
noclearconcensus

Figure 2.4 Examples of consensus and multimodal distributions

The mysterious nature of policy making and the obfuscations that surround
it is simply a way in which policy makers endeavour to protect their ‘craft’.
However, to the public at large there is nothing more public than policy and
its failures. Here, an attempt is made to make the nature of policy and policy
making explicit while indicating how, in a general way, it depends on foresight,
visions of the future and the notion of situations that require systemic thought,
not reductionism, for their amelioration.
Foresight, as the act of looking forward, is an inherent human activity used
in daily life by individuals throughout society and business. Recently, public
institutions and many governments and international organisations, the UN
and others, have claimed a formalised or institutionalised version of foresight
to be an essential component of their policy processes with an emphasis on
technology; that arises from foresight’s historical roots. Inclusivity, to spread
58  Systems and foresight

the role of institutional Foresight into policy, related to every theme of the
STEEPV acronym, is already beginning to happen in minor ways, but there is
much to learn from other spheres to complete the change in emphasis. Barker
and Peters (1993: 2) have proposed a taxonomy of problems that can face
policy makers. Originally conceived for science, but of wider significance, the
taxonomy has six levels of cognitive difficulty that face all policy makers in
terms of the character of the policy fields, as follows:

1 Elaborate but not difficult detail

2 Situations involving complicated (but not complex) matters
3 Situations with [technical] difficulty but that are amenable to non-expert
study
4 Situations [problems] with [technical] difficulty, complication and
complexity requiring expert training for their comprehension
5 [Technical] situations bordering on the [scientifically] unknown and
involving competing and conflicting [scientific] opinions
6 Situations where [science has nothing to offer;] the subject is unknown to
[science] and there are no claims from experts.

Deleting the words technical, science, scientifically and scientific, and

replacing the word ‘problems’ in 4 above with ‘situations,’ does not change
the intent of the six levels, but the level of cognitive difficulty is likely to
rise. The first three have characteristics that make them amenable to study
by policy and decision makers, but do not need special expertise. Thereafter
the situations become increasingly incomprehensible to the polity in general
and in many senses to policy makers, too (4). To even touch on the next field
(5) it is likely that an expert may be better at conjecturing about increasingly
uncertain futures, but the non-expert’s view about their desirability may be
as important. The last of Barker and Peters’ fields (6) is clearly inaccessible
even to the expert community who make up the committees that advise policy
makers; the general public are now acutely aware of these situations that are
typified by Weinberg’s notion of trans-science (Weinberg 1972). In a revision
of Barker and Peters’ taxonomy I have added three important questions that
influence policy namely:

• What is possible?
• What is feasible?
• What is desirable?

The revision can be pictured as a matrix illustrated in Figure 2.5 that serves
to emphasise the increasing degree of complexity of the policy maker’s task.
The policy hypotheses put forward here are probably not generally known
nor well supported. Nevertheless I have found them helpful in situations that
have varied from convivial to downright obstructive. In some senses, the steps
 Epistemology and theory  59

Policymakersbeliefsabout
theirabilitytocontrol

Uniquely
unknown
Barelypossible
muchunknowable
g
sin s Dificulteven
xity ri ma forexperts
mople rsdile Dificultbut
n c a
m y ke non-expertscope
tio Poli c
Situa Recognisable
complication
Elaborated
indetail
Controllable Partialcontrol Nocontrol

What's
possible? &
n
nts l
What's
s trume ntro tuio
feasible? n o
licyi lofc itua
b l e po toleve ficultyofs
What's a
tifi ng
desirable? Iden cordi of dif
ac ree
deg
Primaryassessmentofsituationelements

Figure 2.5 Notional policy matrix

and visions needed in policy making are neatly described in the phrase ‘the art
and craft of letting others see things your way’ (Boettinger 1969). The elements
of a policy hierarchy were proposed by Jantsch (1975: 206) and are embellished
by my additions (Loveridge 1977: 61) as illustrated in Figure 2.6.
The hierarchy needs to be interpreted in the following way:

(i) Policy is concerned with sensing the expectations of the polity or a chosen
subset of it. Expectations concern individual values and norms, and it is
hypothesised they aggregate, as illustrated in Figure 2.7
Sensing the maelstrom of behavioural activity that takes place in the
uppermost region, between values and norms (Figure 2.6), and anticipating,
the act of foresight, its future directions is a form of intelligence gathering
similar to that undertaken by R.V. Jones during World War II (Jones
1978). The characteristics of the ‘Jones method’, which are fundamental
to all ‘over the horizon scanning’, are summarised and rewritten for policy
processes in Table 2.1.
Sensing the maelstrom between values and norms is difficult but highly
necessary. The aggregation of the output of this maelstrom ultimately
represents perceptions of the polity’s present and future expectations, and
is taken into account in policy formulation (operational phrase ‘ought to’)
either by acknowledging their implications for policy or by formulating
policy to influence (or less likely), shape the value-norm maelstrom to take
60  Systems and foresight

Values

Norms "ought"

Policy Policy
Planning Goals

Strategic Strategic
c
" an "
Planning Objectives

Tactical Targets
Planning
"will"

Resources

Figure 2.6 Elements of a policy hierarchy

Value/normspanfor
anyoneindividual

Value/normsetforfirstindividual

Value/normsetforsecondindividual

Value/normsetforthirdindividual

Value/normsetfor
fourthindividual Entiresetofvalues/norms
forNindividuals

Value/normsetfor
(N-1)thindividual

Value/normsetforNthindividual

Spanofvalue/normset
sharedbyallNindividuals

Figure 2.7 Aggregation of individual value/norm sets and negotiation into group values/
norms
 Epistemology and theory  61

Table 2.1  Criteria of the ‘Jones method’ of intelligence gathering

• Intelligence that does not lead to informed action is of little use
• Intelligence is gathered from sources and output by subject, a transformation
that requires observation, memory, criticism and correlation of widely different
types of information that are synthesized in the output
• The larger the organisation the more difficult it becomes to perform the above
task: a small staff with great ability in the above tasks, particularly inference and
synthesis is best suited to meet these demands
• The principle of thinking simply, with frequent application of Occam’s razor, is
the key to good intelligence work, especially when dealing with experts whose
view tend to be narrow and overoptimistic, sometimes wildly so
• Recognise that your opponents, competitors and others are not omniscient and
‘all seeing:’ do not fall into the trap of believing otherwise

a particular direction (this is a highly uncertain process). Aggregation of

the value-norm set leads to two conclusions:
• The aggregate value-norm set for an organisation or wider polity may
be the ‘lowest common denominator’ since this the aggregate set
shared by all (the narrow vertical slice shown in Figure 2.7)
• Particularly powerful or charismatic individuals may impose distortions
onto the aggregate value-norm set that others acquiesce to but do not
support.
These are important hypotheses for foresight and systems thinking to
recognise. Both may well find themselves at odds with powerful forces
especially when either real or institutional Foresight and systems thinking
lead to proposals or scenarios that are at odds with or dissent from the
‘lowest common denominator’ exploited by powerful and charismatic
individuals.
(ii) The policy instruments can be said to have three characteristics:
• Some that can be under complete control of the policy makers and
their agents
• Others where control is indifferent; some control can be exercised,
but it is not complete, and unexpected events and outcomes are likely
to occur
• Yet others where control cannot be exercised and unexpected events
and outcomes will be inevitable.
The instruments identified then form the basis of the strategy
(operational word ‘can’) for implementing policy where the concern is
for the general disposition of resources at the appropriate time; those
dispositions for implementation need to be formulated along with
appropriate contingencies.
62  Systems and foresight

(iii) At the tactical level, where the operational word is ‘will’, lies the detailed
allocation of resources to day-to-day management of the implementation
of the strategy. The gap between policy formulation (ought to) and its
‘street level’ implementation is immense and often contradictory.

Epistemology has a role to play in understanding how this policy hierarchy

works. For companies and organisations of all kinds, this is an important issue
as foresight has to answer some hard and specific questions, including trying to
orient the directions of policy when faced with the cascade of situations that
typify the modern world. For that reason, promotion of a future-oriented culture
within an organisation or nation is a very important step that systemic foresight
(Saritas 2006) studies assist and where epistemology has a role to play.

Policy and ‘ cri t ica l i t y ’

The connection between the notion of ‘criticality’, foresight (of any kind) and
systems thinking may be ‘felt’ immediately but it may not be ‘obvious’ in ways
that are easily expressed in Jean’s physical space: it will emerge during the
following discussion. ‘Criticality’ is an idea most often associated with defence
technology, but is an important aspect of policy making. The term evolved
from US ‘strategic’ planning between the two world wars. It was brought into
formal and sharp focus when the US Congress passed the Strategic and Critical
Materials Act in 1939. What is meant by ‘critical’ has been vague and elusive,
and the notion of criticality has proved a difficult one to make explicit, as hinted
at above. In a thoughtful hypothesis, Bimber and Popper (1994) identified three
essential criteria indicating how criticality relates to policy:

(i) Policy relevance; the criteria should not leave policy makers asking the
question ‘Critical to what?’
(ii) Discriminating unequivocally between what is critical and what is not
(iii) Likely to yield reproducible results in the sense of being functional enough
to enable user panels or agencies to develop ‘… tests and methods that will
prove functional, robust and accessible to (or understandable by) those
not directly participating in the effort [the end user].’

Bimber and Popper (ibid.) also proposed four alternative definitions of

criticality which, when applied to technology, mean the technology is:

1 Generic and pre-competitive; useful in many applications; likely to produce

a wide array of returns not tied to any specific application and likely to
have a synergistic or catalytic effect elsewhere
2 The rate determining factor for specific applications that connects the
technology directly to some process or product; criticality is then not
inherent in the technology itself, but relates to the output from the system
 Epistemology and theory  63

and the enabling role of the technology. The response to the question
‘Critical to what?’ and similar questions is explicit. The definition is
not without its problems of measurement, but it can be useful in many
prospective instances, but is not, according to Bimber and Popper. ‘…
universally applicable’
3 Viewed as a component of national (or company) self-sufficiency treating
the technology in a wider context, relating especially to ‘competitiveness’.
The underlying theme here is control over the technology which,
in any business system, is uncertain and has many strands. For this
reason this definition does not lead to clarity and its application is not
straightforward
4 The ‘state-of-the-art’; this equates ‘critical’ with ‘advanced’ and by
implication high technology. However, this definition relates only to
judgements about the technology itself without reference to applications
or objectives. Consequently, it passes the third requirement for a definition
of criticality, but not the first.

Of these definitions only 1 and 2 satisfy the three essential criteria for
criticality. Definition 3 is particularly seductive to policy makers as it is associated
with national, company or organisational self-sufficiency, but because it draws
so heavily on notions of control, in the context of knowledge or intelligence,
that go beyond that available in free societies, it has to be rejected. Even in
situations where a company can secure protection for its technology through
patents, it may not be able to retain complete control over the wider use of the
technology because of anti-trust law or simply through commercial pressures
that encourage licensing the technology to competitors. The reasons for the
rejection of definition 4 are self-evident and need no further comment.
Other empirical notions of ‘criticality’ have been used in studies in France
and Germany. Mostly their focus has been on the notion of ‘state-of-the-art’
(Bimber and Popper’s definition 4) and lacks a relationship to objectives; for
that reason they fail to answer the question ‘Critical to what?’ (Bimber and
Popper’s condition (i)). In France and Germany the focus was on prioritisation
following the notions embodied in the CSIRO procedure (CSIRO 1991), with
is use of attractiveness and feasibility (Appendix 2.2) measures. In France and
Germany ‘critical technology’ lists have been drawn up from the results of
specific studies. In Japan and the UK similar lists were drawn up from their
Delphi surveys again for prioritisation purposes. The method used in the UK
was based on a simple combined index derived from the study’s objective
functions of wealth creation and the quality of life (Loveridge et al. 1995: 23).
In Japan an ‘index of importance to Japan’ was calculated for each topic using a
simple weighted average based on respondents’ views about the importance to
Japan of each topic. All of these procedures really relate to Bimber and Popper’s
(1994) definition 4 and focus on judgements about individual technologies;
they do not answer the question ‘Critical to what?’
64  Systems and foresight

In Germany, critical technology lists emerged from a series of ‘brainstorming’

meetings attended by experts from large scientific facilities, clinical research
and industrial research and development, amongst others. The following
criteria used in deciding which basic research fields should be supported from
those identified were:

• The need for long-term continuity

• Originality and quality should be given more weight than immediate
applications
• Special attention should be focused on new combinations of fields (or on
the boundaries between fields)
• The main criterion was ‘Where are the best scientists working?’

None of these criteria relate to Bimber and Popper’s notions of criticality,

but approximate a process of prioritisation. In a separate relevance tree study
carried out in 1993, assessment criteria were devised that considered both
technical and scientific factors, as well as economic, ecological, social, legal
and ethical factors relating to the selected technologies. Two separate sets of
criteria were considered important:

1 Those relating to basic the infrastructure and financial requirements; this

set of criteria was specified in the national context and aimed to determine
what makes the development of a given technology important for Germany.
These criteria were:

• Research and development infrastructure

• Development risks
• Human capital
• Expenditure on innovation
• Commitment of industry
• National competitive position (initial position)
• State support
• International division of labour.

2 Those relating to the problem-solving capacity or potential of a given

technology, i.e. its ability to contribute to economic, ecological or social
problems. These were:

• Key nature (technological)

• Penetration (economic)
• Economic structure (role of SMEs)
• Market size (future competitive position)
• European cohesion
• World economic dependency
 Epistemology and theory  65

• Health
• Social progress
• Environmental improvement.

Here there are some similarities to Bimber and Popper’s (1994) three
essential criteria. However, in keeping with the relevance tree method, this
approach amounts to a problem analysis (or a ‘mini technology assessment’).
In France ‘key technologies’ studies were carried out 1995 and again in
2000. The development of criteria for selecting technologies focused on the
importance of a technology (Bimber and Popper’s definition 4). Creation
of a consensus among a large number of people, from different professional
backgrounds and with different horizons, was thought to be important, rather
than to simply make some general judgements. It was considered necessary to
understand why respondents thought that command of a particular technology
was critical. Nine criteria were finally adopted:

• Current and potential benchmark markets involved in the competition

• Direct impact on foreign trade
• Social and cultural acceptability or stimulus
• Interest for obtaining or maintaining a competitive position of the
product
• Vulnerability and risk of industrial dependence
• Contribution to national needs in defence, energy, environment, health
and culture
• Relationship with national industry
• Capacity for the technology to spread throughout national industry together
with an overall appreciation of the global impact of competitiveness.

These are essentially ‘attraction’ criteria, as in the CSIRO method, that

indicate the technology’s potential for an industry; they do not include value
judgements about France’s position in the technology in question. There was a
desire to include an ‘impact on employment’ criterion, but this was not thought
amenable to evaluation.
In critical technology studies there remains a tendency to focus on Bimber
and Popper’s definition 4 when the final lists are drawn up; this is assisted
by the use of prioritisation methods, such as traffic light analysis. It is only
subsequently that the first two of Bimber and Popper’s conditions for criticality
are addressed (this is not always done) to clarify what the technology is critical
to and to provide a clear discrimination between those technologies that are
critical and those that are not.
Though the history of the idea of criticality was not overtly technological,
Bimber and Popper’s (1994) three essential criteria for criticality were, but their
formulation was more general. Extending these criteria into the much broader
66  Systems and foresight

realm of situations ought to assist policy making and associated prioritisation

of policies.

Policy and pri ori t isa t ion

In my view, prioritisation is the bridge between the worlds of foresight of
any genus, systems thinking and the political world. The use or otherwise of
prioritisation poses acute dilemmas by introducing more empirical complication,
political confusion and friction than any other matter. Yet, its benefits can be
considerable provided time is given to the considerable effort and patience
needed to complete the process. Paradoxically, prioritisation may be both
relevant and irrelevant to foresight. It is also the point at which the outcome of
foresight of any form and of systems thinking can be reduced easily to farce.
Different approaches have been used to set priorities, but fundamentally it
involves the direct application of Likert-type scales (Likert 1932) to an identified
set of topics. There are several variants to these scoring methods which will
not be discussed here. All the processes of prioritisation beg the question of
the level of expertise of the participants in the process by assuming that all
the participants have equal expertise in the process and in the policy matters
(objectives, strategies and tactics and their components) being prioritised.
How flawed this assumption is becomes clear from Barker and Peters’ (1993)
taxonomy of the degrees of difficulty of the problems that policy makers face.
Introduction of self-assessed levels of expertise, as a weighting factor, can
be done, but it has not been attempted to date. However, prioritisation, in
institutional studies of situations, does assume explicitly that a body of people,
having special attributes but whose claims to expertise are often unclear, are
capable of recognising, through some process of uncertain theoretical probity
and practical efficacy, those issues that are critical to a polity’s future, stressing
the importance of Bimber and Popper’s (1994) criteria. For real foresight the
notion of prioritisation does not arise because of its relatively sharp focus.
The theory of prioritisation is paradoxical, being both well and poorly
developed. The reason for this paradox lies in the immense literature devoted to
choice or decision making under uncertainty, which includes utility, game theory
and many other methods, and the empirical methods based on voting that have
been used in most institutional foresight activity where prioritisation has been a
feature. The latter will be discussed here, but the reader’s attention is drawn to
the immense literature relating to decision making under uncertainty simply to
prevent it being ignored. It is hypothesised that the methods of the latter have
not been used in prioritising the outcome of institutional foresight programmes
because they all require deeper exploration of each topic to compute matters
like utility or payoffs as needed in game theory; this has as often been precluded
by programme time schedules as by other implementation matters.
In practice the primary questions are ‘should prioritisation be carried out
at all and if so by whom? And when?’ The response to these questions refers
 Epistemology and theory  67

to institutional Foresight (prioritisation does not apply to real foresight) and is

examined through a series of options (Note 3).

Option 1 is not to attempt overt prioritisation at any point; this is not really
an option for a critical technologies exercise, since the aim is to generate a list
of technologies critical to the future of the polity, although these need not be
prioritised. The task of prioritisation would then reside with user organisations
which could judge for themselves the best opportunities to follow.
PROS:
• The approach acknowledges the ‘reality’ of implementation associated
with critical and key technology lists, namely that technologies
identified in such lists are not supported by stakeholders in a rational
way and without question, but merely constitute inputs into ongoing
bargaining games between the various policy actors
• Programme managers do not have to worry about the implementation
of prioritisation procedures
CONS:
• The absence of prioritisation (selection) criteria throughout the
exercise will probably lead to a relative loss of discipline in thinking
about the technologies to be included. In other words, there is
the danger that an ‘anything goes’ philosophy could pervade the
programme
• The large amount of data collected in the programme requires some
form of synthesis to make it digestible. Lack of prioritisation offers
little indication or guidance as to how this might be done and may
therefore represent a ‘false economy’ in terms of the time saved.

The question remains as to where prioritisation should take place, an

essentially political question, to which policy makers must direct attention.
However, the following options point out some of the pros and cons attendant
on certain eventualities. An important caveat to them is that they deal only
with prioritisation as a principle; this should be borne in mind throughout,
since the pros and cons of a particular option are likely to shift in accordance
with the practical procedures employed. Moreover, these procedures are likely
to be employed – explicitly and implicitly – and are intertwined with processes
of aggregation and disaggregation of technological areas as distinct entities.

Option 2 can be used when an appointed group, deemed to be expert, carries

out prioritisation. The lists of important technologies produced require a
procedure to limit the number of topics to go forward for prioritisation. Here a
simple rule of thumb might be for the appointed group to be asked to select from
the list a preferred set of N technologies or topics where N can be determined
by negotiation with policy makers. Suppose for the present that N=20. The
technology or topic lists will then have a maximum of 20M items, where M
68  Systems and foresight

is the number of themes within the boundaries of the situation. Final, further
reduced lists could be agreed later with policy makers to contain, say 6–10,
preferred items in each of the M themes to give a final list (say 100) items
overall which is believed to be a suitable length for later prioritisation.
PROS:
• Removes the problem of finding a way to prioritise across the whole
situation which can be a daunting and controversial task
• Prioritisation is carried out only by an appointed group of experts in
a given area, lending the results more credibility, at least with the
science and technology communities
CONS:
• Interrelationships within a situation are likely to be missed
• It can be difficult to ensure that the appointed groups of experts have
applied the prioritisation criteria consistently
• Working groups must aggregate technologies as they are asked to
select fewer and fewer items for inclusion in their report; this will be
a natural tendency to avoid deleting anything regarded as important.
The problem is that aggregated topics or technologies tend to provide
fewer directions for policy makers.

Option 3, prioritisation takes place at the situation level. The study working
groups are not asked to apply any formal prioritisation procedure, although some
informal criteria will have been applied implicitly in arriving at their output list
of technologies. These lists would then be clustered and aggregated into a list of
technologies for prioritisation by a senior appointed group of policy makers.
PROS:
• Aggregation procedures will not be applied normally until after the
initial working group reports have been written; this means that
details will not be lost early in the process enabling synergies to be
identified
• Inconsistent and even indifferent use of the prioritisation criteria
across the situation will be avoided
CONS:
• Some informal and undeclared selection will have been carried out at
the working group level
• Leaving priority-setting in the hands of a relatively small number of
policy makers runs the risk of policy outcomes lacking legitimacy and,
ultimately, authority. The available expertise will be under-utilised
and the capacity for a relatively small number of people to make
judgements on the whole range of technologies and topics could be
questioned
• The appointment of a ‘suitable’ group to carry out the overall
prioritisation task will be fraught with political problems (see Barker
and Peters 1993).
 Epistemology and theory  69

Option 4, prioritisation is carried out by the study working group at situation

level (1). However, the situation is likely to contain more subtlety and nuance
than the two earlier options can cope with. For example, it is likely that
situation-level prioritisation will lessen the demands on working groups to
provide only a few technologies and topics as in option (2), although they would
still have to be more proactive in their selections than in option (3). The task
at the overall situation level (2) is to detect synergies, conduct some limited
aggregation and to identify obvious gaps, a task that could be performed by
the group set up specifically to conduct situation-level prioritisation. The dual
process of aggregation and prioritisation might go through a further iteration
before a final list of critical technologies and topics is obtained.
PROS:
• Aggregation tendencies will be lessened, which would allow detail to
be retained for longer
CONS:
• It is possible that two different sets of prioritisation criteria will be
required for the two levels
• The deployment of prioritisation procedures at two levels adds to
demands on management. Moreover, the problem remains over who
should conduct the overall programme level prioritisation.

There are several criteria that any method needs to fulfil; these cannot be
divorced from the boundaries of the situation – however fuzzy or unclear these
may be – or the objective functions on which the prioritisation – however it is
done – ought to be based. For example, while most methods resort to some form
of voting procedure these can become more or less complicated depending on
the inclusion of multidimensional factors to be considered during voting. Choices
can be made from the methods, listed in Table 2.2, that have been widely used.
In practice, the extent to which any group appointed to carry out prioritisation
will actually follow any of the procedures remains unknown. Anecdotal evidence
from elsewhere (Keenan 2000) indicates that complicated procedures, however
attractive they may seem, tend to be abandoned in practice in favour of an
ad hoc procedure which remains a black box, the reasons for how individual
votes are cast remaining unknown. There is a degree of inevitability about this,
as faced with say, the need to reduce 100 topics to 20 in the space of a few
hours will almost certainly lead to some angst followed by drastic measures to
alleviate it by ‘getting the job done’. For that reason, it will be helpful if the
initial prioritisation, however it is done, can be done by individuals in their
own time and before meeting as a group when the topic list will be reduced to
the final output required by policy makers. E-mail can help, a procedure that
was first used in the 1970s (Lipinski et al. 1973: 3), as can a dedicated website
containing a structured pro forma. For this stage, the simplicity of the ‘traffic
light’ method or a simple informal arrangement of topic lists, which amounts
to much the same thing but without direct expression of choice, has much to
70  Systems and foresight

Table 2.2  Some frequently used methods of prioritisation

Procedure Pro Con
Formal
CSIRO • Well structured • Complicated definitions
• Individual works at own lead to ad hoc responses
pace • Fatigue factor
• Graphical presentation
PREST • Well structured • Requires agreed
• Allows simple numerical definitions of Quality of
ranking Life and Wealth Creation
• Individual works at own • Complication may lead to
pace fatigue

‘Traffic light’ • Graphical presentation • Tends to be ‘quick and

dirty’
Informal
Voting, e.g. show • Quick response • Tends to be ‘quick and
of hands • Virtually a ‘black box’ dirty’
• Pace set by Chairman or
Facilitator

offer. The outcome of this phase should be processed before the final meeting
so that the final reduced list can be agreed by the application of some simple
cut-off criterion.
While the final selection process ought to be conducted by a soundly based
process, the caveat remains that none of the processes imply any greater depth
of understanding of why an individual votes one way or another. Essentially, the
group of prioritisers remains a ‘black box’. One possibility for alleviating this
tendency is to present the results of prioritisation in real time, which, at least in
theory, can provide opportunities for those applying the selection criteria to be
challenged on their choices by their cohorts.
In conclusion, it needs to be said again that prioritisation is the step that
links a foresight practitioner’s world to their political counterpart’s. It is the
bridge between the two worlds and it is also the point where all pretence that
institutional foresight is logical and conducted according to rational principles
can be abandoned to their perpetual discredit. It is the point where strong
opinions and simple power broking can determine more about the formal
outcome than all the previous painstaking work. Only strong management and
total mastery of the procedures will have any hope of prevailing against these
circumstances. Whatever the outcome of prioritisation, its implementation
cannot be left to chance if it is to have any influence in the political world.
Equally, implementation is not an add-on to be considered after the hurly-burly
of the programme, addressing a situation itself, is past.
 Epistemology and theory  71

Prioritisation is the least satisfactory part of any institutional Foresight

programme; this is the reason for my earlier criticism that it is the point where
the whole show can be reduced to a farce. The further the programme moves
away from the relative simplicities of technology foresight or the production of
critical technology lists towards much wider situations, the more unreliable any
form of prioritisation becomes. There is a need for serious study of the entire
process of prioritisation, its place and its role in the institutional Foresight
world; this is a place where epistemology has a role to play.

S y s tems an d not ions of poli cy

Systems thinking has a history rich in theory; that does not mean that it is free
of criticism, which is a convenient starting point. Phillips (1969) examined
general systems theory (GST) through five of its features:

• Lack of appreciation of the history of GST

• Imprecision over the definition of ‘system’
• Vagueness over what systems theory embraces
• Weakness of the criticism of the reductionist (analytic or mechanistic)
methods of science
• Failure of GST as a scientific theory.

Through a long philosophical discussion Phillips concluded that the inability

of GST to make predications in the manner of normal science, repeating
Popper’s (1957) criticism, denied it the accolade of a scientific theory (Phillips
1969: 15). Later Lilienfeld claimed that ‘Systems thinkers exhibit a fascination
for definitions, conceptualisations, and programmatic statements of vaguely
benevolent, vaguely moralising nature…’ and that there was ‘No evidence
that systems theory has been used to achieve the solution of any substantive
problem in any field whatsoever has appeared’ (Lilienfeld 1978: 191). Together
with Popper’s (1957) criticism of the notions of holism, these criticisms by
Phillips and Lilienfeld encapsulate the most common devastating criticisms of
GST and systems thinking: all three require some care in their rebuttal.
First, situations exist and, as M’Pherson (1974) has pointed out, they have
to be ameliorated by practical means whether or not these observe the niceties
of philosophical argument. In simple practical terms, humanity cannot, and
does not, stand still while awaiting the outcome of a philosophical argument.
As deep and as essential as philosophy undoubtedly is, there are times when
there seems that depth of thought leads to the conclusion that there is no
real answer, a philosophical attitude that also needs to be accepted in the
amelioration of situations. Second, the role of GST and systems thinking in
policy making is precisely not to make predictions, in the scientific sense allotted
to them by Phillips, but it is to inform the multiple directions of thinking that
are needed to explore the territory of the future with all the uncertainties
72  Systems and foresight

that involves. Lilienfeld’s initial claim of the systems thinker’s fascination for
definitions is well founded; paradoxically Phillips displays just this fascination
in his attack on systems thinking! Flood (1999: 82) also acknowledges this
fascination (a trap he also claims many authors fall into) and attempts to
rebut it by claiming that a grasp of the notion of ‘existence’ is essential for
systems thinkers. Lilienfeld’s second criticism can be rebutted only partially by
reference to hard systems (see Figure 1.1) from which the notion of feedback
had emerged decades before his criticism; it remains a concept of great power
and is as fundamental to understanding systems as the wheel is to engineering.
The understanding of living systems has been advanced considerably by the
application of systems thinking to phenomena like homeostasis, homeorrhesis,
cell behaviour, neurological systems and many other aspects of life. In respects
of von Bertalanffy’s hopes for GST as a logico-mathematical field, a new realm
of science (von Bertalanffy 1960: 199), Capra claims that Lilienfeld’s criticism
is valid (Capra 1997: 78). As with other theories, is it simply a matter of time
before its ‘time will come’? With rebuttals set out, it is time to turn briefly to
the work of Geoffrey Vickers, the acknowledged doyen of systems thinking and
policy making, much of which has already been referred to in Chapter 1.
Few people in the ‘systems world’ will demur from the conclusion that
Vickers’ prolific writings were of an essentially practical-cum-philosophical
kind; they were not epistemological. Indeed, the word did not appear very
often in his papers and books which were focussed strongly on governance
and regulation. I had the pleasure of meeting ‘Sir Geoffrey’, as he was known,
only once for a long discussion of one of his favourite topics: human values and
norms. His papers were astonishingly creative and a model of clarity, I might
almost call them ‘bewitching’ in their exposition, though anyone born after
the 1960s might find the English ‘difficult’. Perhaps one of the shortest papers
Vickers wrote (Vickers 1972: 265) remains the most creative and relevant in
the present context. The paper, written in response to a request from the editor
of Policy Science to outline the future ‘aims and directions for the policy sciences’
does just that (in two pages) through five themes, which I have attempted to
summarise below using my current terminology:

• Major policies are concerned with the maintenance of relations through

time, not with once-and-for-all goals
• Inherently, there is conflict between social norms some for resources and
for many other factors: no policy can completely reconcile these conflicts
• Policy problems are solved by modifying the thresholds of what is deemed
to be acceptable under each norm, where this value adjustment is an
important part of value creation. Here I would demur from Vickers’ use of
the term ‘problem’ and the notion of problem solving with its reductionist
overtones, preferring ‘situations’ and amelioration
• Policy making tries to regulate irreversible time-dependent and non-
repetitive situations. To do this the policy maker uses a mental model to
 Epistemology and theory  73

draw tentative conclusions about the causes of the situation under study;
the associated uncertainties of the territory of the future and the probable
effect of any possible interventions. The policy maker’s model cannot be
predictive or validated by prediction in the way that models of processes
can be
• The situation that policy makers seek to regulate arises from human
intervention in the living world and often has very unexpected outcomes.
For this reason, human futures are partly predictable, partly controllable
and partly neither predictable nor controllable by policy makers.

It was humbling to find this paper only recently in which so many of my

own conclusions, expressed in these pages, had been expressed so cogently
at about the time I became aware of Vickers’ work in the early 1970s! It is
striking how Phillips’ criticism of GST’s lack of predictive ability was rebutted
unknowingly (I suspect), while Lilienfeld’s similar criticism was rebutted even
before it had been written! Be that as it may, the Vickers’ paper closed by
commenting that, to him, much of his response was a restatement of familiar
facts that presented a theoretical and practical challenge to people concerned
with the scientific study and practice of policy making. Vickers maintained that
understanding the nature of the mental processes involved in policy making
ought to produce a more serviceable epistemology than existed at that time
or even now; a matter of opinion. The practical challenge was to improve the
working process without distorting or oversimplifying it. Has much changed
since 1972? Probably not, as the notion of problems and reductionist thought
seem to continue to dominate the policy maker’s mind despite an abundance of
theory and practice that points in other directions, such as the role of systems
thinking in policy making.

C r itiqu e of exist ing ‘ t heori es’

Many authors have set out to claim that foresight has a theoretical basis, but its
artistic heritage means that meeting that claim requires stretching the notion of
theory to its limits. Nevertheless, there are many matters that enter into foresight
activity that do have some theoretical notions; these have been explored earlier.
At times, metaphors derived from science seem to make foresight ‘scientific’, but
using them to explain or assist foresight of any form is risky. I have done so, as
have most people who have ‘lived in the foresight world’ for any length of time,
but the difference between a metaphor and reality has to be in mind constantly.
More pernicious is confusion of methods or technique, simple or elegant, with
theories of foresight, which they are not. To quote Wittgenstein (1953), ‘…
though problem [situation] and method pass one another by.’
The thorny question of expertise and the notion of ‘experts’ in uncertainty
leads towards systems thinking, which has been discussed necessarily in a
highly abridged way since there is voluminous literature on both expert opinion
74  Systems and foresight

and systems thinking. In many ways this is the most important field, since all
foresight, real or institutional, depends on opinion, expert or otherwise, while
systems thinking necessarily concerns itself with the clear or unclear boundaries
of situations. Here there are two highly polarised claims to be recognised.
The first stems from Weinberg’s contention about trans-science as describing
situations where science cannot answer the questions the polity expects answers
to, simply because science’s response is hedged by uncertainties, qualifications
and alternatives or simply ignorance (Weinberg 1972). The second simply
assumes that all opinions are of equal value and that expertise does not count,
a view that stems from the claims of post-modernity. These two claims are met
with frequently, and not only when foresight and systems thinking crosses the
threshold into the political world and policy making.
Systems thinking is not a universal panacea and has not been free of
trenchant criticism from Popper (1957) and others. Those by Phillips (1969)
and Lilienfeld (1978) were discussed earlier; the latter was refuted by Capra
(1996) and, by association, the first can also be refuted by Capra’s refutation.
Nevertheless, the claims for systems thinking, advanced mostly by people
outside the practicing community, have, in times past, verged on hype. As
Saritas (2006) found, there is little evidence of systems thinking being used in
any kind of foresight; this finding will be very much in mind during the next
two chapters that are concerned with foresight studies in the public sphere and
in industry. The critique begun here will be extended in Chapter 5.

Appendix 2.1

A s ummar y of t he VAL S T M 1 L ifes ty l e H i e ra rc h y

(With acknowledgements to Arnold Mitchell and SRI Consulting Business
Intelligence (SRIC‑BI))

Mitchell’s original VALS 1 (1984) hierarchy was created at SRI International

during the 1970s and has evolved since into its modern VALSTM format that is
now owned and operated by SRI Consulting Business Intelligence (SRI-BC).
VALS is a consumer psychographic segmentation system based on psychological
characteristics and several demographic factors that correlate with consumer
behaviour (i.e. products, activities and media), hence the word psychographics.
VALS development, conducted in 1987–9, included a two-stage, two-survey
process. The first survey was used to develop the basic segmentation and was
composed of psychological dimensions and a set of product and behaviour
items. The second survey cross-validated the segmentation. From that work, the
VALS questionnaire was developed to enable marketers to identify the VALS-
type of individual consumer. Today, the VALS questionnaire is integrated into
custom and syndicated surveys (such as Mediamark Research, Inc’s Survey of
 Epistemology and theory  75

American Consumers) so that survey data can be analysed by VALS-type, as

well as by demographics. A short VALS booklet and other information about
US VALS can be found at www.sric-bi.com/VALS. JapanVALS™ and UK
VALS™ are also available.
The original VALS (acronym for Values and Lifestyles) hierarchy is the
version I have used and is summarised below.

The original Mitchell VALS 1 Hierarchy (see Figure 2.1)

Need-driven people have very limited in resources (especially money and focus
on survival. They are:

• Survivors – the most disadvantaged people in modern society; very poor,

poorly educated, often old and have little hope of moving up the hierarchy,
and are often caught in the culture of poverty
• Sustainers – struggle at the edge of poverty; better off and younger than
Survivors; have abandoned depression and hopelessness to express anger
at the system and have become ‘street wise’ in their determination to move
up the hierarchy.

Outer-directed people live their lives in response to real or imagined signals

perceived from others. Outer-directedness is a major psychological advance
over being need-driven. The group includes:

• Belongers – ‘fit in’ rather than ‘stand out’ and are generally comfortable
middle class; the main stabilisers of society who defend and preserve the
moral status quo. They stick to the rules
• Emulators – try to break into the higher levels by emulating an Achiever
not realising that they do not have the physical or psychological make up
to become one. They remain too imbued with the Belonger traits but are
psychologically more advanced, assuming more personal responsibility and
being less inclined to ‘fit in’, but not able to ‘stand out’ in a substantive
way
• Achievers – affluent people; many leaders in business, the professions
and government; competent, self-reliant and efficient, but tend to be
materialistic, hard working, oriented toward fame and success. They
defend the status quo of the economic system.

For Inner-directeds, inner growth is a cardinal characteristic; these people lead

their lives in accord with private needs and desires (inner values). It is hard
to be Inner-directed without having internalised Outer-directedness, through
exposure to it during childhood, adolescence or adulthood. Inner-directed
people tend not to come from Need-driven or Inner-directed backgrounds.
It seems that some degree of satiation, with the pleasures of external things,
76  Systems and foresight

is necessary before the less visible attractions of inner development become

attractive. The group includes:

• I-Am-Me’s – a short-lived phase in changing from Outer- to Inner-

directedness. Mostly, people at this stage are young and very individualistic
to the point of being narcissistic and exhibitionistic. Full of confusion and
emotions they do not understand, people in this group tend to define
themselves by their actions rather than their statements
• Experientials – psychologically mature I-Am-Me’s; earlier egocentricity
fades to include other people and many social issues. Direct experience and
vigorous involvement are strongly desired in all their activities. Dramatic
shifts in moods between the real and the mystical are also likely. The exotic
and the strange attract, as do natural activities; probably the most highly
Inner-directed in the hierarchy and the most artistic and passionately
involved with other people
• Societally-conscious people have concerns beyond the self and others, to
society as a whole; sometimes to include global issues, leading to a profound
sense of responsibility; support conservation, environmentalism and the
consumer movement, often becoming impassioned and knowledgeable
activists about the world as they see it.

The Integrated people are a small, rare group at the highest point in the
hierarchy who contrive to meld Outer-directed power with Inner-directed
sensitivity. Mature psychologically, they are able to see the many sides of an
issue and lead it if necessary, or equally easily play a secondary role when that is
appropriate in their perception; usually possess a deep sense of the fittingness of
things, a rare sense of judgement, that leads to self-assurance, self-actualisation,
self-expression and a keen awareness of issues and sentiments, often with a
world perspective. These are very unusual people.

Appendix 2.2

Pr ior ity s e t t i ng ba sed on attrac t i v e ne s s a nd

feasibilit y

A summary of the CSIRO procedure

In their first foresight programme in 1991, CSIRO developed a procedure for
priority setting based on two indexes, namely Attractiveness and Feasibility.
The steps outlined here are similar to the process used by CSIRO. The first
stage is to carry out two independent rankings, using Likert-type scales. One
scale is topic Attractiveness and the second is topic Feasibility. The definitions
of the choices are shown on the appropriate axis in (Figure A2.2.1).
 Epistemology and theory  77

I m perativ e

V ery
Attractiv eness

attractiv e

M od eratel y
attractiv e

Ba arrel y
attractiv e

N ot
attractiv e

N ev er U nl ik el y U ncertain Po osssib l e C anb b e

d one
Feasib il ity
Figure A2.2.1  Illustration of Attractiveness vs. Feasibility matrix

7 0

6 0

5 0
Attractiv eness

4 0
ind ex

3 0

2 0

1 0

0
0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0
Feasib il ity
ind ex
Figure A2.2.2  Illustration of Attractiveness vs. Feasibility plot
78  Systems and foresight

I m perativ e
S tro
ong
em phasis s
V ery
Attractiv eness

attractiv e

M od eratel y I nc
creased
attractiv e sel ec
ctivv itty

B arel y
attractiv e
Lim ited
su pport
N ot
attractiv e

N ev er U nl ik el y U ncertain P ossib l e C an b e
d one
Feasib il ity

Figure A2.2.3  Interpretation of Attractiveness vs. Feasibility

Once these two independent rankings have been completed they are entered
in the matrix shown giving a graphical representation of the two rankings: an
example of this presentation is given in Figure A2.2.2.
The interpretation of the matrix and the graphical presentation is displayed
in Figure A2.2.3, which is self-explanatory. A procedure similar to this was used
in the 1993–4 UK programme to rank important topic areas during the process
of prioritisation.
Ch a p t e r 3
Ins tituti on al f ore s i g h t
Pra ctice and p ract icalities

The apparent jumble of unrelated information that now bombards our senses
makes for the feeling of an exceedingly turbulent world … indeed a justifiable
deduction (for example, the average duration of a TV news-clip is about 90
seconds and comes complete with full colour sensory stimulation … frequent
changes of picture and voice commentary). Making sense of this unrelated
information is another task …
Denis Loveridge lecturing on ‘Black Monday’ as the world’s stock
markets crashed in unison, October 1987

Open reports from public foresight programmes are the largest body of literature
about the practice and procedures in use at the present time. These reports are
the basis of this chapter in which there are three parts: the first discusses the
nature of public foresight programmes (institutional Foresight); the second is
devoted to operational aspects of institutional Foresight; the chapter ends with
a critique of these programmes.

T he nature and practice of public

p rogr ammes
Institutional Foresight is claimed to inform government activity, implying
intervention, either direct or indirect, in almost every sphere of life. The trend
toward increasing government intervention, through what is effectively the
management of society, has been present for centuries, but has become more
obvious as industrialisation has advanced. Government intervention takes a
myriad of forms, but behind the scenes some means of anticipating a need for
government action persists. Early in this long-term trend, interventions were
ad hoc, often being conducted through capricious procurement programmes,
though more often, interventions seemed like reactions to events. Whatever
their manifestations, interventions were constructed by policy makers who
believed they were omniscient in their understanding of the world in which
they lived. Formal processes, if there were any of substance, were shrouded in
secrecy with no overt way of informing those people involved about events and
trends that ought to be taken into account in the formulation of policy. None
80  Systems and foresight

of this was helped by the compartmentalisation of government activity that

took on the form of independent silos. Interventions in one compartment often
created undesirable and sometimes destructive situations in others, giving the
justifiable perception of governments in disarray, a feature that remains evident.
As polities throughout the world became more complicated, if not complex, in
their structures and organisation, the notion of the omniscient policy maker
became absurd. Clearly, policy making, a difficult art at the best of times, needed
to be informed by access to wider sources of opinion and information, and
to be more transparent in polities that were themselves becoming ever better
informed, often leading government policy maker’s perceptions by many years,
if not decades, and making their actions seem inept. It is into this situation that
foresight has ridden, rather like a ‘shining knight on a white horse’.
Foresight is an art form with its roots in influencing the polity: its intentions
are ultimately political. Consequently, the advisory nature of institutional
Foresight sits well with government and policy making, the absence of the
notion of precision, perceptually associated with forecasting and prediction,
conveniently being absent. The latter, prediction, implies that a particular
event or idea can be identified exactly including when and how it will happen.
As there is nothing precise about the future of living systems, predictions are
always wrong.
The benefits expected from institutional Foresight are a major motivation
for its conduct. What benefits can governments expect? Institutional Foresight
claims two broad beneficial outcomes namely to:

1 Stretch the time horizon for policy development and to assist in identifying
opportunities and threats, the advisory indications or warnings that are
one of the functions of foresight
2 Promote the formation of ‘networks’ of contacts between companies,
governments and any other interested party that help the development of
business, government and society as a whole.

It is perfectly legitimate to query the usefulness of foresight activity. For

many managers in the public sector, foresight activity is a time-consuming
diversion largely because of an underlying mind set in political circles, where
what is termed ‘action’ is in reality ‘reaction’. Peering into the future, as senior
executives sometimes call foresight, is not seen as a worthwhile activity. It may
be considered a waste of resources, because the benefits are not immediate and
are likely to be beyond the time horizon of many ministers and government
bureaucrats. The denigration of foresight activity involves the long debate
about the long term versus the short term that is revisited in Chapters 5 and 7.
The benefit of foresight takes at least ten years to become obvious and by that
time how the benefit was created has often been lost sight of. For that reason,
foresight studies are difficult to evaluate within a political time horizon, which
means that their promotion within a government is an act of either political
 Institutional foresight  81

faith or folly depending on how such studies are viewed. The British politician
Enoch Powell wrote cogently on the political view of forecasters and forecasting
(Powell 1979: 338). The arguments he used indicated that foresight, which
implies looking at least five if not ten or more years ahead to identify what may
become important, is not the ‘stuff that politicians work with’.
Often, the follower mentality is perceived to be better than anticipation, and
it is many times, because the expenditure needed ‘to get there first’ is avoided.
The costs are borne by someone else whose efforts can be copied or adapted
with greater certainty, a decided political benefit. Consequently, foresight can
be regarded as a distraction from what is important, which is getting through
today and making sure you are in a fit state to tackle tomorrow, a considerable
survival motivation.
At one time institutional Foresight programmes would have been worthy of
individual remark because of their rarity; this is no longer true. The spread of
activity started in 1971 when the Japanese began their long-running series of
technology forecasts. These have since been conducted at five-year intervals
using the Delphi process. The outcomes have influenced (uncertainly)
Japanese policy for technology, providing the indications and warnings referred
to above: the warnings may be double edged, pointing to things to do and
to avoid doing. Acceleration in the use of institutional Foresight programmes
followed from the mid-1980s until the habit spread to every continent in a
frenzy of activity, especially over the decade from 1995 onwards. It remains to
be seen how long the current ferment of global activity will continue. Indeed,
institutional Foresight has almost assumed the character of a commodity, with
all the vagaries these face in other situations. It is not my intention to illustrate
this growth by any kind of taxonomy, but rather to draw out essential features
that embody the nature of institutional Foresight in its various manifestations,
an important aspect for a newcomer and seasoned practitioner alike. The
European Foresight Monitoring Network (www.efmn.info) maintains one of the
most comprehensive records of global foresight activity; readers are referred to
it for an historical perspective, as well as for references to current institutional
activity.

T he practice of na t iona l Foresi ght

p rogr ammes
Sometimes institutional Foresight programmes have been created in the image
of the long-running series of Japanese technology forecasts; sometimes not.
Previous attempts to draw lessons from these diverse studies (Martin 1996)
have followed a well-trodden path based on recording their public face; often
this did not reveal important steps and ingredients that promoted their success
or caused failure. The deficiencies of these earlier analyses of foresight studies
led Nedeva et al. to develop a robust framework to enable analysis of existing
experience (Nedeva et al. 2001: 6).
82  Systems and foresight

The purpose of Nedeva et al.’s analytical framework is to:

• ‘Get behind’ the public face of national foresight programmes to enable

newcomers to gain insights into the essential steps toward creating
successful programmes
• Enable seasoned practitioners to adopt new procedures if and when
necessary.

Nedeva et al. (ibid.) set out ten elements that characterise the creation of
any institutional Foresight programme:

1 Coalition building refers to the process through which alliances are forged
to influence decisions regarding the inception of a programme; to persuade
potential sponsors to become involved; and to influence their participation.
Coalition building is a complex social process, involving a wide variety of
interest groups
2 Sponsorship involves three issues of particular relevance, namely:
• Who decides on action for a programme?
• Who provides the budget?
• How is the budget formed and administered?
3 Objectives are necessarily linked with issues and problems in the national
research or innovation system
4 Scope of the programme covers most of the issues relating to the number of
areas involved; whether these are social, technical, economic, ecological,
political or values/norms or a mixture of all six; the breadth of consultation,
the use of panels, the time horizon and the time schedule
5 Research elements and methods to be used usually incorporate some
research or problem-solving elements; these vary significantly depending
on the objectives of the exercise, its scope and the nature of the indigenous
research activity that requires the identification, within the country, of
research units that have the competence and the ability to carry out the
research work
6 Reflexivity refers to making provisions from the outset for inbuilt
mechanisms for monitoring and evaluation of a programme. Achieving
reflexivity requires a particular type of social organisation, as well as
explicit milestones and criteria for assessment
7 Resources cover the provision of a budget and ways to account for money,
time, personnel, provision and organisation of personnel. Sometimes
existing social structures do not allow or even prevent some people from
participating
8 Level of the programme recognises that institutional Foresight programmes
can be carried out internationally, nationally, regionally or locally.
 Institutional foresight  83

Programmes can target only particular sectors of the economy or areas of

social life and/or particular institutions
  9 Type of intervention envisaged, as the outcomes of a programme can be
‘interventionist’ or ‘non-interventionist’
10 Outcomes cover the intended and unintended outcomes of a programme.
These may include priorities for research and industry, official reports,
databases, papers and recommendations, networks, culture of negotiation
and information about the research, and innovation system.

The depth of questioning involved in this part of the analytical framework

is illustrated in Table 3.1. The content of the Associated Questions column is
not definitive, as other questions often arise during discussions relating to each
step in the process.

Table 3.1  Questioning involved in revealing the elements of an institutional Foresight

programme
Nature of step Explanation
Step 1 Coalition Most major public
building programmes grow from
support by a range of
different organisations,
departments and influential
people – to create coalitions
to support a proposal
Step 2 Sponsorship Proposals for public
programmes not only
require verbal support they
also need financial sponsors
who may be government
departments or private
industry
Step 3 Objectives Every programme needs
clear objectives defined as
part of its terms of reference objectives? Why select
Associated questions
How did the initial idea
of a foresight programme
emerge? How was it
promoted? Who were the
participants in the process?
How did they interact?
What were the arguments
used to convince the
powers in the relevance and
timeliness of a Foresight
Programme? Were there
any feasibility studies? If so,
who paid for them?
How was the decision to
start a Programme taken?
Who decided? How was the
sponsorship arranged? Who
paid for the programme?
Who held the budget?
How were these set and
justified? Who set the
Foresight? What were
the links with the national
system of research and of
innovation?
continued…
84  Systems and foresight

Table 3.1  continued

Nature of step Explanation Associated questions
Step 4 Scope The scope of the programme How were the decisions
has to be defined in terms made? Who made the final
of the fields of activity to be decision on the scope?
included
Step 5 Research The research elements must How were the elements
elements include the methods to be selected? Who decided?
used in the programme and Who commissioned the
their interpretation research? Through what
process?
Step 6 Reflexivity All programmes need Were there any inbuilt
methods to monitor mechanisms for control,
their progress, to control monitoring and evaluation?
expenditure and to Were there any milestones?
make corrections to the Who set these?
programme when needed
Step 7 Resources Successful management of How was the programme
the programme needs careful team staffed? By temporary
preparation of the people or permanent people?
involved in its execution What arrangements were
to maintain motivation and made to manage temporary
competent management secondments? Was the co-
ordinating unit temporary
or permanent? How did
they deal with structural
limitations?
Step 8 Programme Whether the programme How were decisions
level was intended to be local, justified? And who decided?
national or international in its
focus and whether its focus
was government activity or
industry based
Step 9 Type of Was the programme How were options and
intervention intended to be used to direct decisions justified? And who
public spending or not? decided?
Step Outcomes The expected outcomes of Whose expectations were
10 a programme and methods these to meet? Were
of implementation need to there any unexpected (or
be set out in principle at the unpredictable) outcomes?
start of the programme

The kind of questioning involved in the analytical framework, its breadth

and its limitations created an understanding of how influences were brought
to bear on differing parties in past programmes and gave insights into why a
country decided to embark on foresight activity. The way in which activities
 Institutional foresight  85

within an institutional Foresight programme change with the passage of time is

recognised in the context of its initiation, execution and the implementation
of the results. How a programme is organised depends on who is involved and
the patterns of relationships between them. Allocation of responsibilities or
functions, and the capability of the groups involved to enact these, is highly
dependent on their position in the organisation of the programme. It is these
issues that implicitly underpin all aspects of a foresight programme.
Application of the analytical framework to programmes up to 2001 has
yielded two ways of viewing them. From parallels in art, the dynamics of the steps
leading to an institutional Foresight programme can be regarded as a portrait in
which the artists, those people who shape the decision to start a programme,
continually shape the painting until the desired effects are achieved. As with
all portraits there are eccentricities that relate to the artist’s intentions; their
parallel in the discussion lies in the detail, such as it is known, of how the
individual programmes were created and what inferences can be drawn from
what is revealed. The second view regards each programme as a photograph.
The information is a snapshot of events at a particular point in time that does
not portray what lies behind the façade presented by the appearance of the
programme; photographs are judged to provide fewer insights of relevance to
newcomers and figure less prominently in the discussion here.
The portraits are based on interpretations of the institutional Foresight
programmes of Austria, Germany, Hungary, Japan, The Netherlands and the
United Kingdom. Similarly, the photographs draw on programmes in New
Zealand and South Africa. The broad lessons will be set out first since they will
enable the reader to follow the detailed information given in an Appendix more
easily. The relation between the broad lessons and the details in the Appendix
is indicated numerically. The broad lessons are:

• The role of the sponsor (or sponsoring institution) is vitally important for
the successful conduct of a programme. Support from the top echelons of
the political administration is as important as that from other important
stakeholders (A1–15)
• Clear statement of the objectives of a programme is essential, remembering
that foresight is the act of anticipation as an initial step toward the
formulation of national policy and strategy. However, foresight is not
scenario planning, but is an essential input to scenario building in an
iterative fashion (A16–28)
• To confuse foresight with scenario planning is potentially disastrous, leading
to muddled objectives, muddled management, confused expectations
without comparable outcomes, and the possibility of programme overruns
in time and expenditure; these features were found in many of the
programmes described
• Programme managers must exhibit mastery of all the processes employed.
Nothing destroys commitment to a programme, by all its participants and
86  Systems and foresight

stakeholders, more quickly than an apparent lack of mastery of the process

(A22–28)
• The methods to be used in a programme need to:
• Take account of the situations the country faces
• Be adapted to the questions that need to be asked
• Be matched to the objectives of the programme (A29–32)
• Consultation lies at the heart of all institutional Foresight programmes,
but how it is carried out is a matter of choice. Expert panels often form the
core of consultative procedures (A29–32)
• Management of the consultative procedure or procedures is an important
matter. Programmes generally need to have a well-defined framework,
including the time scale for achieving particular milestones. If panels are
used and are left to conduct their consultations and their work programme
in a loose framework, then it is as well to note the strictures that emerged
from the evaluation of the Netherlands Foresight Committee’s programme
(Anon 1996). Similarly, if tighter frameworks are used, involving
structured questionnaires like the Delphi process, then the extent of a
panel’s commitment to the process needs careful monitoring, a factor that
emerged from the partial evaluation of the UK programme (A29–41)
• Expectations of the outcomes need to be carefully managed to avoid
expectations becoming too high. Contrary to the frequently peddled
belief about the importance of the process, concrete outcomes that can be
taken up by interested parties are more important than the less tangible
outcomes that involve the creation of networks of contacts that did not
exist before, as there is no guarantee these will produce any concrete
outcomes (A33–41)
• Implementation of the outcomes is very much a matter for local
circumstances. Much can be learned from experience elsewhere but this
will always have to be adapted. However, it is very important to settle
some of the major issues about implementation in advance, as far as that
is possible. For example, prioritisation of the outcomes and its purposes,
which bridges from the world of the practitioner into the world of politics,
needs to be clearly understood (A47–57)
• Repetition of the process in the future also needs to be discussed in
advance of the first programme and criteria set out for the possibility of
further programmes at some time in the future (A47–57).

Institutional Foresight studies are complex activities. All that has been
attempted, by using a particular analytical approach, is the identification
of many of the matters that have to be dealt with in developing a national
programme.
 Institutional foresight  87

Practical ste ps in organising a For e s i g h t

s t u dy : comm on st eps

Coalition building
Some early high-level decisions determine the shape of an institutional Foresight
programme; these must be part of the initial discussions and agreement must
be reached, in principle, during the coalition building that leads to sponsorship
and before a programme is embarked upon. These decisions have major
influences on the organisation, cost and likely success of any programme. It is
not sufficient simply to obtain a sponsor who will set the terms of reference and
context of the programme. It is important to sensitise and obtain the implicit
support of the community of people who are likely to be consulted or otherwise
involved. In this respect, it is immaterial how the study is carried out.

Sponsorship and legitimisation

Legitimisation of an institutional Foresight programme is a local process.
Quick acceptance by a sponsor (or sponsors) should not be expected, even
when the climate for such studies seems to be favourable. The clear and public
identification of the sponsor(s) and the intended audience is important; clarity
in these matters is essential. When international collaboration is featured
formal agreements are most likely to be needed as multiple sponsors will bring
together partners with different expectations of the collaboration embedded
in different political and cultural systems. There can be subtle differences
between the sponsors’ intentions and the audiences’ expectations; the two are
not necessarily the same. Practically, legitimisation (see Chapter 7, Figure 7.1)
involves sensitisation of a community of participants (Note 1). It is their right
to be approached in advance and here there are three steps that are generally
regarded as essential:

• Holding a number of ‘open’ meetings or other forms of open consultation,

to allow potential participants to become aware of what is proposed and
to comment
• Never seek to involve a participant without first asking him or her to take
part in the study and giving the reasons why; this applies to all forms of
consultation, wide or narrow
• Inform the potential participants who the sponsor is, indicating the level
from which that support comes.

In institutional Foresight programmes, the sponsor(s) are most likely to be a

governmental or some similar public organisation.
88  Systems and foresight

Objectives
The objectives of the programme form a bridge between the sponsors and
legitimisation of the programme; whether it is to cover the STEEPV set or limited
parts of it is an important issue and needs to be decided with the sponsor(s) at
the outset; this decision has major influences throughout. Equally important is
the decision whether or not to make use of material from programmes carried
out elsewhere.
The purpose of the programme may be to promote debate about its
underlying theme for use in more formal policy-making processes. Alternatively,
a consensus about a range of topics may be sought among the expert population
to enable their prioritisation in formal processes. These choices indicate that
the programme is intended to be either interventionist (used to direct resource
allocation) or non-interventionist, the outcome simply being placed ‘on the
table’ for anyone to use as they think fit.
Institutional Foresight programmes generally have a few distinctive
objectives. The first and most obvious, is consultation to identify events within
the STEEPV set and to seek opinion concerning their likely importance, and
time of occurrence. The natural outcome is to prioritise responses to these
events, so providing opinion to influence public policy. Initially prioritisation
was mostly related to science and technology, but has spread to other fields as
institutional Foresight studies have broadened their range of interest. Another
important aspect of these programmes is the promotion of cooperation between
the various actors in the polity, but particularly between industry, academe
and publicly funded institutions. Depending on which objective is stressed,
prioritisation and cooperation may require choices in how a programme is
conducted; it is not self-evident that they can be met simultaneously.
The terms of reference need to be set out clearly to include the main thrusts
of the programme by stating the:

• Focus: whether the programme will be broad and will include the polity as
a whole and all elements of the STEEPV set or a subset of both
• Objective functions which might include, for example:
• Wealth creation
• Quality of life
• Network building: promotion of interaction between interested
parties.

The eventual success of institutional Foresight depends crucially on how the

terms of reference are set out and how the programme is designed subsequently.
If the terms of reference specify boundaries that limit the programme to
technology and any one, or combinations, of basic, applied or strategic research,
the design and the output must match these specifications. Similar comments
 Institutional foresight  89

apply to wider studies relating to the polity as a whole where design becomes
more complex (Cuhls et al. 2004; Loveridge and Street. 2005: 31).

Pr ocedures and out put

An institutional Foresight programme needs to be substantial if it is to be a
source of guidance for policy making in a particular area, while the acceptance
of the outcome by different constituencies will reflect its credibility. For an
‘expert’ committee its terms of reference are of fundamental importance,
and their scope and their credibility are unique concerns. In the end, the
committee has to sell the output on the basis of personal credentials and of
the relevance, reasonableness and robustness (Loveridge 1981: 46) of what will
be an idiosyncratic report, created by processes that may be opaque or semi-
opaque. By contrast, acceptance of the output of a widespread consultation,
survey based or otherwise, depends on the credibility of the managing group
and the processes they use. Demonstrable competence, in every aspect of the
task, is the only way the managing group can become credible in the eyes of the
respondent population. Process and procedural competence must be aligned
and the sponsor(s) need to set out these requirements in the managing group’s
terms of reference.
The procedures used in institutional Foresight may seem decentralised,
but in reality management of any public programme calls for a strong central
team to ensure its completion, whatever methodological processes are used.
The outcome of any public programme is a series of ‘products’ usable by its
sponsor(s), government or otherwise, in formulating policies and programmes
relating to social life and its organisation; this may include products, processes
and many other aspects that affect the well-being of society, as well as creating
networks of collaborators, as only these can lead to implementation of policies
and programmes. Occasionally, the value of foresight as a procedure-cum-
process is emphasised, but this has an element of fantasy about it as programme
sponsors look for concrete outcomes.

C on s u ltation a s a resea rch met hod

The choice between broad or narrow consultation and the methods used in
an institutional Foresight programme is a fundamental decision; the former is
exemplified by the use of survey methods (as used in France, Germany, Japan,
the UK and elsewhere) and workshops, while the latter is typified by most
‘expert’ committee studies as exemplified by the American ‘critical technologies’
programmes and the work of many ‘advisory committees’.
Broad consultation has research elements in its own right. By comparison,
narrow consultation is typified by the ‘expert’ committee that relies entirely on its
own resources and does not seek to consult outside itself. The latter description
may be a parody of the circumstances, but in extreme cases it is a possibility.
90  Systems and foresight

The two forms of consultation can be mixed by using broad consultation in

parallel with ‘expert’ committees, as was done in the UK in 1994–5 and has
featured in other studies; this decision needs to be set down in the terms of
reference at the outset. The research element of the work of panels and ‘expert’
committees lies in the adoption of investigative processes, similar to those
available in judicial processes and ‘due diligence’ in investment programmes,
but without the force of ‘discovery’ that is mandatory in legal proceedings. The
choice of the extent of consultation leads to distinct implementation paths and
management structures and procedures as illustrated in Figure 3.1.

Broad, survey based Narrow

consultation consultation

Appointmentof Appointmentof
ManagementGroup 'expert'committee

Locatingparticipants
Programmeof
e.g.co-nomination
awarenessseminars
process

Identificationof Identificationof
sectors sectorsandissues

Informationinputs Initialconsultation
rf omdeskresearch survey(trends,issues,
andscenariobuilding markets,products,
processes&technologies)

Derivationoftopics Informationinputs
forwide rf omdeskresearch
consultation andscenariobuilding

Consultationthrough Workshopsandother
'Delphi'survey directconsultations

Report,dissemination Report,dissemination
andimplementation andimplementation

Figure 3.1 Influence of choice between broad or narrow consultation

 Institutional foresight  91

Res ou r ces and ma na gement

The management and organisation structure of any public programme needs
to be agreed with the sponsor(s) at the outset; in collaborative programmes
this is of paramount importance. There is relatively little experience anywhere
to indicate the most appropriate form of the management and organisation
structure, which has to be evolved on a case by case basis.
The management team’s single most important characteristic must be
demonstrable competence in every aspect of the programme to create empathy
with all the people taking part in the various activities; while this is easy to say
it is not straightforward to achieve. Members of the management team will face
tasks of varying complication. For an expert committee the management team
may only need to ensure that the committee’s proceedings are transparent,
kept on schedule, within budget and kept under review by the sponsors. For
widespread consultation, involving surveys and all that goes with them, the
programme schedule will be more complicated, as illustrated in Figure 3.1, in
addition to the straightforward tasks already referred to for expert committees.
The task becomes yet more complicated if electronic methods are used. It is
helpful, but not necessary, for the management team to have experience in
breadth of the fields being covered by the programme, since this will enable a
common ability of discourse with participants.
Training for the management team needs to ensure that they are perceived
to be cohesive, competent and to exhibit mastery of their procedures and
methodological processes from the public beginning of the programme. The team
will need essential IT skills including the use of spreadsheets, word processing,
databases, email, videoconferencing and computer-mediated conferences,
backed by great working flexibility. The team should know how to design and
use questionnaires, and how to manage the corresponding databases.
Careful specification of the management tasks and identification of who will
carry them out is essential. Again this may seem an unnecessary stricture, but
in complicated programmes it is a matter that needs attention. The team simply
must know what tasks are going on in every part of the programme and who
is responsible for them; else the casual enquiry from a participant will quickly
snowball into a major issue if the enquirer cannot get a satisfactory response.
The relationship with any consultants is even more important as they will need
to be managed within the terms of their contract and the tasks it specifies.
Programme schedules are often driven by needs to meet formal reviews
elsewhere for the allocation of resources in a government’s planning cycle. Since
these have their own idiosyncrasies, scheduling needs careful negotiation and
the outcome needs to be written into any agreement to prevent contention,
especially in a collaborative programme. Contingency planning is needed since
a major programme is unlikely to be trouble free.
Most institutional Foresight programmes have been or are organised
hierarchically, with a Steering Group taking final responsibility for the programme
92  Systems and foresight

and its outcome. Commonly, the Steering Group oversees the progress of the
programme and prepares a final report, but is not, and should not be, involved
in the day-to-day management of the programme. The management team
should be the executive arm of the Steering Group and should be responsible
for the day-to-day management of the entire programme.
Panels should know that they have a dual ladder of reporting first, to the
Programme Manager with respect to day-to-day execution of their function
within the programme, and second, to provide a report of the outcome of their
work to the Steering Group and simultaneously to the Programme Manager.
Thereafter, the work of the Panels needs to be subject to general guidelines
derived from the programme specification; the latter will repay careful
examination.
The way the programme is to be conducted needs to be clear to all
participants enabling them to know unambiguously:

• How they are expected to take part

• When their participation will be expected
• What their role will be (i.e. panel member, survey respondent, workshop
participant, expert witness or information provider)
• Who will keep them informed of the above three matters.

The structure will depend on the choice of management procedures, as

already indicated. If a multiple-Panel structure is to be used this should be
specified in the terms of reference along with procedures to ensure consistency
of methodological processes between Panels. Without the latter, the work of the
Panels may result in highly individual reports that make cross-panel synthesis
difficult or even impossible. It should not be forgotten that the sponsor(s)
have the ultimate right (or duty), in consultation with the Steering Group,
Management Team and any advisors they choose, to specify compulsory tasks
and processes for the Panels to ensure the programme outcome is acceptable
to the audience for whom it is intended. Customer satisfaction should be the
guiding principle, not caveat emptor (‘let the buyer beware’). Granting complete
freedom of action to the Panels to perform their work as they see fit, is an
abdication of responsibility by the sponsor(s), the Steering Group and their
Management Team.
Finding participants for a programme is another essential management task.
The time-honoured ways of identifying participants for panels, workshops and
surveys, such as personal recommendation and using lists of names supplied by
professional institutions, are now largely discredited as they give little indication
of a potential participant’s interests and expertise. Mundane matters, like
address lists, are not always up to date for many reasons. The state of confusion
that can result from using these sources is highly damaging to the credibility
of the programme. There are other options that endeavour to overcome the
deficiencies of the time-honoured processes mentioned above; these use:
 Institutional foresight  93

• A conventional statistical sample of the whole population, with

circumscribed boundaries, such as age limits, as is done in public opinion
surveys
• An electoral procedure
• A structured process, such as co-nomination as used in the 1994–5 UK
foresight programme.

The first of these two options is not entirely suitable for a foresight
programme that involves a degree of specialism that a random sample of
the population might overlook; consequently it has not been used in any
programme so far. An electoral procedure is not appropriate. The possible
electoral roll is undefined so the outcome would not produce a representative
sample of potential participants, let alone balanced membership of working
panels. The use of peer-reviewed databases, as described in Chapter 2, is
possible in programmes restricted to science and technology matters. Co-
nomination remains the other process and has been used in the UK and
South Africa where it was successful within the time constraints imposed by
the programme schedules.
Co-nomination was described briefly in Chapter 2 and that description is
extended here. In institutional Foresight programmes employing widespread
consultation, the procedure begins with the selection of an initial group of
respondents, each of whom is asked to identify further individuals who meet a
defined set of criteria. The second, and larger group, is then asked to repeat the
process, giving the appearance of ‘snowball’ sampling, with further iterations
until closure becomes apparent (signs of closure often occur after the third
iteration). The approach places identification of the community of potential
participants into the hands of the community itself, which is of considerable
benefit in generating commitment and transparency. The objective of the co-
nomination survey is then to:

• Build a database of people with relevant credentials who can be consulted

by the Panels or become respondents in any survey or other procedure
during the stages of a programme
• Identify key people to become panel members in the various matters to be
covered by the programme.

The questionnaire can be administered either by post or electronically

(because it is well structured) and is designed to elicit two main types of
information:

• The names and contact details of potential respondents and panel

members, as already described
• A description of each respondent’s areas of interest and his or her level of
expertise in these areas.
94  Systems and foresight

The ‘expertise questionnaire’ used in the UK programme sought the

information listed below. An introductory note, written by the programme
sponsor indicating their commitment to the programme and degree of
importance attached to participation, is essential. The note should also outline
the way the ‘expertise questionnaire’ fits into the programme as a whole, and
that the respondent should be able to complete the questionnaire in about 10
to 15 minutes. Both of these explanatory notes are fundamental to obtaining
a good response rate on which the success of the procedure depends. The
remainder of the questionnaire asks for seven kinds of information:

1 Address details including an email address

2 Main job function chosen from defined categories
3 To indicate, from a defined set of fields of human activity, those where the
respondent has expertise as defined by a given set of criteria, and whether
that expertise lies in technology, markets or both
4 A succinct description of the respondent’s recent past and current areas of
special expertise in relation to the fields indicated in 3
5 A list of up to six people whose activities have had or are likely to have
a significant influence on or to be useful to the respondent’s own work,
indicating whether that influence is mainly in technology, markets or
both
6 A list of up to three workplace colleagues who have not been named in 5
7 List one highly original thinker in any field of expertise who could make a
significant contribution to the programme and its outcome.

By choosing from a set of criteria, modified as needed from that developed

by Lipinski and Loveridge for the self-assessment of expertise (Lipinski and
Loveridge. 1982: 215), respondents can assess their own level of expertise.
Selection of the representative fields for inclusion in section 3 is problematic;
all that can be done is to learn from the programme’s terms of reference
and experience elsewhere. Creation of the initial list of people to whom the
questionnaire will be sent is a crucial step; if it is not well balanced the outcome
of the survey can jeopardised. Care must be taken not to allow any one source
of names to dominate the choices made. However the survey is conducted
there needs to be an easily accessed ‘help desk’.
Because of the ‘snowball’ structure of the survey it is vital to have rigorous
control to minimise (preferably avoid) respondents nominated more than once
receiving duplicate survey forms. If control is not effective, the credibility
of the entire survey is placed in jeopardy and the whole programme will
be damaged. Photocopied returns must be disallowed without question.
Encoding the data from postal returns will be labour intensive, it cannot be
otherwise, and complications such as incomplete addresses, misspelling of
names, muddled initials and titles, all of which will need verification, must be
expected. Conducting the survey electronically does not overcome many of
 Institutional foresight  95

these problems, but may partially reduce the labour intensity of the encoding
process.
Lessons from the use of co-nomination show that:

• The use of the procedure provides a level of information about the

participants, whatever their role, with more certainty than any other
procedure; this information is a valuable resource but the work involved
is considerable
• There is an added benefit in that it introduces participants to what follows
in the later stages of the programme and often strengthens commitment
to these stages
• Much attention must be paid to the construction of the initial list of
respondents to avoid bias in the later stages
• The programme schedule needs to allow time for the questionnaire to
be circulated three times at least. Higher frequencies of nomination and
clearer network maps will result
• Criteria for panel membership needs to be decided early in the programme
and made public, and needs to include age and gender factors.

The co-nomination process comes into its own when structured question­
naire processes are used in widespread consultation. However, as has already
been stressed, there are no circumstances when expertise should be taken on
trust or for granted. Self-assessment of expertise used alone can be a powerful
gatekeeper, placing a small but significant hurdle to qualifying to become a
participant even in an unstructured programme of discussion groups and the
like.
Appointments to committees or panels are contentious matters that ought
to be assisted by the outcome of the co-nomination procedure. Packing
panels with people of similar backgrounds, interests and opinions needs to be
avoided. Foresight is not the gift of a consenting group nor is it the gift of a
special individual, though some individuals exhibit remarkable aptitudes for
what might be called ‘real foresight’ rather than its institutional counterpart.
Foresight is often an emergent property of small group debate where there is
contention but not aggravation, between people with knowledge and those who
are able to speculate from that knowledge in a gestalt fashion. The debate will
lead to constraint on the more extreme ideas and opinions without discarding
them; this ability among panel or committee members is vital. The expertise of
individual potential panel or committee members ought to be assessed by the
appointee, using self-assessment criteria similar to those employed in the first
UK foresight programme (Loveridge et al. 1995: 10), so that the sponsors and
the managing team can create a group with balanced levels of expertise.
The text and numerical databases created are further vital resources
that require careful management. Text databases typically arise from the
transcripts of workshops, discussion groups and electronic conferencing,
96  Systems and foresight

while numerical databases arise from structured surveys or from the use
of public information sources. The two kinds of databases require distinct
treatments. There is little prescriptive advice that can be given on how to
work with text databases, which are mostly unstructured; content analysis
of them requires appropriate procedures and software, preferably chosen
before the basic transcripts have been created to limit the potential influence
of software capability on the outcome of the analysis to identify important
themes and ideas. Identification of themes and ideas can be difficult enough,
but important associations, inferences and interdependencies are yet more
difficult to locate. Development of appropriate search strategies, as required
by systemic foresight, is not a standard process, but needs considerable
insight, intuition and knowledge of the subject area. It is not too much to say
that it requires a good deal of real foresight and systemic thinking to follow
what can be a series of faint indications of important interdependencies that
lead toward deep insights into future possibilities, possibly beyond those of
the participants in the original dialogue.
The relational text databases are used to manage demographic and similar
information relating to programme participants. Wherever this kind of database
is employed, legal requirements of data protection relating to individuals must
be observed; similar comments apply to freedom of information legislation.
These databases include address lists, occupation and other kinds of personal
demographic information. All survey work needs an underlying structure
that enables the progress of the survey to be tracked to prevent respondents
receiving multiple questionnaires, or the wrong questionnaire in a multi-sector
survey to prevent distortion of the survey outcome.
Numerical survey data requires careful management to ensure that it is:

• Correctly coded
• Structured so as to be easily understood by more than one person
• Easily searched and used for many different purposes.

Coding the survey responses is not a simple matter; its procedures must have
the necessary checks to eliminate mistakes in entries; these are commonplace
in experienced survey companies. Coding is therefore best done by those who
are experienced in the process; subsequent analysis can then be done with
reasonable peace of mind. Cost-saving measures, such as using inexpensive and
inexperienced staff for coding work, should not be encouraged. It should not be
assumed that electronically based surveys will be free of coding problems.

Geographic brea dt h of pa rt ici pa ti o n

Institutional Foresight programmes can be carried out internationally,
nationally, regionally and locally. Much of the earlier discussion covers the
execution of the latter three levels, but the rarity of international programmes
 Institutional foresight  97

or international participation in national, regional or local programmes needs

further comment.
Historically, participation in institutional Foresight studies has been constrained
by national considerations; this is unnecessary and counter­productive. Elsewhere
I have proclaimed the death of this practice (Loveridge 2001: 789) but it remains
a dominant feature of the organisation of institutional Foresight. Collaborative
studies across international times zones has long been possible using a mix of
computer-based conferencing, which I first used in the early 1970s, the Internet,
voice-over-IP and videoconferencing, in addition to other time-honoured
procedures. Any impediments to the internationalisation of institutional
Foresight are now due to either lack of will or lack of knowledge. The question is
why ought these studies to be internationalised? There is neither a unique answer
nor is there an imperative to do so. There can be obvious benefits, including
access to wider sources of expertise and knowledge, the sharing of experiences of
the processes to the advantage of newcomers and established practitioners alike,
and drawbacks – what follows has these in mind.
Internationalisation ought to reveal the extent to which foresight agendas
are really common or whether only parts are shared universally, revealing
how individual countries selected, or might wish to select, fields for study in
expectation of an economic or some other form of return. None of this openness
can ignore the undoubted wish by national and international companies to
retain knowledge for their own benefit with implications for the freedom or
control of how some respondents participate and contribute their expertise in
institutional programmes.
The feasibility of international programmes will raise concerns that go with
any international activity. Among the concerns will be ownership of intellectual
property, copyright and similar issues relating to international relations, if not
law. Intellectual property rights will need to be dealt with, however unlikely
their invocation might seem, as there is a real possibility of patentable ideas
arising from foresight programmes; after all, creation of knowledge and ideas
for the future is their raison d’être. There is also the near certainty that the
outcome of foresight activity will be taken up by activist groups with unexpected
intentions.
The foregoing are some the reasons for the growing internationalisation
of foresight programmes; there are others concerning their feasibility and
implementation that may be thought of as modes of cooperation that can be
described in a simple taxonomy (Cameron et al. 1996: 47) as:

• Interaction
• Coordination
• Orchestration.

Interaction is typified by the exchange of experience; this mode is already

being institutionalised through informal international networks of practitioners.
98  Systems and foresight

Interaction does not require actual working together in a foresight programme,

but results in a steady accretion of codified information on operational matters
that becomes more valuable with time, permitting the steady evolution of
foresight processes. There is also a growing understanding of issues, perceived
to be important across the STEEPV spectrum, that will be influential in
developing policy. The existence of databases of these issues mitigates the effort
required by new entrants to the field.
Coordination recognises that countries intending to conduct foresight
programmes will be using similar ways of going about their programmes.
Sponsors may be from similar organisations or government departments,
so that coordination between them may be of mutual benefit in setting the
terms of reference, time schedules, developing notional budgets, methods
of reporting, prioritisation and implementation. Actively working together
can mean that the comparison of outcomes becomes feasible and mutually
beneficial. What may begin as participation in the interactive network, may
well develop into a desire to share some of the ‘risks’ of a foresight programme,
whether these are real, in terms of resources, or psychological, with political
implications.
Orchestration requires direct formal or informal collaboration. The potential
partners wish to use common methods in conducting their programmes and
also wish to share a common infrastructure, and input and output information.
The German–Japanese experience (Breiner et al. 1994) has some of these
characteristics, but stops short of having a common management team that may
be anticipated with full orchestration. There is an additional possibility: all the
potential partners might wish the management team to come from an external
source, giving a sense of independence and impartiality to the programme.
While these three modes represent some of the more wide-ranging issues
involved in international foresight activity, there is a sense in which the modes
are interdependent, if not actually nested one within the other. If that is the
case the outer skin is likely to be the Interaction mode, while Orchestration
may be the inner core.
Some important lessons can already be highlighted from international
collaboration:

• Multiple languages bring their own hazards, some of which can be severe,
especially where different alphabets are involved. Translation may then call
for several iterative steps, with discussions between experts and translators
to remove ambiguities (Loveridge et al. 2003)
• Adoption of processes created in one country and culture may not succeed
in another, as it means the adoption of the perspectives and culture of the
first by the second.

The main advantages of international collaboration seem to outweigh the

disadvantages and include:
 Institutional foresight  99

• The collation of international expertise with the possibility of making

international comparisons
• Accessible knowledge increases, so that reliability and validity increase
• Mutual learning about doing studies grows
• Exchange of foresight experiences helps to develop the procedures.

However, the outcome of foresight programmes requires implementation,

a crucial last step that has to be taken by each sponsor on their own; this
is, perhaps, the Achilles heel of all foresight programmes, collaborative ones
included. The limitations inherent in international collaboration include:

• Matters of national security may limit the participation by some individuals

and companies
• Companies that are in direct competition may either not wish to contribute
or actually be barred by law from being seen to collaborate
• Managing intellectual property rights may require particular attention.

Other limitations come from foresight processes themselves, most notably

arising from the inevitable need to use widespread consultation employing survey
methods. Much patience is needed to negotiate agreement to the structure
of the consultative process (Loveridge et al. 2003), or to any questionnaire
and common set of questions (devoid of misunderstandings arising from the
nuances of language).
Given that there are partners and sponsors who wish to collaborate, the
possibilities of success are then likely to depend on how they define their
mutual and individual benefits, and how these are presented in the public
domain, especially to the media. The process of creating expectations of
mutual benefits, as well as individual non-conflicting ones, needs careful
attention, as it is a process fraught with the possibility of misunderstanding.
Adverse publicity or reactions from a significant body of people, on whom
the successful conduct of the programme will depend, can be very damaging.
Complementarity should be seen as a way to balance relationships between
the multiple sponsors.
So far, participation by individuals of international stature in any programme
has been limited, but is tending to increase and raises a number of specific
issues:

• How can people of international repute be identified and located? It is

crucially important to obtain well-founded, up-to-date information
concerning any individual’s expertise
• How can their agreement to take part be achieved?
• How can their participation be made simple, effective and timely?
• Are there risks to both the potential respondent and the sponsor of the
programme that may arise from the respondent’s participation?
100  Systems and foresight

It is already possible to conduct many kinds of consultation on an inter­

national basis using IT services; the motives for doing so have already been
alluded to, and these services can now play a central role in conducting in any
programme. However, the introduction of IT needs careful planning and an
appreciation of what is being planned, attending to the following:

• All the material gathered electronically will be stored on a medium that

permits rapid processing and easy editing
• Consequently, audit trails need to be used to control the processing of the
data collected, where ‘data’ is both numeric and textual, quantitative or
narrative
• The veracity of the raw data and its continuity cannot be guaranteed, and
without audit trails illicit access to, and use of, the raw data can become
commonplace
• Anonymity is always guaranteed to respondents to survey questionnaires;
this can be jeopardised by poor management of the raw data, with a
consequent loss of credibility in the study and its management team.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, several software systems existed for electronic
information exchange, as it was then called. Each was based on dedicated software
designed for the purpose. Software available via the Internet has now largely
superseded these systems and has simplified international consultation while
making it more effective. Some impediments remain: how to make electronic
consultation replicate, to an appropriate extent, a face-to-face discussion. An
Internet-based discussion will generally need to be based on a closed user group,
well specified in advance, with significant barriers to entry, to prevent ‘gate
crashing’. If a closed user group cannot be specified in advance, then an open
discussion is likely to attract a wide variety of contributions, from the substantial
to the outrageously unhelpful. The real problem then becomes one of winnowing,
to enable an appropriate closed user group discussion to be created.
Retrieval of the exchanged information from its record to enable
interpretation, is the key step, whatever the format and the nature of the record.
Retrieval must then be able to cope with all forms of information and in ways
that the searcher wishes to specify. Search engines meet these requirements
minimally, but in 2007 the requirement of Boolean searching is not always
available. There have been considerable advances in text analysis software
and further advances can be expected in all forms of search engines. The
deficiencies of current search engines have a profound effect on the viability
of Internet-based consultation. How does this come about? Consultation that
proceeds via a well-structured process, employing a closed user group, has
frontiers to the dialogue that can be specified within reason, limiting the extent
of the search process. If the consultation is organised around an open structure,
even initially, the frontiers to the dialogue are likely to become unbounded,
making the search process unspecifiable, if not undecidable in a mode similar
 Institutional foresight  101

to Gödel’s notion of undecidability (Gödel 1931). The resulting effort needed

to even identify the respondents to be invited to join a closed user group can
destroy the entire foresight programme, yet without some process of selection
the consultation cannot proceed!
The presentation of questionnaires of various kinds in electronic format is
not a problem; working with them is for many people. Much thought needs to
be given to the layout of a questionnaire if it is to be ‘user friendly’ when the
respondent works with it on a screen (Loveridge et al. 2003). Direct entry of
responses into the database, via a buffer that allows respondents to alter their
response before it is lodged in the database finally, is good practice.

I nterv entions a nd out comes i n use

The broad features of the outcome of an institutional Foresight programme
and the processes for their implementation ought to be framed during the
programme’s formative (policy) stages. All programmes will produce a mix of
intended and unintended outcomes, the implementation of which will call for
a new range of skills if the bridge from the foresight practitioners’ world to
the political world of the sponsor is to be built constructively. The purposes
of a programme, either interventionist or non-interventionist, are associated
with distinct forms of governance. When foresight is intended to support
intervention, the sponsor will require its outcomes to include priority setting,
as this will be part of the sponsor’s implementation route; prioritisation then
becomes a keystone in the bridge building referred to earlier. By contrast non-
intervention requires little effort by the sponsor, as ‘implementation’ requires
little more than placing the programme’s outcomes in the public domain for
others to pursue if they wish. These are two extreme limits to the forms of
implementation that are evident in the welter of foresight programmes in recent
decades. Generally implementation is an Ackoffian mess (Ackoff 1974: 21), a
set of interacting problems which in itself is conventionally attacked through
the bluntest of tools, prioritisation (Chapter 2). It is at this point that an
institutional Foresight programme can seem to be a competitor, or a threat,
to the ongoing and long-established work of advisors, so the outcome needs
to be presented in a non-threatening way. Once prioritisation begins, political
implications and influences become inescapable.
Reports are the commonest way that the outcomes from an institutional
Foresight programme are made known; their effectiveness depends partly on
the initial coalition building during the formative stages of the programme. The
format of the programme also plays an important part. Reports from ‘expert’
committees are idiosyncratic; they are likely to be direct. Their recommendations
may come nearer to direct intervention in the political process because of:

• The way ‘expert’ committees are created

• Their line of responsibility, which is direct to the sponsor
102  Systems and foresight

• Their terms of reference, which are often highly specific.

By contrast, the findings from a programme based on widespread consultation

will be more diffuse, more arduous to present, and will have to represent:

• The spread of opinions arising from a large number of people and

organisations
• Caveats to the findings that make them seem less direct
• The inclusion of a prioritisation of topics as the view taken by the
management team according to the criteria they set.

The major outcome of widespread consultation is the database of opinions

expressed during the programme sampled, either through the topics in
a survey or by some other consultative process; this is not a major feature
(if it is a feature at all) in an ‘expert’ report. If a survey is constructed in
consultation with any parallel ‘expert’ committee, but independently of that
committee, then the outcomes of parallel reports may differ significantly and
this should be anticipated by the programme sponsor. Government-initiated
institutional Foresight programmes are expected to inform policy making. At
first the focus tended to be on policy for science and technology. Recently,
wider fields affecting the polity in general have been drawn into the foresight
net. The responsible ministries are usually the motors for these programmes.
From international experience, successful implementation of foresight activity
requires:

• People able to implement the results (obviously)

• Decision makers, able to distinguish between different areas of the polity
and policy needs, who have discretion large enough for national strategies
to be developed across the boundaries of these areas as needed
• The criteria used in prioritisation must be well founded and the outcome
of their use needs to be the basis for action
• Priorities that emerge from local decisions need to recognise that:
• Some strongly independent groups, with a lot of basic funding, will have
little incentive to pick up the results of a foresight programme. In the past,
information from their scientific networks was sufficient to enable them to
perform well, and in the future it will continue to do so
• Users with little possibility to look beyond 2–3 years when making
investments, are likely to have little use for the outcomes of a foresight
programme
• Both of these comments fly in the face of persistent attempts by government
to direct the attention of these two groups of organisations toward the
outcomes of government-sponsored foresight programmes and particularly
toward SMEs where government has little practical involvement or
experience.
 Institutional foresight  103

There are other less obvious matters involved in implementation. One of

these is the declaration of existing business or financial interest of any person
in privileged position to exploit any of the outcomes for financial gain; this
is particularly important when appointments to ‘expert’ committees are being
considered and made. There have been examples where this has not occurred
with unfortunate consequences for the credibility of the outcome of the
committee’s work. Where widespread consultation is used, and managed by an
independent agency, the opportunity for direct benefit to or from business or
financial interests, by any individual respondent, is much reduced. However, this
does not overcome the complicated matter of competing claims to intellectual
property rights that may arise, directly or indirectly, from the questions contained
in a Delphi questionnaire or ideas generated at a consultative workshop.

C r itiqu e
Foresight creates controversy – that is its intention. So what benefits can
governments expect from institutional foresight? There is a tradition now to
make two broad claims for beneficial outcomes, namely to:

• Aid the development of a longer time horizon for policy development and
to assist in identifying opportunities and threats – the advisory indications
or warnings referred to earlier
• Promote the formation of ‘networks’ of contacts between companies,
governments and any other interested party that help the development of
business, government and society as a whole.

Both of these claimed outcomes have a wishful characteristic. Indeed, it

is hard to imagine that the more exaggerated claims made for the second are
more than promotional hyperbole. Making contacts, or ‘networking’ as it is now
called in smart circles, does not guarantee any concrete outcomes for anyone.
In the end, to quote my colleague John Parry, the ‘world belongs to practical
men and women’. Institutional Foresight’s real attraction for governments must
lie in the first claim.
Institutional Foresight has been practiced in many different ways, but through
the 1990s the precedents set by the Japanese technology forecasts were widely
adopted. The core parts of many studies were enshrined in a Delphi survey and
while these varied in detail, the single most important context was technology.
Only in the mid- to late-1990s was there a general recognition that wider
issues from the STEEPV set needed to be involved. Many had been included
in a minor way in some of the programmes, but only one, by the Netherlands
Foresight Steering Committee (Anon 1996), included the entire STEEPV
set. In addition, a more traditionally organised study in Austria included
a considerable measure of social factors. In the new millennium it has been
mostly business as usual with technology continuing fortissimo with the rest of
104  Systems and foresight

the set increasingly diminuendo. The German Futur programme (www.bmbf.

de/en/1317.php) is an exception that used an open enquiry system. Loveridge
and Street (2005: 41) proposed ways to widen the base of people involved in
foresight programmes, but this has not proceeded further.
All institutional Foresight programmes have, so far, been conducted
monolithically with their outcomes presented as an institutional view.
Summation of the individual participants’ opinions is a non-trivial matter
(Loveridge and Street 2005: 46). How this is done is a behavioural matter, and
understanding the possibly profound influence this has on the outcome has
not been given much attention in any programme to date. The three issues of
narrowness of participation, of modelling of the procedure and of behavioural
influences are probably the most difficult concerns facing institutional Foresight
programmes, and they are interrelated themselves. These and other detailed
concerns are dealt with in Chapter 5 and will not be taken further here.

Appendix 3.1

Specific points arising from the a p p l i c a t i o n o f

the an aly ti ca l fra mew ork t o na t i o na l f o re s i g h t
exercis es
The purpose here is to exhibit specific information that leads to the broad lessons
set out above; these points offer particular insights for the newcomer and should
help in the development of foresight activity. Naturally, the interpretation of the
information collected is idiosyncratic and other interpretations are possible; the
reader should note this point and use his or her own judgement in interpreting
both the detailed information and broad lessons for use in their situation. What
has already been set out in the broad lessons and what follows is intended to
give guidance; it is not in any sense prescriptive. The information is derived
from both the notions of a portrait and a photograph. The pattern follows that
of the analytical framework.

Step 1 – Coalition building

1 Coalition building is crucial to starting a national foresight exercise but
is, in most instances, hidden and quickly forgotten once a programme
has started. Tracing the actors involved and their influence is difficult,
particularly so for programmes that evolve within government ministries
where secrecy may be evident and may lead to multiple histories of
events
2 It was revealed that the need to employ ‘new’ policy instruments for
what are perceived to be ‘new’ policy challenges was the main reason for
embarking on a foresight programme. For example, in Japan a policy was
 Institutional foresight  105

adopted in the 1970s to promote a change from a dependence on importing

technology to developing innovative technologies internally. The same
reasoning was employed in Austria more than 20 years later. In Germany,
reunification led to severe budget restraints that required a more efficient
way of financing research programmes. Budget constraints partially drove
the creation of the first UK programme, where foresight was viewed as one
instrument for achieving better coordination of the country’s considerable
public expenditure on R&D. In Hungary, the transition to a market
economy saw experts and policy makers increasingly involved in studying
various approaches to innovation policy
3 ‘Foresight champions’ within government ministries were important in
getting programmes launched. These people gained awareness of foresight
through international forums and through advisers in their own countries
(the latter is exemplified in Germany, where one or two people in the FhG-
ISI had considerable influence in persuading the BMFT and its successor
of the merits of foresight)
4 Foresight champions often met resistance from others in their ministries
and from other government departments
5 Opposition has waned and foresight champions now need to keep
‘unrealistic’ expectations in check
6 Foresight champions commonly use a feasibility study to convince others
of the merits of a foresight programme; the study often uses ‘experts’ from
other countries to conduct the programme. For example, US pioneers of
technology forecasting gave invited lectures in Japan during the late 1960s
convincing senior industrialists that a comprehensive Delphi exercise
would identify fields of research relevant to Japan’s technological future.
Later, in Germany cooperation with Japan was an important factor in
persuading ministers of the benefits of a similar study employing Japanese
experience. Later, in the UK, a foresight scoping study, conducted by
UK experts assisted by their German counterparts, was important in
persuading ministers to include reference to a foresight programme in the
1993 White Paper relating to science and technology. Where a formal
feasibility study has not been conducted, e.g. Austria and Hungary,
informal advice was sought from foreign experts, which shaped the nature
of these programmes
7 Newcomers to national foresight programmes have much experience to
draw on from other countries, e.g. Japan where the five-year STA forecasts
are now conducted as a matter of course. The forecasts have, in a sense,
become ‘routine’
8 The explosion in national Foresight activities during the mid-1990s means
that a number of countries have now acquired considerable experience in
the area and this is shaping their subsequent activities
9 The role of experts in designing programmes and in participation, has
diminished, as more people have sought to own these exercises. In Germany,
106  Systems and foresight

criticism that the early programmes were restricted to ‘experts’ has led to
the new Futur programme which was designed to broaden participation
through innovations in the approach taken. Similarly, the wealth creation
and quality of life rationale of the first UK Foresight Programme has been
succeeded by a greater emphasis on quality of life and sustainability issues;
the problem-oriented approach now in use is an attempt to move away
from disciplinary science and industrial sector panels.

Step 2 – Sponsorship
10 Sponsors tend to be government departments where the programme
originated though they may not perform it. Often the work is contracted
out to national academies, industry groups, private consultants and
academic groups
11 Sponsors are invariably represented on steering committees so as to keep
a watchful eye on progress
12 The extent of contracting out, and its associated costs, depends upon the
methods to be employed
13 Sometimes government departments or agencies are not the main
sponsoring organisations. For example, in Portugal, Sweden and Finland,
industrial federations and learned societies have been the sponsors
14 Spreading the costs and effort has become more popular. In both the
German Futur programme and the current UK Foresight Programme other
agencies have become co-sponsors. For instance, in the second round of
the UK programme, the Home Office, with its law and order brief, has
provided the resources for a Crime Prevention Panel. Recently (2007) the
UK’s OSI continues to use a department-sponsored, problem-oriented,
pseudo-interdisciplinary approach that inevitably becomes reductionist.
In other countries, such as France, Finland and the Netherlands, more
than one government agency has sponsored separate exercises, sometimes
at the same time
15 Official sponsors are only part of the story. Programmes usually require
underwriting by hundreds of organisations that provide human resources
for panels, workshops, answering questionnaires and other tasks, while if a
proactive implementation strategy is pursued then participation becomes a
long-term undertaking. Put simply, many organisations effectively sponsor
national foresight studies, usually over an indefinite time period. For
example, officials estimate the 1994–5 UK programme to have cost around
£1.5 million per annum since 1994 yet informal contributions from other
Programme participants have probably been ten times this amount.
 Institutional foresight  107

Step 3 – Objectives
16 Objectives range from the catch-all goals of improvements in wealth
creation and quality of life to day-to-day milestones set by programme
managers. The latter are essential to ensure the exercise has both
credibility and legitimacy with its audience but are rarely made explicit by
the programme managers
17 Objectives tend to be set with little thought about verification; typically
they are more specific than those mentioned in 16 above
18 Three key objectives that underpin most national exercises are to:
• Inform national science, technology and innovation policy planning
by providing guidelines that can be used for priority setting. The
expectation is that these guidelines will arise from increased awareness
of future trends or forces shaping the long-term future in markets,
science and technology (S&T), and national strengths and weaknesses
in S&T and business. Recommendations may identify areas where
national expertise needs to be built or where national economic
competitiveness needs to be improved, reflecting governments’ ‘new’
reasons for public support of S&T and industrial innovation
• Encourage long-term strategic thinking amongst a wide range of
actors, drawing upon an assessment of strengths and weaknesses,
and opportunities and threats, to provide enterprises with guidelines
for activities in S&T, as well as the strategic intelligence to respond
flexibly to changes
• Encourage the development of better innovation systems, by improving
cooperation and strengthening relationships and partnerships
through the development of networks between business, science and
government officials. Expansive claims are made for the importance
of networks as foresight process benefits, that programme managers
seek to exploit, but these claims should be regarded with caution as
concrete outcomes are not assured.
19 Other objectives may be specific to a country. For example, the Hungarians
viewed their programme as a support to accession to the EU. The Spanish
hoped that foresight would help them to improve their presence in
European research programmes and institutions. Some exercises have
been overtly experimental and have sought to learn from experience, so as
to develop foresight ‘capabilities’, e.g. the German and French uses of the
Japanese Delphi, while the Spanish ‘preliminary’ exercise, conducted in
1994–5, would also seem to fall into this category. Finally, in a move from
learning to innovation, the 1998 German Delphi had as one of its stated
objectives the development of foresight methodology
20 Foresight objectives are mostly concerned with S&T issues, reflecting
the position of programme sponsors in governments. Engagement with
companies reflects the ‘new’ rationale for the public support of S&T
108  Systems and foresight

21 Recommendations from foresight studies in non-S&T matters pose a

challenge to policy makers in S&T and other ministries. The Netherlands,
Sweden and Austria have broadened the scope of their studies by setting
more socially oriented objectives, a step followed in the 1999–2000 UK
Programme and its successor, which has opted for a more problem-oriented
(as opposed to a technology- or market-driven) approach
22 Widespread adoption of foresight studies promotes the co-evolution of
social and technological themes as they become more complicated in what
they set out to achieve.

Step 4 – Scope
Foresight studies should:

23 Question whether their orientation should be mainly toward S&T

or whether they should have a techno-economic or socio-technical
orientation. In the latest German and UK programmes, the shift toward
problem-oriented programmes and workshops is symptomatic of a tendency
toward matters relating to the wider polity
24 Create a number of distinct sectors of study (this is a management
feature). While this is a highly political decision, interested parties will
lobby programme managers or any steering committee to ensure inclusion
of their particular interests
25 Be organised around a limited number of expert/stakeholder panels.
In more recent exercises, the number and identity of fields is not fixed
but emerges as the programme evolves. The German Futur programme
is planned this way. The 1999–2000 UK Programme contained similar
elements with panels able to create ‘task forces’ to extend their reach and
to capture cross-sector issues. I have already referred to the most recent
shift in the UK towards problem-oriented studies
26 Time horizons are important: the average seems to be around 10–15
years, but may be as long as 30 or as short as 5 years. Those programmes
that include an explicit post-consultation and implementation phase,
have a 5–10 year time horizon, even if the stated time horizon is
significantly longer (5–10 years is at the edge of political and company
time horizons)
27 Enable participation from a wide spectrum of people and organisations;
this is a central concern of programme managers, because of a perceived
need to produce results that are widely considered to be robust and
capable of implementation. Experience focuses on the relative role
of experts and broader stakeholders (many of the latter are considered
non-expert if only scientific or market criteria of expertise are included).
Experts in these terms tend to be white, middle-class, middle-aged men,
so that other ages, classes, races and gender are often excluded. The
 Institutional foresight  109

evidence indicates that use of the Delphi process may unwittingly have
reinforced this discrimination, which is properly laid at the door of the
participant-seeking process and not the subsequent one of seeking opinion.
The Austrian programme circumvented this problem by incorporating
multidimensional concepts of expertise, relating to scientific-technological
knowledge, socio-cultural matters, economics, politics, administration,
area-specific practical knowledge, user-perspectives, interest organisations
and NGOs. The German Futur programme is similar in scope. Foresight is
not a scientific activity but it is important for it to be seen to be free from
prejudice to engender widespread credibility
28 Participation is linked to the target audience for a particular foresight
exercise.

St ep 5 – Research elements and the methods

employed
29 The choice of methods ultimately resides with the sponsor, as advised by
steering groups and external contractors as necessary. Changes are afoot;
the Futur programme involved different organisers responsible for selecting
the research elements and methods in what has been described as a self-
learning exercise; final decisions resided with the BMBF. An evaluation of
the programme has been made (Cuhls and Georghiou 2004)
30 Earlier foresight processes employed by the Dutch Ministry of Education
gave panels the discretion to choose their own methods, a path followed
in the 1999–2000 UK Programme. The change in the UK approach can
be traced, in part, to the political criticisms levelled at the methods, such
as the Delphi, employed in the first round, even though it remained one
of the most frequently consulted documents six years later in 2001, as well
as a belief in the power of the Internet driven ‘Knowledge Pool’, which
proved subsequently to be of dubious value, except as a notice board
31 The main limitation of giving panels too much autonomy lies in the
integration of the outcomes and later in priority setting
32 In brief, the methods most commonly used in foresight programmes,
according to the tasks each perform are:
(i) Scoping studies tend to get ‘experts’ (whether foreign or home-
grown) to (a) review foresight experiences elsewhere, (b) provide an
overview of the national research system, and (c) arrive at possible
options for a national foresight exercise. Sensitive choice of methods
is needed because of the role played by scoping studies (see Step
1). The methods used include desk-based literature searches, visits
to other countries and interviews with key actors in the research
system. For repeat programmes, a scoping study is often carried out
to make use of growing internal and external experience
110  Systems and foresight

(ii) Identification of participants is not straightforward; much depends

on the extent and nature of the consultation process to be used
later. For example, all survey methods require a large a body of
‘expert’ respondents. Creation of expert panels has many pitfalls and
requires much care for success. In both situations, the reliability of
the conventional process of recommendation by key organisations,
such as professional societies, industry associations and government
departments or the use of pre-existing databases, is questionable. The
most rigorous and ambitious method of participant identification is
co-nomination, first used in the 1994–5 UK programme and later
in South Africa and Austria. The German Futur and 1999–2000
UK programmes rely to a large extent on web-based participation;
the success of neither programme is known yet. Theoretically, the
Internet allows anyone to participate, although its effectiveness in
eliciting responses remains largely to be tested
(iii) Raising awareness is particularly important for those exercises
where a number of people are required to complete questionnaires,
such as in survey methods. In the German, Hungarian and 1994–5
UK Programmes, open seminars were held to raise awareness of what
was going on, as well as to elicit feedback on and commitment to the
planned processes. All public programmes ensure that key actors are
kept informed of progress through verbal briefings or newsletters
(iv) Bench marking assesses existing national strengths and weaknesses
in a given area. The data for this assessment can be qualitative,
relying on the opinions of key figures in a particular area through
a Delphi, or it can be quantitative, relying on bibliometrics or
comparative GERD statistics, in the case of S&T, and on any number
of competitiveness measures in the case of industry. A combination
of the two is not uncommon, with this decision often being left to
the discretion of panels
(v) Constructing scenarios and Delphi topics has nearly always been
done within panels, although the French and first German Delphi
exercises directly translated the topic statements from the Japanese.
In South Africa macro-scenarios were used to guide panels in their
deliberations while the Austrian and 1998 German Delphi exercises
sought opinions on Megatrends
(vi) Wide consultation led to the adoption of the Delphi method in
Japan, Germany, France, the UK, South Africa, Austria, Hungary and
Spain. Workshops and seminars, as used in Australia and elsewhere,
are a common form of consultation in the wider community;
scenarios and brainstorming are the dominant methods used. Use
of the Internet in the 1999–2000 UK and German programmes is
intended to increase the involvement of the wider community
 Institutional foresight  111

(vii) Priority setting involves complex judgements that lead panels into
voting procedures to rank possible activities. While there is an
appearance of method, this is not often applied rigorously because
of the complicated nature of the ranking criteria which have a
similarity to SWOT analysis. The desirability of weighting these
criteria, whilst recognised, is rarely, if ever, carried out
(viii) Dissemination by written reports, workshops and presentations
can be assisted by the awareness strategy ((iii) above) and wide
consultation, since these create a receptive audience for a
programme’s outcome. Experience shows that dissemination, in
even well-publicised programmes, enjoys only limited recognition so
that it becomes a long-term activity involving a different brand of
‘foresight champion’.

Step 6 – Reflexivity: evaluation and monitoring

33 Very few traditional evaluations have been carried out on national foresight
studies. In most countries foresight was a new policy tool and its influence
was not well understood
34 Programme managers have difficulty in modelling foresight’s impact trails
so evaluation has been considered impractical and the attitude has been
‘wait and see.’ But see 33 above
35 The few ex-post evaluations that have been carried out were based on
simple questionnaire surveys. The situation is changing now as the
1999–2000 UK Foresight Programme and the German Futur programme
both incorporate evaluation capabilities. Evaluations have been made
of the Futur programme (Cuhls and Georghiou 2004) and of the UK
programme (Anon 2006). The emphasis in both cases is on learning as
well as accountability and effectiveness, reflecting the uncertainty about
impact trails and the fuzziness of long-term attribution
36 The high profile and, at least in the UK case, the pervasiveness of
foresight, has meant that the calls for evaluation have grown so loud and
so widespread, that programme managers now consider it to be a core task,
demanding considerable attention and funding
37 Quality controls (whether an exercise is said to be ‘delivering’) have tended
to draw on comparisons with international studies and the expectations of
key actors as their referents. Value (or otherwise) has tended to be assigned
to exercises through the views expressed by their audiences, although few
systematic approaches have been employed to elicit these views. Indeed,
most of this ‘evidence’ is anecdotal although some countries, such as
Germany, have organised specific workshops to elicit feedback on the
approaches used and their impacts
38 Milestones need to be set throughout the life of a study, particularly
during the more intensive consultation phases; milestones are intrinsic to
112  Systems and foresight

a study and depend on the methods used. Typically, milestones are laid
out in project plans that are usually widely distributed to those closely
involved in a study, so that its overall rationality is clear and progress is
easily measured
39 Milestones can also arise externally as in the UK where, in 1994–5,
ministers demanded that priorities be identified in time for inclusion in
the annually published Forward Look for S&T; this can lead to tasks being
rushed, although such externally imposed milestones can also have the
benefit of concentrating minds
40 Reporting lines are important for clear project management. In studies
sponsored by a government ministry it appoints (a) a relatively independent
steering committee to guide the overall programme strategy (although
this may be dominated by senior officials) and (b) a small unit of officials
to take care of day-to-day operations. The latter tends to be answerable
to both the ministry and the steering committee, and is often the official
conduit between expert panels, the ministry and steering committee
41 Expert panels are commonly given milestones with progress towards them
reported at regular intervals in written or oral reports. A hierarchy of
reporting lines, from the panels at the bottom to the ministry at the top,
seems to be the norm. However, this view is simplistic; most participants
in a foresight study are volunteers who commonly expect something in
return for their time and efforts – this may simply be the credit attached
to panel membership or the opportunities offered by being ‘on the inside’.
However, in the 1994–5 UK Programme these volunteers made demands
for action on their findings and thus became customers for government
commitment to implementation. Ministers and senior officials were called
upon time and again to report what the government intended to do about
this or that issue.

Step 7 – Resources
42 Foresight studies can be expensive, particularly if an active implementation
strategy is to be followed
43 The German Delphi exercises have cost between 1–1.8 million DM, whilst
the first UK Foresight Programme cost around £1.5 million per annum.
Data for the other programmes is not available, but resource constraints
are known to have been a limiting factor in some cases
44 Consultation periods are the most resource intensive, particularly in human
terms. Normally, workshops and questionnaires have to be organised and
the wider participant resource must also be managed. Thus, the normal
complement of five or six core staff in a foresight unit can easily increase
temporarily to more than twenty staff (including outside contractors)
45 It remains unclear whether the use of the Internet in foresight programmes
will have any impact on their costs.
 Institutional foresight  113

Step 8 – Programme Level

46 All the programmes to which the analytical framework has been applied
were national ones, though international comparisons pervade them all.
Most studies have little to say about outcomes for the regions.

Step 9 – Nature of Intervention

47 Intervention simply refers to activities undertaken in response to the
outputs of a foresight study
48 Concrete outputs refer to critical technology lists, priorities, recommenda­
tions, scenarios and written accounts of future trends and issues
49 How and why organisations have made use of the outcomes from a foresight
programme is not readily apparent, nor is assessing it a straightforward task
(see Step 6). The much-vaunted ‘process’ benefits of foresight are even
less clear
50 Programme managers must, in some sense, act as social programmers by
stating the anticipated impacts of an exercise so they will commonly seek
to shape a programme’s outputs according to the perceived needs of a
given audience
51 In some studies, such as in the Netherlands, this social programming
is devolved to the panels themselves, though the same devolution also
occurred during the implementation phases of the (supposedly) more
dirigiste 1994–5 UK Programme
52 Studies that claim to be non-interventionist include the Japanese,
German and French Delphi studies, where there was neither strategic
implementation, nor priority setting, nor binding decisions based on the
outcomes; the aim was for organisations to decide for themselves their own
technological priorities
53 It can be argued that foresight studies are weak, directive policy instruments,
which is where the process benefits of taking part become significant, since
actors choose of their own accord to utilise the outputs or methodologies
in their own organisational settings
54 Some studies have been openly interventionist, most notably the UK
Programme, which employed more people during the Programme’s
implementation phases than during the consultation phase. However,
neither officials nor panel members could ignore the existing dynamics at
work in the innovation landscape and Programme activities have sought to
fit with these wherever possible through complex processes of negotiation.

Step 10 – Outcomes
55 Foresight activities can generate widely differing expectations of the
process itself and the outputs generated vis-à-vis the national innovation
114  Systems and foresight

landscape. Most of these can be accommodated within foresight, which

is one of the main strengths of the process, but some expectations can be
overly optimistic and should be kept in check.

Step 11 – Renewal
56 Although taking considerable time to bring together, the production of
critical technology lists and the publication of the results of major Delphi-
style studies tend not to be followed by a proactive interventionist agenda.
In a sense, these can be thought of as projects rather than programmes,
where an example of the latter is perhaps best demonstrated by the UK
Programme
57 Programmes need to be repackaged periodically to maintain momentum
and retain the interest of target audiences; this is perhaps the main reason
for repeating foresight exercises every five years or so, though it is often
claimed that rapid technological change demands it.
Ch a p t e r 4
Fo re sigh t i n i n d u s t ry

Indecision, n: The chief element of success; ‘for whereas,’ saith Sir Thomas
Brewbold, ‘there is but one way to do nothing and divers ways to do something,
whereof, to a surety, only one is the right way, it followeth that he who from
indecision standeth still hath not so many chances of going astray as he who
pusheth forwards’
The Devil’s Dictionary

How and why does foresight in industry differ from its institutional counterpart
in the public domain? In this chapter I shall draw extensively on papers I wrote
from the 1970s onwards to answer these two questions. All companies practice
foresight, and have always done so, though not necessarily as a formal activity
conducted by a recognisable ‘department’ shown in its organisation chart. To
industry and business, which I shall refer to under the simple word ‘business’,
anticipation (or foresight) is the basis of successful continuity and always has
been; it is not a newly discovered or optional activity. I make no apology for
the sometimes heavy influence of personal experience from nearly 45 years in
business and industrial research.
No one in business would claim more than that foresight has been, is and
will remain a fundamental activity. Equally, no one would expect management
anticipation to lead always to happy and advantageous outcomes; no form of
anticipation is risk free because the future is unknowable on even the shortest
time horizon. Company policy, strategy and tactics, in all the many aspects
of business, depend on foresight, since all business activity is future oriented.
No company can conduct its business in the past, though many conduct their
business on the basis of the past, relying on the momentum it has generated
to persist long into the future. The consequences of this procedure begin my
reflections on foresight in business. Businesses always have to remember that
they exist to serve some perceived or actual need in the polity; without that the
business will cease or it must go through the arduous and uncertain process of
reinventing itself.
After World War II company planning was influenced by notions of model
building that evolved from operational research; it frequently resembled a
Cartesian process. The post-war environment of shortages encouraged the
116  Systems and foresight

belief in straightforward production planning despite the political uncertainties

of the ‘cold war’ and the ever-threatening background of nuclear Armageddon.
Impartial planning frameworks and certainty of their outcome were expected,
rather than the reality of dealing with the aggregations of overt and covert
ambitions, and agendas of innumerable people of greater or lesser power within
and outside an organisation. Throughout the 1940s, 1950s and the early 1960s
this form of semi-Cartesian logic was sufficient in spite of fractious industrial
relations in many countries and the presence or dominance of self-interest,
typified by the UK’s ‘I’m all right Jack’ paradigm, in society. The late 1960s
onwards saw the collapse of this form of certainty for many different reasons,
and not simply the oil crisis that followed the Yom Kippur war in October
1973. The oil shortage and price hikes that followed in 1974 and 1979, may
have brought one kind of uncertainty, but the development of pressure and
single issue groups, in the USA, Europe and globally, changed the shape of
the business and regulatory environment in ways that were totally unexpected
by many corporations. International terrorism strode onto the world stage to
introduce another kind of uncertainty as many companies found to their cost.
The aftermath of the 1968 student campus riots in the USA and in France
continued to leave their mark. For many people their ideas concerning loyalty
to their company were rudely altered by a merger boom, which started in 1966
and has continued unabated ever since. Individual expectations also changed
in the OECD countries. The immediate post-war age cohort and their
children grew up in a changing world in which travel, communications and
the absence of want (for many but not all people) created a totally different
ambience to the 1930s, the era from which their parents had come. These
expectations are now widespread throughout humankind. At that time it was
easy to recognise that business and the global economy were in the midst of
major changes, that many people related to the Kondratieff cycle (Chapter
2). Many of these changes were dwelt on by Toffler in a series of racy books
(Toffler 1970, 1980, 1990). By the late 1970s, it was incontrovertible that
some new, major generic technologies were beginning to reshape business.
Some contrary trends came into play with the publication of Limits to Growth
(Meadows et al. 1972) with its multifaceted foresight concerning the Earth’s
future, accompanied by the long running need, under the pressure of a new
and aggressive takeover boom, for companies to become leaner and fitter to
raise value for shareholders. An article in the Sunday Times in 1986 identified
this trend with a condition called ‘anorexia industrialosia’ (MacDonald 1986)
describing it as ‘the then current “whiz-kids” … milking dry the brilliant
endeavours of past generations of entrepreneurs, without any attempt to
invest in new products (or processes and markets).’ To these whiz-kids only
short-term results and profits mattered. Competitive position, market share,
and research and development were irrelevant. It is this approach, all in the
name of rationality and prudent management, more than any other, that
caused, in MacDonald’s opinion, Britain’s economic decline. The condition
 Foresight in industry  117

persisted, and still does in an accentuated form ‘from the starvation of skills
as demographic change bites.’ It was also possible, from the long-wave theory,
to anticipate a long-running revival of the world’s economy from the early
1990s (Loveridge 1988: 689). For business these indications had and still
have a story to tell, as globalisation, demographic change and shifts in the
distribution of skills bring eastward rearrangements in industrial power and
world markets, events that have long been anticipated in industry but not in
political circles, which in 2007, largely remain in a state of denial.
Foresight in business must avoid the attitude expressed in the phrase ‘jam to-
morrow and jam yesterday, but never jam to-day’ if it is to make a contribution
to securing the future profits and positive cash flow essential to successful
continuity. There will be no ‘jam to-morrow’ unless today can be navigated
successfully, a simple dictum that has often been forgotten and was much in
evidence during the dot-com bubble around the millennium. As an aside, even
governments need to pay attention to this attitude in all they do; the public
purse is not bottomless nor is currency invulnerable. Along with most people
I had used the word foresight haphazardly in conversation until, in 1974 it
took on a different significance during a conversation with Clive Simmonds, a
meaning that became firmly attached to business.
The business world is always disorderly, a characteristic of human events
that are embedded in a natural world of an equally disorderly nature. For this
reason, in business, foresight helps to ensure the successful continuity of the
business in a disorderly world, through being highly focused on an individual
business’s needs. If formal, and sometimes referred to as rational, planning
remains a controversial activity in business the role of foresight should be to
identify well ahead of time:

• Possible changes in the business environment

• Things to do and things to avoid (the first may be more exciting but the
latter may be more important to successful continuity).

Through foresight, businesses expect concrete outcomes that can be

implemented to create competitive advantage and improved market power,
and through these to contribute toward ensuring successful continuity, by
helping to ensure a positive cash flow and future profits. Interest, if any, in the
outcome of institutional Foresight programmes will reflect these objectives.
For these reasons foresight in business needs to be concerned with the three
‘R’s:

• Relevance – the processes through which a business relates to the ‘world’

in which it works and the processes that it uses in its interrelationships
• Reasonableness – the extent to which it is reasonable to extend what
is known of that world in all the STEEPV themes into what is likely to
become known over any given time horizon
118  Systems and foresight

• Robustness – the extent to which alternative courses of action, arising from

the above interrelated factors, are: able to withstand the inevitable impact
of influences arising in an unknowable future; understandable by and
acceptable to all the stakeholders concerned; and relatively insensitive to
delay: an alternative requiring exactness in implementation to be effective
is, in this sense, not robust.

The time horizon of any foresight activity has then to be related to

implementation appropriate to securing a business’s future position. No
single time horizon is likely to be acceptable, as both short-term and long-
term objectives have to be met in the interests of the shareholders to whom
a company has legal responsibilities. Indeed, short-term activity will be
embedded knowingly or unknowingly in the business’s long-term survival.
The latter place constraints on businesses, limiting their ability to proceed
with all the opportunities that their foresight activity might throw up,
making responses to threats to the continuity of their business an essential
preoccupation. In business there tends to be a dual view of time horizons;
short horizons up to about five years will be controlled almost entirely by
immediate interests. For long horizons of 20 years or more many, but not all,
businesses are more relaxed in their willingness to enter open debate. The
difficult area is around ten years, particularly for businesses whose activities
involve much expenditure on R&D or the need to meet various forms of
extended regulatory approval.
For a company’s foresight, whatever its genus, must lead to concrete
developments related to its business, whatever forms these may take,
clearly an all-embracing requirement. Whilst the most obvious and the
most welcome outcomes are those likely to ensure, as far as can be the case,
successful continuity, there are many others that are less flamboyant. Two
key characteristics of foresight in business have already been indicated, the
exciting one of indicating new activities to be embarked upon (often typified
by an unwise and risky ‘can do’ mentality) and the equally important messages
about activities to avoid. The message which says ‘for heaven’s sake don’t do
that’ can literally save companies from extinction, but more frequently such
warnings can be very valuable in avoiding potentially damaging situations.
How both kinds of message are received and acted upon depends forcefully
on a company’s internal power structure and its perception of its market
power.
It is very easy to get excited about the first of these benefits particularly if
it involves markets where everything is new. The situation can be illustrated
con­veniently in what might be called ‘the business cube’, illustrated in
Figure 4.1.
The cube illustrates a clear movement of a business’s activity from its
current and conventional form in the uppermost left-hand corner toward more
extreme departures from these as the lower right-hand corner is approached.
 Foresight in industry  119

e
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Figure 4.1 Business cube: an illustration of the need for foresight in business

In the extreme, new generic technology, new markets and new processes,
bring with them the need for radical change within a company and possibly an
entire reorganisation into a new form of company oriented towards a different
business field, an event that is more frequent than is commonly supposed. It is
the stuff that gets entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, and business and management
school lecturers excited; the first two because they know they are going to
do something, the latter because after the event they think they know how
something was done and wish to record their ‘view’ about it for posterity in a
highly stylised and rationalised way that is influenced by hindsight. Nokia and
Hoover are just two examples of businesses reinventing themselves. However,
very few radical ideas actually get to this point as most business’s boards of
directors are understandably very cautious about embarking on radical change
and know how hazardous it can be to successful continuity; often boards of
directors are simply not in a position to embark on such activity through either
legal restraints or within-business capability.
The second aspect of foresight, typified by warnings of what to avoid, is
very interesting to business even if it seems less exciting. Such warnings are
120  Systems and foresight

not necessarily in the mould of putting the brakes on everything, nor are they
of the ilk of Peters and Waterman’s (1982) ‘stick to the knitting’ which drives
thoughtful managers to distraction because of its stagnating implications. When
foresight provides warnings, indicating the need for a business to ‘be careful’,
the effect is probably more important in making a company profitable (it is)
than radical change. However, these warnings are not nearly as exciting as
developing something new; that will cost a lot of money with great uncertainty
in the outcome; that will take the company into business areas that it may be
new to (and may not understand very well) and into markets where it does not
have a presence.
Clearly, for industry, foresight is a paradox. It is simultaneously a necessity and
a nuisance, depending on managerial attitudes, introducing, as it does, notions
of uncertainty, risk and indecision about investment in new markets, products
and processes, and all their associated nuances and influences. Uncertainty
remains anathema in industry even though it pervades the conduct of business
and always has. Just as certain, is that many a company chairman has little
time for ‘people peering into the future’, a view that exhibits an inbuilt myopia.
Foresight in business helps to ‘create the brisk and confident stride towards a
strategic vision, and creates the endurance to reach it’ (Loveridge 1988: 679).
The vision has to be ‘disciplined and not daydream’ (Haig 1984) and its value
lies in creating a ‘… [business] of the future [that] will differ significantly if it
is approached through a series of short, halting and apparently random steps
by comparison with the brisker stride towards a longer-term vision’ (Loveridge
1988: 679).
Foresight has always taken place across all business activity, including those
elements of the STEEPV set that are relevant. Indeed, it is not an option:
it is expected. It is as important for a business to understand, influence and
anticipate changes in regulation, and company and trade law as it is to anticipate
movements in science, technology and markets. None of these activities are (or
ought not to be) seen as being independent of any other part. In addition, the
international dimension is taken for granted; those businesses that can do so
have always sought to anticipate international developments that are likely to
influence their aim of successful continuity. Businesses, whatever their focus
and turnover [a measure of their size] expect foresight to be international in
its context and content, and that international expertise will be sought under
negotiated terms where necessary. However, business policy will limit the
scope of its foresight activity to those areas of current or potential interest,
the essential aspect of its context. For this reason, prioritisation, with all its
vagaries (Chapter 2), figures strongly in the implementation of the outcome of
any business foresight activity.
The massive interest in foresight in business is evidenced from the frequency
with which consultants and other advisers are commissioned, either for
company studies or for shared multi-client ones, to provide business with views
about the changing business environment and many other matters. Public
 Foresight in industry  121

knowledge of the outcome is often limited by the needs of confidentiality to

secure a market advantage: by Stock Exchange rules whenever price-sensitive
information is involved, especially in instances of merger and acquisition
activity, or simply because a company regards a report as ‘its property’ even
when it is innocuous. Where foresight activity is known publicly, its content
is only revealed to the extent that it seems unlikely to compromise the
company’s business, a judgement in itself. Most public are those occasions
when companies have lacked foresight spectacularly, with outcomes that
have figured prominently in after-dinner speeches and business school courses
after a good deal of rationalised hindsight. However, Whitehead’s dictum
about the welter in which foresight takes place should never be forgotten
(Whitehead 1933: 94). By contrast, the very success of foresight means that
it is rarely recognised publicly. The classic case is Shell International’s widely
known scenario planning activity (it will be referred to again in Chapter 6).
Much of the scenario content is made known publicly (via Shell’s website),
but much important detail is not revealed for understandable reasons. Similar
comments apply to work at General Electric in the USA, Daimler-Benz and
many other companies. British Petroleum (BP) publishes probably the most
exhaustive energy review. On the edge of the corporate world, industry sector
working groups, assembled by companies, and multi-client studies carried
out by major consultancies, have been published from time to time, but not
always in their entirety. Examples are evident in the global microelectronic
industry, computer systems, aerospace and under the general umbrella of
‘critical technologies’. The ‘Home of the Future’ project, that ran in the UK
from 1988 to 1991 and involved 16 major companies, is another example
that has been largely unpublished. More openly, SEMATECH, a grouping of
the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturers, publishes an international
Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors from time to time. In the UK
government’s second and third Foresight Programmes, which began in April
1999 and 2002 respectively, associate programmes were created, and these
may also lie on the edge of the corporate world. However, the ever-present
need for corporate security restricts corporate freedom to communicate their
findings while there will be concerns, among participating companies, about
jeopardising intellectual property rights; much will depend on the study time
horizon for the reasons described earlier.
There is no lack of evidence, first, for the existence of foresight activity
in industry, without it Sir Thomas Brewbold’s dictum for inactivity will
certainly gain credence (a form of the Lemming phenomenon); and second,
of the usefulness of the activity in industry’s terms. However, there is a curious
paradox about business’s attitude toward foresight style reports prepared by
consultants, with or without its support. Much of the content of these reports
is already known to business so that their purpose must be for some other use
than ensuring successful continuity.
122  Systems and foresight

It is now time to look more specifically at industry foresight activity which

may be thought of as encompassing, though not with clear distinctions, the
following:

• Functional, involving:
• Marketing
• Research & Development
• Intellectual property, licensing and patenting
• Law and regulation
• Public relations and corporate issue management
• Science and technology ‘watch’
• Corporate venturing and new business creation
• Purposive, involving:
• Merger and acquisition (M&A) activity
• Competitiveness
• Market development
• Product & process development
• S&T acquisition and outward licensing strategy
• Creating and maintaining business momentum
• Exploratory R&D and collaboration with universities
• Organisation development
• Formal activity, involving:
• Participation in national studies
• Participation in EU projects
• Industry issue groups including regulation development.

Functional foresight is multifaceted anticipation, pure and simple, involving

an interactive set of activities as indicated above, though in companies it will not
be thought of under that title. In marketing, anticipation of what products and
services people may prefer to the money in their pockets (von Mises 1949: 97) is a
nontrivial task. Those anticipations can be guided by and responded to from the
company’s knowledge base created, in part, by its R&D activity and augmented
by continuing appreciation of the directions being taken by relevant science and
technology, the ‘watch’ or intelligence function that is so often neglected. None
of these matters should escape the attention of those concerned with protection
and exploitation of a business’s intellectual property where again foresight is
needed to anticipate how that protection might be circumvented by others and
how patents, their own and others in the public domain, can be exploited by
the company. Law and regulation form a bridge between the foregoing activities
and corporate venturing for new business creation, public relations and issue
management. Not only must those concerned with law and regulation keep
the company out of trouble (there are classic examples of failure to do so. For
example, litigation concerning asbestosis caused Johns Manville in the US to file
 Foresight in industry  123

for protection under Chapter 11 proceedings in 1982 from which it emerged in

1988), but they must also anticipate, as must the directors, issues in the public
sphere that may bring the company and its activities into disrepute or high
esteem depending on how the issue is managed. All of that requires considerable
foresight (e.g. for Shell, the disposal of the Brent Spar oil terminal; for Monsanto
the situation with GMOs; for major aircraft companies the successful regulatory
approval of Concorde flights compared with the failure to gain public acceptance
of its US rival, which was abandoned). Finally, corporate venturing, which is
perhaps the bête noire for many boards of directors, embraces all the foregoing
activities acutely. While the venturing issue may be small financially, it rarely is
politically, either internally or externally. Venturing of any form is the physical
representation of either individual or collective foresight concluding that a new
form of product, process or service presents a business opportunity that ought
to be exploited because of its relevance, reasonableness and robustness in its
relationship to ‘situations’ (see Chapters 1 and 2). Venturing is, perhaps, the
greatest paradox corporations face and where its foresight capability also faces its
sternest test. All businesses need some form of venturing capability and actual
activity to maintain their internal vitality, and the external world’s perception of
its activities as a vital entity, an important part of successful continuity. However,
in a business world where nothing succeeds like success, real or apparent failure
can be very punishing. It is the pervasive effect and discipline of this balance
between essential venturing and the public risk of failure; strictures imposed
by financial institutions of all kinds; and by shareholders and customers, that
perplex company directors in relation to venturing. The outcome can then be
to use foresight to extend the business’s momentum and to focus on defensive
measures.
The separation between functional and purposive uses of foresight in
business is a slim one; many people would say it is non-existent, a view that is
hard to demur from. However, here it enables the discussion. In practice, many
company personnel will be involved in both functional and purposive activities
underlain by foresight style activity. For purposive activity, it is the creation
of business momentum, often regarded as a fuzzy notion at best. Perhaps the
best way to think of momentum is as that distance into the future to which
the business can continue without adding any additional forms of business.
It depends on all those factors and actors that ensure repeat contracts and
business in those parts of the business cube that define existing conventional
activity. Vulnerability arises from the uncomfortable notion that repeat orders
may not be forthcoming; an indication that immediately forces a company’s
attention on creating additional business. The other activities listed earlier
under the purposive heading are the tools that a company can turn to.
Merger with another company or acquisition of one can increase a company’s
market presence and power as well as spreading its interests into additional
fields. Merger & Acquisition activity depends as much on past as on present
competitiveness of the parties involved, while that in turn focuses on market
124  Systems and foresight

development supported by product and process development. Both of these

latter activities can depend on policies and strategies for acquiring science
and technology either through direct purchase or through inward licensing or
through merger and acquisitions. Often these steps depend on collaborative
work, based on clearly defined strategies and legal agreement, with small
companies, research institutes and universities. Lastly, much of the foregoing
requires reorganisation, a favourite managerial remedy, or development of the
organisation into a different form which requires considerable foresight relating
to external and internal social structures and dependent matters. Sketchy
though these comments may be, they give an idea of the range of matters where
foresight, not technique, is needed as a way of thinking about the matters in
hand. Mostly, none will figure in the public domain but those that follow next
will do so.
Business participation in public foresight activity, as exemplified by the
many national institutional Foresight programmes of the past two decades,
is most likely to be driven by either the self-interest of particular individuals,
who are in a position to commit company resources, or by what is perceived
as corporate self-interest. In the first instance, there are likely to be multiple
motives driving participation; some may be personal, others corporate. If a
business participates corporately in institutional Foresight the reasons may be
to gain information and insights into public research programmes or to hope
to influence the directions taken by publicly funded research programmes.
They may also hope to gain insights into what other businesses or research
institutions, including universities, are thinking in the fields of concern to the
business and possibly to create working partnerships that did not exist before,
one of the often referred to claims for institutional Foresight programmes,
though there may be antitrust considerations to take account of. The
opportunity for businesses to participate in national studies has varied greatly
from country to country. Wherever expert committees are used either for
sector panel or overall programme management, there are opportunities for
business personnel to be appointed as panel or management team members.
In some studies, the sponsors make a point of ensuring that committee
chairmen are industry appointees. Expert committees frequently appoint
working groups or task forces that offer further opportunities for business
involvement. Where conduct of the programme involves widespread opinion
seeking, possibly through surveys, there are opportunities for businesses
to contribute to it either corporately or, preferably, through individual
contributions from business personnel on their own account. The self-interest
nature of participation described above applies in all these circumstances.
Similar comments apply to participation in EU foresight projects which have,
at the time of writing, been limited in their scope.
Industry-sponsored issue groups influence the development of regulations,
such as product liability, environmental impact assessment, corporate social
responsibility and the Global Reporting Initiative where the debate is taking
 Foresight in industry  125

place globally through the World Trade Organization and also through other
regional organisations, such as the EU. The activities of the International
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fall under the same banner. Similar claims
could be made for the World Economic Forum and the negotiations regarding
intellectual property enshrined in the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects
of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). In as much as all these activities are
future oriented, and there are many others where business participation takes
place guardedly and in low key, they involve foresight, though that word might
not figure formally in the discussions that take place.
Whether business conducts foresight or not is simply a matter of semantics;
were that to be true there would be less to be concerned about. Unfortunately,
it is more than semantics that separate the foresightful business from one that
is not. Perhaps there is no better example than the tales set out by Peters and
Waterman (1982) in their famous book, but the message is not the one they
intended to convey. Rather it is one of the lack of foresight by many of the
companies they listed as ‘excellent’ that quickly fell from that lofty acclaim.
Much of all foresight, business included, depends on intelligence gathering
(not to be confused with espionage) which is a close relation to science and
technology ‘watch’. While it cannot be divorced easily from the notions of
espionage, it does not imply law breaking. Much intelligence can be gathered
from publicly available material and the use of intelligent and intuitive
behaviour; this is a philosophy close to that used by R.V. Jones during World
War II (as described in Chapter 2). It is not a fashionable approach and Dedijer
describes it as the ‘ … antithesis of the caricature of government intelligence
[gathering] (Dedijer 1978: 333)’, which is set out below.

Table 4.1  Representation of government’s intelligence organisation

• Hierarchically arranged infrastructures: agencies
• Boards, directorates, divisions, departments, committees, task-forces
• Continuous bureaucratic wars over internal pecking order
• Staff experts in all relevant subjects paid according to seniority on civil service
rates
• Compartmentalisation to secure ‘need to know’ boundaries, with
communications rigidly controlled to the ‘proper channels’ and regulated by
security rules that are constantly enforced and often penetrated by opponents
• The latest scientific and technological equipment
• Production of multiple classified outputs in all forms of media most of which are
rarely if ever lead to decisions and actions
• Engagement in ultra-secret operations that are poorly managed
• The delusion that failures are known but successes are secret whereas the
inverse is a closer approximation to reality with their outputs being known to
their opponents while remaining secret from their polity whose growth and
security is the objective of the systems existence
126  Systems and foresight

Table 2.1  Criteria of the ‘Jones method’ of intelligence gathering

• Intelligence that does not lead to informed action is of little use
• Intelligence is gathered from sources and output by subject, a transformation
that requires observation, memory, criticism and correlation of widely different
types of information that are synthesised in the output
• The larger the organisation the more difficult it becomes to perform the above
task: a small staff with great ability in the above tasks, particularly inference and
synthesis is best suited to meet these demands
• The principle of thinking simply, with frequent application of Occam’s razor, is
the key to good intelligence work, especially when dealing with experts whose
view tend to be narrow and overoptimistic, sometimes wildly so
• Recognise that your opponents, competitors and others are not omniscient and
‘all seeing:’ do not fall into the trap of believing otherwise

By contrast Jones’s principles (Table 2.1) are repeated above:

Dedijer advanced two propositions that are relevant to companies,
particularly regarding technology transfer (Dedijer 1978: 5), claiming that the
Jones doctrine:

• Is applicable to social intelligence in general

• Enables businesses to learn how other businesses affect their development
and how, in turn, they affect other businesses.

For businesses it is important to develop a broad intelligence function aimed

at social intelligence that asks:

• What may be the future impact of science and technology, and the growth
of knowledge on businesses large and small, developed and in transition?
• Is espionage of diminishing importance or simply being carried out by less
obvious means that are more widely available?
• Is economic, political, cultural and psychological intelligence at the
national level growing in importance relative to the hitherto dominance
of military intelligence? This includes, for example, the influence of the
growth of ‘knowledge industries’.

Information processed into intelligence begets knowledge (see Chapter 1),

in this instance about the world into which businesses are moving. In the sense
of the policy-strategy-tactics hierarchy (Chapter 2) this is a vital resource, so
it may seem illogical to leave this topic to the end of this chapter. Why have I
done this?
Intelligence gathering is fundamental to all foresight and not simply to the
needs of business. There are some major differences between the needs of
business and that of the public sector sponsors of institutional Foresight. These
 Foresight in industry  127

differences lie in the specific needs of business that stem from the interaction
between business momentum and successful continuity, both of which are
decreasing in the public arena. In business, intelligence must turn into action
quickly in day-to-day management, but must also build a picture of long-term
trends and identification of specific issues that may influence a business’s
world, all of which will be permeated by uncertainty. Of the two intelligence
gathering processes outlined above, business falls closest to Jones’s principles
in which gathering of intelligence is the greatest conundrum. It is here that
the notion of detecting weak signals of change becomes important using any of
the current modes of over the horizon scanning, for which the Jones method is
indispensable. What exactly is meant by over the horizon scanning (colloquially
referred to simply as scanning)?
Scanning is the Cinderella of the foresight world, which is unfortunate as it
is the basic input to the entire activity. It is a structured, but subjective process
of identifying bits of information that, taken out of their immediate context and
married with other similar or dissimilar bits of information, may be the first weak
indication of a change sometime in the future (henceforth a ‘signal of change’).
An outline of a generic scanning process is illustrated below in Figure 4.2.
Governments, through their intelligence services, have always conducted
a form of scanning, as have businesses. By contrast to the clearly bureaucratic
and heavily structured government processes, over the horizon scanning
gathers information through networks. Many of these are informal, learning
oriented, and have the essential capability of transforming apparently unrelated

Though t
and
thoughtexperiments

Meaning

Matter Media Situation

with fuzzy
boundaries
Bi
ts o ion
f informat

S g
cannin

Figure 4.2 Illustration of a notional scanning process

128  Systems and foresight

observations and memories, via criticism, correlation and synthesis of different

types of information, into output related to the business concerned. The
larger the organisation the less it is able to perform this task because of rising
bureaucracy. This means that those people involved in synthesising the output
need to be small in number, but with great ability. Scanning that is derived from
the Jones doctrine can lead to learning and the kind of broad intelligence, in
all the STEEPV themes, on which foresight depends. It also provides material
relevant to the questions framed above relating to social intelligence where the
questions may be reframed as follows:

• What may be the future impact of science and technology, and the growth
of knowledge on societies of the future?
• Is economic, political, cultural, psychological intelligence at the national
level growing in importance relative to the hitherto dominance of military
intelligence? This includes, for example, the influence of the growth of
industries, including those based on information exemplified by Google,
the World Wide Web, Ask.com, YouTube, Al Jazeera and many other
broadcasters, and government-sponsored information activity via the
Internet.

How information is processed into intelligence and begets knowledge has

been described in Chapter 1 but here I have placed emphasis on the evolution
of scanning and the anticipatory intelligence that emerges from it, which needs
to have the following questions in mind:

• What kind of global developments could be harmful and what kind

beneficial?
• How soon may these developments occur?
• What might be the first signs that these developments are happening?
• Where and how might the leading indications of impending change be
seen?
• Who is in a position anywhere to observe these indications?
• What is it worth to minimise the extent of surprise introduced by these
indications?
• Who needs to know about these impending changes?

In this context, foresight has an important role to play in indicating what to

do and what not to do, as already mentioned, and when to embark on policy
changes, and implementations.
One of the most successful scanning processes was developed by Weiner and
Brown in response to Allstate Insurance’s concerns, in the early 1970s, at the
rising costs of US health care and health insurance. In 1976, the process was
taken up by the Corporate Associates for Environmental Monitoring, under
pressure from SRI International, and adopted internally by SRI International a
 Foresight in industry  129

few years later to evolve their internal research programmes. In the early 1980s
the founders of the SRI process created the Business Futures Network that has
continued to evolve the scanning process. Other organisations including Shell,
BP, the Institute for the Future, The Global Business Network, The Henley
Centre, SRI Consulting – Business Intelligence and many other organisations,
small and large, have used their own ideas on what constitutes scanning to
provide weak signals of change that they believe need to be part of corporate
thinking. Few, if any, of these organisations have codified their practices in
public; perhaps this is unsurprising given the subjective nature of what is
involved and its potential importance for a business. Returning to Figure 4.2, a
generic scanning process for intelligence gathering, the key zone is the matter-
media-meaning loop. It is here that bits of information, chosen subjectively, are
associated and integrated in the manner of the Jones doctrine, through thought
experiments, to reveal situations with their fuzzy boundaries and equally fuzzy
web-like structures and organisation. The production of long lists of highly
specific, undifferentiated micro-ideas devoid of interrelationships and memory
is not a useful outcome of a scanning process. It is this area that needs better
understanding if foresight programmes are to become less pedestrian and less
fractured (as discussed in Chapter 1). It is also this area that raises the deeply
philosophical and subjective matter of where and how boundaries to situations
ought to be drawn to cope with the shortcomings of conventional reductionist
thinking with its Wittgensteinian overtones.

C or res pondence a nd di vergence fr o m

i n s titutional Foresi ght
Knowledge about foresight activity in business is paradoxical. Many of its
features are openly displayed piecemeal through literature, ranging over every
aspect of business; rarely is the information presented more coherently than
is required by company law in company annual reports. Learning to interpret
these documents is a skill in itself related to intelligence gathering. For these
reasons there is no strict comparison between institutional Foresight and
foresight activity in business. The use and practice of foresight in industry
and business reintroduces the notions of uncertainty and indecision about
investment in new markets, products and processes, matters that can remain
problematic in business even though they pervade the conduct of its affairs.
The value of foresight is then seen as an enabler to creating a business of the
future that has a brisk stride towards a longer term vision that, as far as that is
possible, assures successful continuity through helping to secure future profits
and alerting companies to new or possible future responsibilities. There are
correspondences and divergences between foresight in business and institutional
Foresight that lie in procedures, their purposes and in the methods used; these
will be expanded on in Chapter 5 where the thrust of the first four chapters is
drawn together.
Chapter 5
G e ne ra l i s ab l e ou t co m es

Design is really just applied foresight. It’s what you do now carefully and
responsibly to achieve what you want later
Hawken et al. 1999, ‘Natural Capitalism’

C ommen ta ry
Ought the opening quotation be the credo for the marriage of foresight to
systemic thinking? However foresight is created, those involved in it pass
through processes, either consciously or unconsciously, in forming a product in
the form of foresightful ideas with, hopefully, concrete outcomes of benefit to
a polity. In this chapter, the possibility of deriving generalisable outcomes from
foresight experience and systems thinking, in the form of a process-product
net, will be examined. With a large body of empirical studies to draw upon, it
might seem obvious that a generalised set of rules could be interpreted as ‘best
practice’. Such an outcome is not assumed. So far, foresight activity has paid
too little attention to the context in which it takes place and to the integration
of its ideas. Instead, foresight, and especially the institutional form, has dabbled
on the fringes of scenario planning.

T he ques tion of ‘ best pra ct ice’

The phrase ‘best practice’ is often bandied about amongst institutional
Foresight practitioners; it is a contentious and possibly calamitous claim. So
far real foresight has been conducted widely by individuals and small groups
outside any formal framework and in contexts that, for the most part, have
been highly individual and ad hoc. Often the outcome has been through a
form of skunk-works, a term that has more often been associated with product
development than with wider situations involving shifts in beliefs through to
law, legislation and international relations. Institutional Foresight, occurring
as it does in a different and constrained public milieu, sets out formally with
the informal intentions of real foresight, but without the ability or context in
which to mimic it. Throughout, the thinking in all forms of foresight appears
fragmented rather than systemic with its emphasis on interconnectedness. If
 Generalisable outcomes  131

the notion of ‘best practice’ is something of a fig-leaf, how ought the practices
of foresight practitioners change to make their work more relevant to situations
(Chapter 1) rather than problems given the nature of situations?
It is cautionary to begin with an example. Desk-based research is an intimate
part of foresight of any kind and always has been. However, in the early 1970s,
advertisements appeared on commercial television in the UK indicating how
computer networks would be able to unearth unusual ideas and present them
to (astonished) managers. In this way the idea of computer-based data-mining,
to produce what amounts to foresightful information arranged systematically if
not systemically, was born into the public’s mind. The claim is spurious, at least
for the foreseeable future. Its output only comes ‘alive’ through the imagination
of the human mind when associated with substantive knowledge and assessing
ability as discussed earlier (Chapter 2). Long before the UK advertisements,
Colossus, in code breaking intelligence during World War II, had enabled the
marriage of computer output to human interpretation, creating a real form of
data-mining. Until computers can ‘think for themselves’ and interact freely
and imaginatively without human intervention or direction, that is live in
their own world, the notion of computer-based foresight will remain a trans-
humanist dream. For these dreams to be recognised by humans will require
computer–human interaction to have passed the Turing test; without that
the two worlds will remain separate. However, it has to be remembered that
much foresight activity makes no use at all of formal methods, but relies on
simple intuition, induction or logical inference to identify important issues and
artefacts, some of global importance, others local. How these are brought to the
notice of the polity then becomes the focus of attention. In these circumstances
ought computer-based data-mining to become part of foresight ‘best practice’?
Varying cultural conditions alone make the notion of ‘best practice’ elusive if
not misplaced.

I ntentions of foresight
The intention of foresight of any variety is to create change through controversy.
The context can vary from global, international, national, regional or local
and in organisations such as the UN and similar global organisations, OECD,
national governments, companies, local government and so on down the size
and geographical scale. How well has it succeeded? Conventional evaluations
of institutional Foresight programmes have been conducted, but it is in their
nature only to validate the process and its immediate influences in the specified
context, the real outcomes occur years (or decades) later so that a sponsor’s
demand to know whether the programme has been ‘value for money’ cannot be
assessed over a shorter timescale. By that time the excitement the programme
generated has been forgotten and its outcomes have become muddled up with
other events. A tale of woe? No, simply the way of life. There is also a difference
between the context where real foresight (Loveridge 2001: 783) shocks, and
132  Systems and foresight

that of institutional Foresight, where its softer outcome may work its political
implications, creating possible changes in modes of thought about situations a
polity may face presented in ways that are less shocking. The difference lies in
timing. Real foresight occurs when a polity is unprepared for what is foreseen.
By comparison, institutional Foresight is more emollient and a polity is more
prepared for its outcomes. Nevertheless, to embark on an institutional Foresight
programme carries considerable risks, something I can vouch for from personal
experience, and as revealed by the analytical framework used earlier.
Institutional Foresight is more concerned with managing policy making
in government and business across many different spheres, but especially in
their major spending areas. In itself this supposes the ambitious extension of
what started as technology foresight into foresight for society as a whole, while
getting onto the slippery slope that leads into the notions of scenario planning.
Currently, there is no evidence of any government-sponsored institutional
Foresight programme having recognised the magnitude of this subtle mutation,
though it is commonplace in business, where scenario planning is used more
frequently, either formally or informally. If client-government’s expectations
have shifted unknowingly toward those associated with scenario planning,
then institutional Foresight as practiced cannot deliver what clients may be
expecting for reasons that will become obvious in Chapter 6. Despite this there
is now a well-embedded belief in governments that the ‘foresight process’ can
deliver some rather ill-defined benefits that will enhance public policy making,
by using their outcome to help formulate the creative and restrictive limits
to policy, described in Chapter 2, accompanied by the identification of the
associated levers, or policy instruments, for strategy development.

C on tex t and cont ent

In Chapter 4 I indicated that foresight is simply expected in the business world,
though it is rarely a formally recognised activity. For institutional Foresight to
have enjoyed prolonged support from governments is an achievement to be
celebrated, while the mercurial rise of such programmes across the globe can
give nothing but satisfaction to practitioners; but what of their government
sponsors? It would be a major task, and not one I shall attempt, to disentangle
from the multitude of anecdotes and formal reports whether programme
sponsors were ‘satisfied’ with the outcome. Indeed, the result might well be a
further set of anecdotes. For these reasons, the best guide may be to see how
institutional Foresight has changed over time as a guide to how sponsors, old
and new, have seen the need for the context and its premises, and the content
of the activity, to change to meet their expectations.
The context of institutional Foresight has not changed greatly in as much
as government and governmental institutions, such as the UN or the EU, have
been their sponsor. Individually, the context has shifted naturally to adapt
to the different national cultures, ideologies and geographical locations, and
 Generalisable outcomes  133

the different expectations engendered by these three factors. The different

expectations have caused the content of programmes to change frequently and
this has been reflected in the specifications of desired outcome and programme
procedures of individual country programmes, a point specifically sought
out in the framework described in Chapter 3. That framework revealed how
institutional Foresight has been practiced in many different ways, illustrated by
a simple, hypothetical, idealised taxonomy as follows (Georghiou 2001):

• First Generation: technology forecasts, driven mainly by the internal

dynamics of technology
• Second Generation: foresight in technology and markets, in which
technological development is understood in relation to its contribution to
and influence from markets
• Third Generation: in which the market perspective is enhanced by
inclusion of social factors requiring elicitation of the concerns of society.

None of the institutional Foresight programmes conducted so far conform

to any of these stereotypes but are mixtures of two or more ‘generations’. As an
aid to thinking about how the content of institutional Foresight programmes
has evolved, the taxonomy is academically interesting. Schartinger and Webber
(2007) have taken the ideas of generations of foresight in a different direction
by outlining four ‘models’ characterising the future of institutional Foresight
(ibid.: 8) as:

• A policy-informing tool: An expert-based conservative model restricted

to informing policy through thinking ahead; to be prepared for the
unexpected. The political process should be clearly separated from the
advisory foresight process
• An integral part of policy processes: The model is forward looking: strategic
support as an integral part of policy making achieved through informing
functions enabling coordination of policy making by integrating different
inputs into policy formation. It could become a standard element of
reflexivity in decision-making processes, in competition with other forms
of policy intelligence
• The model is a pacemaker and a precursor for building reflexivity into
institutional Foresight and the policy-making system: serving several
purposes simultaneously by capacity building for policy intelligence and
establishing other institutions and instruments in support of reflexive
policy making
• A tool for impact assessment through which institutional Foresight would
make impact assessments more realistic, accepting the uncertainties and
qualitative nature of the future. The model assumes that foresight assists
a technocratic assessment culture that becomes the dominant mode of
decision making.
134  Systems and foresight

Schartinger and Webber (ibid.) offered these models as ‘food for thought’.
None were mutually exclusive, but all depend on the context in which insti­
tutional Foresight is conducted. Georghiou’s three generations and Schartinger
and Webber’s four models add to what was revealed by the use of Nedeva et al.’s
(2001) analytical framework. However, there is little evidence that sponsors do
other than to specify their programmes according to their specific context and
content and involve participants according to both, but profit, where possible,
from experience elsewhere. As the quotation from Hawken et al. should remind
potential sponsors, design and foresight are tightly interrelated.
Through the 1990s the precedents set by the Japanese technology fore­
casts were widely adopted, a typical ‘follower’ strategy, so that for a time
inventiveness languished. The core part of many studies was enshrined in a
Delphi survey and copious use of expert panels; while these varied in detail
the single most important context was technology. Only in the mid- to late-
1990s was there a general recognition that wider issues from the STEEPV set
needed to be involved. Many had been included in a minor way in some of the
programmes. Only one study by the Netherlands Foresight Steering Committee
(Anon 1996), included the entire STEEPV set, a major invention. Some 31
individual foresight activities were included ranging from fundamental sciences
through newer technologies (at the micro- and nano-scales), economics,
health social studies and language, and the humanities. There has not been
another study like it since. In addition, a more traditionally organised study
in Austria (Aichholzer 2001: 739, Tichy 2001: 756) included a considerable
number of social factors. The new millennium has been mostly business-
as-usual with technology continuing to grow with the rest of the STEEPV
declining. Inventiveness surfaced again in the Czech Republic study and even
more so in the German Futur project that used an open enquiry system (Cuhls
2003: 93). Loveridge and Street. proposed ways to widen the base of people
involved in foresight programmes (Loveridge and Street. 2005: 41), but this
has not proceeded further. In the UK, government-sponsored studies returned
to a more conventional format based on specific topics, such as flood defences,
use of the electromagnetic spectrum, cognitive science and, most recently
obesity. Valuable though these studies may be, their character is essentially
reductionist; how they would fare if presented to the notional policy matrix
(illustrated in Figure 2.5) is far less clear. Much valuable and in-depth foresight
activity now takes place outside the world of institutional Foresight in truly
massive and far-reaching programmes relating to:

• medical practice involving genetics in some shape or form

• synthetic biology
• the marriage of artificial intelligence, computing power and human
intelligence
• the social understanding of behaviour
• the long-running shift away from conventional economic thinking
 Generalisable outcomes  135

• shifts in international power relations and their dependence on ‘ownership’

of essential resources, especially fuel and water
• tensions, real or apparent, between belief systems that in the Western
world were long thought to be of little or minor importance.

These are truly international situations that also have the characteristic of
reaching down to influence an individual’s behaviour, which is one reason for
placing so much emphasis on behavioural matters in earlier chapters. Nowhere
is this more apparent than in the convergence of science and technology at
the nano-scale (Loveridge et al. 2008: in press) with all its social, economic,
ecologic, political and value implications. Similar comments apply to the
continuing debate about the way in which the Earth’s climate may be going
through one of its periodic shifts to a new regime.
It is perfectly legitimate for sponsors and clients to select a specific
component of the STEEPV set, most often the ‘T’ component (technological),
as their primary interest. The reason they do probably lies in the history of
current foresight activity described earlier in the Introduction. The long-
standing desire, by no means universally shared, to apply reductionist thought
to social situations that are systemic and dynamic, has created a divergence of
considerable importance. There is a second reason for the dominance of the
‘T’ aspect that lies in the persistent belief that industrial competitiveness is
underlain by science and technology. By inference, social well-being is similarly
dependent. It is not immediately apparent that any institutional Foresight
programme is challenging or has challenged either of these presumptions at a
time when science and technology seem to have the capability to wreak change
throughout every aspect of the STEEPV set.
Narrowness in both participation and focus has been and continues to
be a major drawback in all institutional Foresight programmes (to a degree
it is inevitable in the entrepreneurial forms of real foresight). Narrow
participation is a matter of programme specification and deliberate choice
rather than an accident or inevitability. The domination of the belief in
expert opinion is the reason for this choice, an issue dealt with explicitly by
Loveridge and Street. (2005: 43). Nevertheless, it is worth remembering that
it was not expert opinion that led Shell to abandon dumping the Brent Spar
platform in the deep ocean or what caused Monsanto to make significant
changes to the introduction of genetically modified organisms, particularly
seeds that incorporated the terminator gene. The question of participation in
institutional Foresight programmes remains unresolved and largely hidden as
the polity is generally unaware of their existence. The persistent perception
of foresight as a problem-solving process, involving scientific reductionist
thinking, hampers or inhibits reference to the interrelatedness of the STEEPV
themes, their selected subsets and their chosen components. Interrelatedness
is then not pursued, though it is widely recognised to be necessary. The issue
translates into questioning the kind of model that sponsors, clients and
136  Systems and foresight

practitioners have of the real and institutional Foresight process they engage
with, a question of some moment.
The traditional procedures seem to imply a model based on a random sampling
of opinion concerning a highly selective set of regions in the landscape of the
future to facilitate policy development that, by implication, will cover a wider
situation than the information gathered really allows; no current procedure
overcomes this shortcoming though Schartinger and Webber’s suggestions depart
to a degree from this conclusion. The most recent procedures adopted by the
UK’s Office of Science and Technology (www.foresight.gov.uk) are an example
of this reductionist phenomenon in which the problem-solving approach is very
much in evidence. However thorough these and other comparable studies may
be, the absence of interrelatedness, or its limited recognition, will continue to
be a major drawback until integration of the outcomes is attempted under the
guidance of a systemic model of what is expected of institutional Foresight. An
alternative is that sponsors, clients and practitioners really believe that their
sampling procedure leads to or is based on a causal model in which the inter-
linkages are or can be established with relevance, reasonableness and robustness.
Evidence that such models are in mind and can be constructed is sparse to non-
existent. When it comes to policy formulation, it is then no surprise that, in
the absence of any model of what is expected of institutional Foresight, conflicts
between incompatible policies persist (Vickers 1972: 265). For example, the UK
allows housing developments on flood plains while aquifers continue to suffer
falling water levels causing water shortages.
In contrast, foresight and systems thinking in business must be concerned
with all those matters that influence a business’s successful continuity. Positive
cash flow and profits demand attention – without them the business will fail
however many foresightful ideas it may have about its future. There are also
new demands being placed on how businesses conduct themselves, including
corporate social responsibility (CSR), their current and future environmental
‘footprint’ following the implementation of the Global Reporting Initiative
(GRI), as well as a raft of other legal and regulatory frameworks that have
been introduced in recent decades. At present the requirements of CSR and
the GRI on business are mostly voluntary (see Chapter 7), but managing how
a business engages with current law, regulations and attempts to understand
their future possibilities has to be, and will continue so, a major preoccupation
for management, where scanning, foresight and systemic thinking have a part
to play. For business, foresight and systems thinking are not optional, but are
essential for survival, to remain solvent and relevant – two closely interrelated
conditions. Because in business foresight is simply expected, it is, in most
instances, not organised in a formal fashion, only being so in large businesses.
Given that a business is focused in a particular way, that will only reduce, not
eliminate the fuzziness of the boundaries of situations that may influence its
viability. While much of what has been said in the preceding chapters may be
shrugged off by the hard-pressed business manager as ‘not relevant’, a view
 Generalisable outcomes  137

reminiscent of Lilienfeld’s criticism (1978: 191), along with expletives that

foresight and systems thinking are activities that cannot be afforded either in
time or cost, it is likely that even the smallest business use both involuntarily
and in minimalist fashion. Some new metaphors (Gunderson and Holling 2002:
3), showing how businesses ‘fit together’, may help to expand this minimalist
activity and will be introduced shortly.
As Saritas (2006) found there is little evidence of systems thinking being
used in any kind of foresight. So far, institutional Foresight programmes have
been reported monolithically, giving their outcomes the air of an institutional
view, although this is the outcome of various forms of consultation ranging
from one-to-one discussion, opinion surveys, workshops and closed panel
discussions. Expressions of opinions by individuals and groups, and their
combination into a joint opinion is a non-trivial matter, alluded to by several
authors (Winkler and Cummings 1972: 63, Lipinski and Loveridge 1982:
220, Cooke 1991: 43, Clemen and Winkler 1999: 187), but so common is the
occurrence that complex reports are simply accepted at face value, much to
our detriment. For example, the recent report in the UK on the economic
costs and benefits of climate change (Stern and Taylor 2007) piles economic
opinion, with its gross assumptions that are now causing considerable critical
debate (Nordhaus 2007: 201, Stern and Taylor 2007: 203), on top of scientific
opinion, with its uncertainties, to make claims that do not stand up well when
examined using the NUSAP system. Indeed, this is a classic example of how
behavioural traits become enmeshed with foresight, as that is what the Stern
report is, without setting out the possibly profound influence this has on the
outcome. The combination of, for example the VALSTM1 behavioural typology,
ecological economics, the NUSAP system and subjective opinion, systemically
could pose some devastating questions to the outcome of many institutional
Foresight programmes, and much real foresight too. Not much attention has
been given to matters of these kinds to date.
It is time to reflect on some of the points that have emerged already; this is
done in Table 5.1.
It is time to move further into the interrelated issues of the narrowness of
participation, modelling of the procedure, behavioural influences, and their
dynamic-cum-systemic effects that probably pose the most difficult concerns
facing all foresight, but the institutional variant in particular.

C hange in f o resight
If foresight is to change then it is best to ask ‘Change from what?’ There seem
to be three current models indicating that foresight is:

• An elegant guessing game

• A systematic process that produces a chaotic set of notions about the
future related to a specified set of interests
138  Systems and foresight

Table 5.1  Issues for foresight

Issue
Absence of interrelatedness and
causation
Procedures remain reductionist and
problem solving in their orientation
Restricted focus on only one or maybe
two themes from STEEPV set
Institutional programmes conceived in
narrow context and content
Institutional programmes do not
challenge notion of technological
dominance
Outcome produces narrowly framed
information of limited use in policy
making
Sponsor’s shift their expectations
Unrecognised drift toward scenario
planning
Effect of culture on ‘Best practice’
Implication
Introduce use of systems thinking
Failure to recognise that these are not
appropriate to recognising dominance of
situations that can only be ameliorated
and not solved
Lack of interrelatedness between
all themes in STEEPV set limits
interpretation of outcome
Widen both and widen participation to
match
Need for wider programme content and
participation
Policy formulated on basis of insecure
and insufficient information - context
and content need to be widened
Need to adapt procedures
Incomplete change means sponsor’s
expectations not met
Renders possibility inapplicable

• A systematic process based on conventional learning about a specified

topic or problem for which boundaries are drawn and in which
systemic interrelationships are largely ignored. The model is essentially
endogenous.

Stereotypical typologies rarely ‘fit’ reality in any particular case and this is
true for the above characterisations of foresight. Real foresight might have a
high content of an elegant guessing game, but entrepreneurs and inventors are
shrewd people. Their activity does not happen in a vacuum and the discipline of
bidding for investment funds forces much systemic thinking on them to set out
the development of their ideas; without this their sources of finance would soon
evaporate. Much entrepreneurial activity lies in the softer world of ideas that may
influence the way anything from the world, down to small groups or individuals
conduct their lives; at first these may simply be seen as ‘oddities’ but their growth
can be astonishing and, at least for a while, relatively insensitive to finance. For
example, ‘skiffle’, one of the roots of rock music, started from a few individuals
playing in ‘pubs and clubs’ for simple enjoyment and very little financial reward.
The Beatles, the Rolling Stones (and others) helped to change this into the
 Generalisable outcomes  139

present-day global industry that is worth billions of dollars, and for past decades
has influenced the behaviour of youthful generations. The combined value-norm
and financial discipline forced on inventors and entrepreneurs, whatever their
variety, has a temporal component that delays the kind of growth just indicated
or that may even result in rejection temporarily or permanently, though the
latter is a risky opinion since, as said earlier, ideas never die. For real foresight, its
context and content always differ from instance to instance, but the behavioural
pattern(s) of those involved, and their appreciative setting, usually have some
striking similarities. Their (conscious or unconscious) focus of attention is on what
I have earlier called the ‘maelstrom’ of the evolution of values and norms, since it
is through their particular interpretation that possible, feasible and desirable new
ideas and artefacts are conceived, perceived and ultimately expressed physically.
Wherever they are located in the VALSTM1 typology (it is most likely to be in the
upper regions of the right hand loop), they are likely to be seen as ‘lone rangers’
who are more likely to standout than to ‘fit’ in the social sense. So much for the
entrepreneurial world of real foresight; institutional Foresight is a very different
animal that lives in a different world where attention now needs to be focused.
An institutional Foresight programme is a multi-headed Hydra that requires
a Heracles and Iolaus to see it through to successful completion. The degree
of complication, if not complexity, is created by some crucial initial events
and choices, revealed by Nedeva et al.’s analytical framework (2001: 6), most
of which fall into the Wittgensteinian trap of early departure into methods
before the nature of the beast is appreciated: much was learned from use of the
analytical framework that has informed, in part, the following discussion.
Opinions vary about which of the stereotypical models described above,
if any, characterise current institutional Foresight; in effect bits of each are
present in most programmes. However, three characteristics are absent,
namely appreciation of the situation being confronted, systemic thought and
entrepreneurialism. Let me deal with the last first. The entrepreneurial nature
of real foresight is set out above. I have also commented that often institutional
Foresight programmes set out with similar expectations, but that their context
and content prevent that from happening. There are cogent reasons for this
that are ultimately encapsulated in the ideas expressed in Figure 2.7, showing
how group reports tend to migrate towards the lowest common denominator:
they will not be entrepreneurial. Other reasons lie in the behavioural nature of
group discussions, consultations and surveys, all of which figure in institutional
Foresight. These traits lead toward confirmation of known opinions rather
than to inventiveness and exploration of ideas of low probability of occurrence
but of high information content. Often the design of the programme does not
encourage excursions into these unusual areas as the risks of doing so are simply
too high for the people involved.
Appreciation of the situation being confronted and systemic thinking are
intertwined; both are concerned with creating a model that sets out the initial
perception of the situation and its fuzzy boundaries. An example may help. Life,
140  Systems and foresight

human life in particular, lies at the heart of all situations. Grasping the notion of
existence is the first essential of systemic thought (Flood 1999: 82). For this reason
my starting point is always what kind of life and how much of it is involved? In the
mid-1970s it became clear to me, along with other people, that population growth
and changing need distributions were likely to alter world markets drastically in
distribution and kind by the year 2000. For humanity the context was easy to
recognise as Table 5.2, which is a very simple piece of foresight, indicates, while
simultaneously establishing that a situation exists.
As an aside, application of the NUSAP criteria would establish that the
numerical data were appropriate in numeral and units. The spread is unknown
but is unlikely to be widely different from that of any survey process, which
amounts to an acceptable assessment. Human population data has a long
pedigree so, that while different sources may not agree, the growth rates are
within accepted boundaries for the world’s population. Table 5.2 sets the
context for the multi-headed Hydra of world situations where, as Heracles
found, cutting off one head simply caused the Hydra to grow more, reshaping
the situation with only a temporary amelioration. For the world situation – or
problematique if I can resurrect that term – the cascade of nested situations
that flows from Table 5.2 is astonishing. How to proceed?
Georghiou’s et al.’s (1988) taxonomy indicates only and broadly the content
of institutional Foresight. Schartinger and Webber (2007) proffer opinion on
what institutional Foresight may be used for and assume the existence of a
procedure. However, an explorer must invent a procedure, one that maximises
the pace and breadth of learning about the unknown terrain and minimises
the probability of disaster that could result from haphazard opinion and steps.
The first mandatory step is to attempt to understand the present and how that
situation was achieved. History is important, but the emphasis has to be on the

Table 5.2  Estimates of world population (1971, 1995 and 2030)

Actual population Estimated population
(millions) (millions)
1971 1995 2030
Asia 2,313 3,443 5,176
Africa 372 707 1,807
North America 235 279 332
South America 274 474 919
Europe 470 506 494
Russia 235 283 274
Oceania 20 26 31
Caribbean 39 60
Total 3,920 5,756 9,094
 Generalisable outcomes  141

‘attempt’ since both history and the present are subject to Simon’s expression of
‘bounded rationality’ (Simon 1957). For example, learning about the growth of
the human population, set out in Table 5.2, imposes the need to go back several
centuries to appreciate how, why and when the human population began to
grow exponentially. The result will be a firmer grasp of the present, together
with the beginnings of mental constructs of the kinds of information needed to
begin the systemic exploration of the unknown territory of the future. These
mental constructs are markers that enable the first steps into the unknown
territory; they are not scenarios. For the human population, learning the history
will create substantive knowledge about: life expectancy at birth and from later
years; total fertility rates; population structure; and other important features and
their dynamics. The Earth’s carrying capacity for the human population needs
to be in mind constantly but is an objective function rather than an exploration
marker. Great care is needed in choosing the initial set of markers as this step
may easily lead to the exclusion of important features, leading to a more biased
picture of the terrain of the future than is inevitable because of the uncertainties
of the opinions expressed about the terrain from the marker features. Each
marker feature will reveal a new situation while the interrelatedness between
markers will affect the appreciation of the situation of each and of each of
the subsequently revealed situations. As with all mapmaking, the dimensions
of the grid, which the markers determine, directly influences the depth of
understanding of the terrain of the future they reveal and is directly related to
the intentions of the institutional Foresight programme. In effect, the model
proposed is inevitably exploratory and based on mapmaking, not mapping
which assumes the important features of a terrain are known, an assumption
that is inappropriate for any form of foresight.
Mapmaking may seem an unlikely way to go about institutional foresight.
Most people’s acquaintance with maps is of a static picture that alters only
slowly; the converse is actually the case. However, mapmaking is systemic and
maps display interrelationships, interconnectedness and causal linkages that
may or may not be logical. Mapmaking embodies both the fast and slow processes
that underlie all aspects of the STEEPV acronym and of policymaking, though
with the latter the fast and inherently short-term processes tend to dominate.
Satellite mapmaking shows the fast processes that tend to be associated with
human alterations of the landscape together with the slower natural and
human social processes that can accumulate to cause unexpected disruption
or even major discontinuities to landscapes social and natural. Gunderson
and Holling have developed a metaphor, based on ecology, which can be used
widely to explain, through adaptive change, the inter-working of these fast
and slow processes (Gunderson and Holling 2002: 5). The metaphor is termed
‘panarchy’ (Note 1) since it needs to be

capable of organising our understanding of economic, ecological, and

institutional systems and it must explain situations where all three types
142  Systems and foresight

of system interact. The cross-scale, interdisciplinary, and dynamic nature

… Its essential focus is to rationalise the interplay between change and
persistence, between the predictable and unpredictable.

The depth and breadth of the panarchy metaphor can only be indicated
here. It sets out from the r and K strategies that are common in ecology;
both stem from the Verhulst equation used in population dynamics where
r is the population’s growth rate and K its carrying capacity. Typically, in an
r-strategy a species has a high reproductive rate in which the life expectancy
of progeny is short with the population suffering frequent population crashes
due to predation, disease and, on occasion, through overpopulation of their
niche. By comparison, species that adopt a K strategy invest more heavily in
fewer offspring, each of which has a better chance of surviving to adulthood,
their lower breeding rate meaning that their population does not exceed
the carrying capacity of their niche, making population crashes less likely.
Gunderson and Holling proposed an extension to the simple r and K strategies
by incorporating them into an adaptive cycle with two additional features that
allow reorganisation and transformation in a system. The resulting metaphor is
an evolving, complex, adaptive system that its authors describe as follows:

Panarchy is the hierarchical structure in which systems of nature … human

… as well as combined human-nature systems … and social-ecological
systems … are inter-linked in never-ending adaptive cycles of growth,
accumulation, restructuring and renewal.

Holling evolved the notion of an adaptive cycle (Holling 2001: 392), that
takes a form similar to a Mobius spiral, following from Simon’s identification
of the significance of adaptation in hierarchical structures (Simon 1974).
The metaphor is fully described in Gunderson and Holling (2002: 34): in
two dimensions the axes are connectedness and potential, as illustrated in
Figure 5.1, where the conventional r and K features of the cycle are extended
to include two new ones, release and reorganisation, that complete the adaptive
cycle as shown.
Later, Gunderson and Holling add a third axis representing resilience,
converting the spiral into a three dimensional form (Gunderson and Holling
2002: 41), as illustrated in Figure 5.2.
As a nested series of cycles, the metaphor makes the point that the
‘functioning of those cycles and the communication between them determines
the sustainability of the system.’ For a socio-ecological system it represents
its ability to ‘invent and experiment, benefiting from inventions that create
opportunity while it [the system] is kept safe from those that destabilise the
system because of their nature or excessive exuberance’ (Holling 2001: 398).
The panarchy metaphor can give some deep insights into the behaviour
of nested and interdependent situations that evolve during the use of the
 Generalisable outcomes  143

A K
servation
con

rganization
eo
potential

n e
tio as
exploita r el e

r 7

connectedness

Figure 5.1 Stylised representation of the four adaptive ecosystem functions (r, K, Ω, α)
and the flow of events among them
potential

K r

 connectedness

rotation
reveals
K resilience

potential

r

con
nec
ted nce
nes ilie
s res

Figure 5.2 Addition of resilience to the adaptive cycle as a third dimension

mapmaking model in the conduct of institutional Foresight. Remembering that

the adaptive cycle is three dimensional with axes of potential, connectedness
and resilience, the metaphor allows interpretation, at various levels in nested
situations, of how the context and content of the situations change following the
pattern of exploitation (r), conservation (K), release (Ω) and reorganisation (α)
that also typifies fast and slow nature of the loop (r → K: slow); (K → Ω: fast);
144  Systems and foresight

(Ω → α: fast); (α → r: slow). Holling (2001) presents interpretations of several

situations likening the cycle to Schumpeter’s notion of creative destruction
(Schumpeter 1950). Similarly, there are resemblances to the bursts of invention
followed by innovation that are claimed to typify the Kondratieff long cycle of
economic and social development (Kondratieff 1935). As will become clear
in Chapter 7, panarchy is of particular relevance in the development of the
notions of sustainability and sustainable development. When all is said and
done modelling a complex situation of the kind characterised by institutional
Foresight in what it attempts, remains elusive but according to Holland (1998)
it is not in that category marked ‘impossible’. It is now time to journey into the
different lands set out in Part II.
Pa rt II

Scenarios and
s u s t a in a b i l i ty
Ch a p t e r 6
Foresigh t , s c e n a r i o s
and s c e n ari o p l an n i n g

As you slide down the banisters of life may the splinters never face the wrong
way.
Traditional wedding toast

The purpose of the chapter is to set out the art and practice of scenario writing
and scenario planning, and to show the place of foresight within both. Most
theoretical matters have already been discussed in Chapter 2 but some are
reintroduced here for the sake of clarity. The core of scenario writing and
planning lie in the wide and deep processes described in Chapter 1, in the
interlinking of learning, appreciation and anticipation that underlie foresight.
The preparation of scenarios; their use subsequently in planning; their analysis
and presentation; and their use by an organisation in the development of
policy, strategy and tactics, hinges uniquely on these three pillars of foresight.
Scenario planning arose because traditional extrapolative planning collapsed
in the face of the growing uncertainties every organisation faced during the
‘Cold War’ years and particularly from the mid-1960s onward. Scenario
planning’s popularity and power lie in its ability to encompass the complexity
of the modern world, enabling organisations to examine alternative futures for
themselves while remaining adroit and aware of how world changes influence
them. The chapter will be based on a nine-step approach to scenario planning.
Summer schools for the UK’s Open University and other organisations showed
me just how difficult it is to teach scenario writing and planning; I suspect
others have had similar experiences.
The underlying principles of scenario planning must concern themselves
with:

A Understanding, as far as possible, those matters that are intangible and

subjectively uncertain in relation to the territory of the future
B Matters that are obvious where uncertainty can be characterised more
objectively.

Typically, A involves a mixture of what is often called ‘megatrends’;

companies will also need to understand the impact of value-norm shifts on
148  Scenarios and sustainability

the market life of products and services, or the influence of legislation, such
as product liability, on purchaser’s perceptions of their rights with respect to
faulty or dangerous products. Generally, B concerns matters thought to be more
directly controllable through policy, such as costs and prices for producing and
selling products, both of which are subject to far greater uncertainty than is
generally accepted. Marginal understanding of intangible factors in A leads to
too-narrow an appreciation of their power and too much certainty about matters
that are highly uncertain and can change rapidly, possibly with devastating
results: politics and social behaviour fall into this category. By contrast, too
much ‘understanding’ and too great an emphasis on what is believed to be
obvious and well understood (for example, economics and accountancy) as in
B lead to a loss of appreciation of the surrounding uncertainties and supporting
assumptions. Numerate, deterministic planning as in B is embedded in and
supported by a host of unquantified, and often undeclared, assumptions or
presumptions or assertions about the nature of the ‘world’ in which planning
is being conducted (Churchman 1972). And Churchman was not the first to
make this often forgotten or conveniently ignored point.

In troduction
Scenario building and scenario planning depend on foresight; neither can exist
without anticipation of trends, events and discontinuities, the so-called wild
card. The processes involved are learning oriented and more of an art form
than an activity with a well-established theoretical base. Indeed, the word
scenario is meat for the playwright as it means the skeleton of a play, giving the
outline of the plot, particulars of scenes, situations and the main characters.
The word scenario is now used so indiscriminately as to debase the activity
that it commands: the same fate as has befallen foresight and systems. Sadly the
debasing is now spilling over into a tendency to equate institutional Foresight
with scenario planning, an activity that is far more demanding and different in
character to any Foresight programme.
Despite the prolific and indiscriminate use of both terms, ‘how to do texts’
are relatively rare and those that exist too often tend not to dispel the mystique
that surrounds the subject, much like foresight itself. Too often learners look
for instruction sets or recipe books where, in my view, none exist and would be
inappropriate to the task in any event. The best that can be offered is notional
processes according to my own preferences and experience. While these are
unique, other authors (e.g. Schwartz 1991) have set out their own preferred
processes though to some extent all the processes can and do have some
resemblance to one another. However, a book on foresight would be incomplete
without a journey in the realm of scenarios and scenario planning. Such is the tight
relationship between foresight, scenario preparation and scenario planning, that
it is a puzzle that the connection is not made more explicit as their anticipatory
basis is subsumed under the mystique of the processes of both.
 Foresight, scenarios and scenario planning  149

Popularis ation in cont ext

In human societies plays and storytelling have a very long history. It is a matter
of debate whether these arts have influenced human societies in ways that
the modern form of scenario writing and scenario planning cannot. Theatre,
television plays and docudramas as wells as documentaries about current and
future issues all depend on (often undeclared) scenarios and reach far wider
audiences than any formal scenario planning. However, these are mostly events
whose impacts have the shape of a spike with a long tailed decay. Where the
influence of art may be a matter of minutes to days, leaving a low-level long tail
of influence, the influence of scenario writing is intended to persist over many
years or decades and there is evidence from work by Kahn (e.g. Kahn 1967); the
Meadows (Meadows et al. 1972, 1992); Hackett (1978, 1982); Taylor (1972)
and Feynman (1959) that indeed it does. By comparison, scenario planning is
relatively new or newly rediscovered (Schnaars 1989: 161) being most publicly
instituted and acclaimed at Shell International. The common claim is that
scenario planning gained in popularity following the first ‘oil shock’, sparked
by the Yom Kippur war in October 1973. While there is much to support this
claim it does not stand up to scrutiny. Scenarios were used extensively during
the Second World War and in the immediate post-war years to ‘plan’ for the
possibilities of thermonuclear war and the ‘Cold War’. During these immediate
post-war years it was possible for planning in civil society, including industry,
to rely on mechanistic (Cartesian) and extrapolative planning processes, often
because product shortages and rising expectations for material standards of
living presented what seemed to be an economically defined world in which all
relationships were simple and well defined. The events of October 1973 were
probably the final ‘nail in the coffin’ of this attitude world wide, but it followed
a pervasive series of events including the long take-over and merger boom of
the 1960s that destroyed company loyalty; rising and forced unemployment;
the expropriation of oil assets in Iran in 1952; the failed Suez war in 1956 and
the Hungarian uprising in the same year; student riots and the Prague Spring
in Europe in 1968; the US campus riots; the US defeat in Vietnam in 1972;
the appearance of international terrorism; the Breshnev doctrine in Russian
foreign policy; and other events that destroyed the comfortable post-war feeling
of economic and social certainty, though against the persistent background of
thermonuclear holocaust. It was this collapse of certainty that led to a crisis
among the planning fraternity to be followed by a frantic search for some way
of ‘restoring control’ over events. Scenario planning strode onto the scene
to a great deal of puzzlement, a feeling that its proponents have never really
dispelled. The context of the rise of scenario planning was then the collapse of
the pseudo-certainty that had pervaded business and civil society in the two
decades immediately after the end of World War II. What of its content?
150  Scenarios and sustainability

C on tent and w ha t i t offers

Scenarios offer the planning fraternity the opportunity to include and embrace
uncertainty in their thinking; scenarios are thought experiments that enable
events and trends that would not otherwise be brought to the surface, to be
legitimised. Scenarios are not predictions, but as with the skeleton of a play, a
scenario in planning needs to include possible future situations, their scenes, their
boundaries and their actors, all of which will be encompassed by the STEEPV
set. From earlier chapters the emphasis on situations and not problem solving
will be recognised as deliberate. Similarly, all experiments require discipline
and the thought variety is no exception so that scenarios without a disciplined
sense are nonsense. The sense of any scenario must lie in its relevance and
reasonableness, the first two of the three ‘R’s; these bring many other features
into play. Scenarios may exhibit many of the features of systems but holism is
not one of them, since the entire set of scenarios that surround the possible
futures of any situation is beyond human comprehension as Simon’s rule of
bounded rationality (Simon 1957) comes into play. While boundary setting
is antithetical to the study of situations (see Chapters 1 and 2) it becomes
inescapable as scenarios are developed if they are to retain their credibility.
Scenarios may not be holistic but their content, as with any experiment, needs
to include as many of the events and trends relating to a situation that can
be perceived readily or conceived from intelligence gathering (Jones 1978) or
from elicitation of opinion from anyone related to the situation. Here there is a
need to observe the gradation of subjective knowledge, originally described by
Dalkey (1969), but redeveloped here in a more exhaustive way in Figure 6.1.
In any scenario, the inclusion of matters arising from conjecture is clearly
a delicate judgement. Lastly, in these general comments about the content of
scenarios any situation is systemic and this has to be characterised through

Assertionswith Assertionswith
littleornoevidence evi den ce

Imaginativeopinion
orspeculation

Conjecture e Knowledge

Figure 6.1 Role of speculation and conjecture in foresight

 Foresight, scenarios and scenario planning  151

the interrelatedness of all the components; scenarios cannot represent one

part of a situation independently from others. For example, the situation
that a company finds itself in and scenarios for its future must include the
interrelatedness between internal and external components as the parts work
in a gestalt fashion. There are many technical matters relating to scenario
writing and it is time to move on to these in preparation for the discussion of a
scenario planning procedure.

S cenar ios as ment a l models

Scenarios are representations of mental models; how these develop was
described earlier (Chapter 2) and will not be repeated here except to say that
mental models are representations in the mind that guide actions in the real
world. All mental models are limited by their partiality. While the notions of
holism are sometimes attached to mental models, the fallibility of that notion
is readily apparent from the principle of bounded rationality (Simon 1957)
as already indicated. Scenario writing also makes an unusual demand for the
suspension of existing mental models so that speculative ones can be developed
in the context of the unknown future. Suspension of current mental models
is a common feature in all thought experiments and the extent to which
this can be done makes the difference between what I shall later call the ‘so
what?’ scenario and those that can shift perceptions onto different planes.
In the present context, scenarios represent models of the future (history and
other disciplines frequently use scenarios but do not refer to them as such)
and are synthetic, involving synthesis, as all such representations must be. It
is inappropriate to refer to scenarios as analytic or to their being an ‘analysis
of the future’; both of these references are in evidence. The synthesis versus
analysis argument is a sterile one that I shall not pursue. Scenario writing
clearly requires foresightful information or ideas relating to the future that can
be synthesised into alternative possibilities for the future.

B oundar y s ett ing

Synthesis invokes several other important matters, the first of which is boundary
setting. Throughout I have emphasised the notion of situations rather than
problems as the focus of attention; the reasons for this were discussed in Chapters
1 and 2. Boundary setting for situations requires a different mindset to the
complementary process of problem solving. The latter posits the existence of a
definable set of elements that can be set within well-defined boundaries, as the
reductionist mode of thought would require, even if their interrelatedness is not
clearly understood. However enigmatic the problem statement may be, there is
an underlying assumption that an understanding or a solution is possible, the
outcome being resolution. Situations cannot be thought of in this way as their
relationship to scenario writing makes clear (they are an essential feature of it).
152  Scenarios and sustainability

Situations occur in cascades, one leading to another, just as one act in a play
leads to another. As a result there are multiple boundaries that are themselves
not well defined, but are driven by the context and content of each scenario
in the multiple set of scenarios. Boundaries in the sense used here can only be
appreciated through an individual’s appreciative setting or behavioural pattern
(see Chapter 1) which depends on the experience and learning that lies at the
core of any scenario project. Boundary setting is then a highly subjective matter
that depends on the response to the questions Who and what are important
to the situations and their cascade? Checkland, in his development of his soft
systems approach, suggests that boundaries may be described (Checkland
1981) as the ‘… area within a formal systems model … within which the
decision-taking process of the system has the power to make things happen, or
to prevent them from happening.’ He goes on to suggest that, ‘[m]ore generally,
a boundary is a distinction made by an observer which marks the difference
between an entity he/she takes to be a system and its environment.’ While this
is a more static description than I have in mind, it is essentially encapsulated
by the questions who? and what? Checkland’s statement has one weakness, the
notion that the observer is somehow outside the system; this is not true because
by the very act of observing, the observer becomes part of the system. Boundary
setting is then always done subjectively from within the system carrying with it
the cultural and mental baggage of those involved. In many senses, especially
in variations of the soft systems approach, boundary setting may be underlain
by the principles of set theory – grouping together trends and issues, actors
and factors, that clearly belong together, even if their interrelationships are
not clear and learning from how these sets intersect – in this way identifying
common elements that exert powerful influences. Throughout, boundary
setting is pervaded by bounded rationality, with its claim of the limitations of
the human mind to comprehend complex and dynamic situations; this alone
diminishes the claim for scenarios to be holistic.

C aus ality
The comments on boundary setting cannot be divorced from the notion of
causality. Much play is made in scenario planning of causal linkages; these need
to be treated with caution and understood in the following way. Causal relations
between any set of elements come in two forms: analytic and quantitative; and
cognitive (behavioural) and qualitative. Both may occur in the development
of scenarios, but the clear distinction between them needs to be borne in
mind constantly, as it is fatal for the two forms to masquerade one for the
other. Unfortunately, some specific computational methods used in scenario
planning do exactly that, for example, cross-impact methods which confuse
quantitative and qualitative models. Much effort goes into the representation
of mental models through influence diagrams that portray interrelatedness,
often also claiming that these influences are causal (Forrester 1961, Dubin
 Foresight, scenarios and scenario planning  153

1978). In Forrester’s (1961) systems dynamics, for example, such diagrams are
effectively flow charts in which every flow will be represented either analytically
or empirically. By contrast, in soft systems the behavioural nature of many of
the influences means that the interrelationships are qualitative and open to
multiple interpretations that can lead to quite different structures, according to
the behavioural patterns of the protagonists. Indeed, this is typical of situations.
Perhaps the most difficult situation is one where causal relations are a mixture
of the two kinds. Too often this leads to the ‘numbers’ acquiring a magic of their
own and, through their misuse, other qualitative factors are simply overridden.
The conclusion has to be that while casual relationships are relevant to scenario
building, the claim for each needs to be examined (and tested) carefully to
agree its characteristics, i.e. whether its direction is forward or backward or
bi-directional; whether its characteristic is feedback or feed-forward; whether
the feed action is positive or negative. Despite all that is claimed for them,
influence diagrams are often expressions of belief rather than of demonstrable
logic. With this stricture in mind their usefulness in structuring ‘causal’ linkages
and the general ‘shape’ of a situation is overwhelming.

E v en t s trin gs
The above matters lead inevitably to the assembly of the event strings that are
the skeletons of the scenarios themselves, each of which describes a situation
and its evolution. The learning basis of scanning (for weak signals of change)
and of foresight are intended to enable coping with situations as they evolve
and to anticipate or shape the way that evolution progresses into the future.
Anticipatory learning then needs to have Jones’s (1978) characteristics
of intelligence gathering and learning leading to the creation of a library of
anticipations comprising trends, issues and events relevant to the time horizon
of the scenarios. Event strings are composed of anticipations drawn from the
library and placed in alternative sets of sequences that, when examined critically,
are thought to be free of inconsistencies and impossibilities; the logic required
by causality may or may not be satisfied for the reasons given in Chapter 2.
None of this rules out or should rule out, the possibility that some event strings
may be counter-intuitive in some aspects or in their entirety. The library of
anticipations ought to contain entries in all the six themes of the STEEPV set,
as any real-world situation will have elements from each theme. There has been
some criticism of the use of the STEEPV set (van der Heijden 2005 [1996])
as a way of organising information as its use is claimed to negate the systemic
relations between anticipations. There is no need for this to occur and, indeed,
it ought not to through the process of assembling event strings. The same author
makes extensive reference to the use of a more limited set (STEP) later in his
discussion, omitting the second E (Ecology) and the V (Values) themes, both
of which are vital constituents in the library. The anticipation in the library
needs to meet the criteria of relevance, reasonableness and robustness, where
154  Scenarios and sustainability

relevance concerns the ‘process of relating’ or dynamic interconnectedness and

its limits; reasonableness concerns possible extensions of knowledge over the
time horizon; and robustness concerns how comprehensible and adaptable the
resulting scenarios are. This leads to the need to examine the unusual nature
of the information on which the anticipations are based.
Intelligence and anticipation from a Jones-based process (1978), emerge
from memory, counter-intuitive interpretation of the commonplace, and careful
interpretation of the unusual, the unexpected or speculation. There are no
methods of measuring the future, but the last two elements of Funtowicz and
Ravetz’s (1990: 28) NUSAP scheme, assessment and pedigree, enable some
judgements to be made about the quality of the information enshrined in each
anticipation in the library. Assessment allows quantitative and qualitative, or
linguistic, descriptions of the vagueness or ambiguity of the information, while
pedigree introduces the otherwise excluded beliefs related to the origin of the
information, the how? why? who? when? questions that relate to what the
information is and where it came from.
Understanding the information flowing from any scanning process is
of critical importance; this has to be done in the face of ambiguity while
simultaneously searching for consistency, rigour and the quality referred to by
the NUSAP scheme in the same information – a paradoxical state of affairs. It
is usual to resort to expert opinion, either as the source of information in the
first place or later in judging the information emerging from scanning within
the terms of the paradox referred to above. Predictability versus importance is
a further element of the paradox. Opinion may be drawn to support matters
that are believed to be more likely, in preference to those that are lesser
known and accompanied by obscurity or ambiguity but whose potential future
influence may be catastrophic, devastating or a serious discontinuity. The
way I have phrased this last sentence typifies the language of the discussion
concerning information while also posing some questions about the nature
and value of expert opinion. In the Jones (1978) sense, expert opinion is
described as ‘Intelligence … gathered by source and output by subject; this
requires an internal transformation requiring observation, memory, criticism,
and correlation of different types of information which is then given expression
to in a synthesised output.’ The key is then people who specialise in depth and
breadth, a rare if not paradoxical combination of capabilities, but not in the
sense of those characteristics that seem to be attributed by Shell International
to their remarkable people (van der Heijden 2005 [1996]: 222). Experts are
also known (Lipinski and Loveridge 1982: 216) to tend toward over-confidence
when making estimates about developments in their own field of expertise,
believing these may occur with greater certainty, more quickly and with more
influence than history shows to be likely and the three ‘R’s are likely to allow.
Sadly, the information proffered through foresight of any kind only rarely goes
through the kind of scrutiny outlined above, while there is little evidence that
expert opinion is especially sensitive to what might be called ‘over the horizon’
 Foresight, scenarios and scenario planning  155

scanning or to the speculative issues it raises; often it is quite the reverse, a

cautionary tale for the scenario writer.

Pr ob ab ility
Subjective opinion and probability are woefully misunderstood in relation
to scenario writing and planning. The outcome of scanning and foresight is
subjective opinion with the exception of a few universal constants. Claims for
constants and variables in scenario writing arise from the writers’ perception of
the situations that are their concern, including the time horizon involved. The
shorter the horizon and the narrower the boundaries, the stronger the claims
for constants at the expense of variables and vice versa. There are several
interrelated knotty ‘theoretical’ problems to explain at this point.

1 There is not and, I will assert, there cannot be a ‘theoretical’ basis to

scenario planning any more than there can be a theoretical basis to a
playwright’s art. Attempts to create a theory for scenario planning have
been made (e.g. Chermack 2004: 301) using a quantitative theory-building
methodology (Dubin 1978) but all have failed, often because they assume
the existence of scenarios in the first place and illogically place this
existence ahead of the learning basis of scenario planning. Learning is the
basis of scenario construction, but the two processes do not march in step,
as learning precedes scenario writing by a phase angle that depends on
the situation scenario planning is attempting to embrace. There should be
no doubt about the tight feed-around loop between learning and scenario
writing, but the nature of thought experiments requires something to think
about first so that a theory that posits the pre-existence of a scenario as its
initial starting point is fundamentally flawed and of little or no value.
2 There is confusion over possibility versus probability. In science, current
understanding, laws and theory set out what is possible while speculative
theory indicates what may become possible within a defined time
horizon. Similarly, thought experiments create ideas in conceptual and
perceptual space (Chapter 1) that may emerge in physical space. Once
communicated ideas are indestructible and the possibility that they will
emerge into physical space is ever present. Ideas in this sense do not have
to have any underlying relation to existing ideas or theoretical basis,
unlike possibility in science. Probability is then a subjective estimate, an
expression of opinion or of belief in an idea and in its likely occurrence in
the world of ideas. The expression of belief and likelihood are inseparable.
Possibility may then be characterised through speculation or conjecture
(see Figure 6.1) concerning ideas while the related probability is subjective
and not frequentist
3 There is a very large number of discrete ways (scenarios describe them)
any situation can evolve, each of which will be only marginally different to
156  Scenarios and sustainability

its adjacent scenarios. The entire set of scenarios is then a distribution in

which each individual scenario has a negligible probability of occurrence.
Scenarios constructed for use in planning have then to be regarded as
either representing the properties of a known group of scenarios in the
entire set (these may be called meta-scenarios [Lipinski and Loveridge
1982: 205]) or simply as individual scenarios, of negligible probability
of occurrence, from the entire set. Without knowing the content of the
entire set of scenarios, meta-scenarios cannot be formulated with attached
probabilities. By extension, individual scenarios created during a planning
project should never have probabilities attached to them as they are not
meta-scenarios, but simply random samples from the entire distribution
which remains unknown. The pernicious habit of attaching ‘guesstimates’
of probability to individual scenarios is simply without justification or merit
and amounts to nothing more than an expression of belief by the scenario
writer(s), complete with their inherent biases
4 Lipinski and Loveridge (ibid.) viewed scenarios merely as convenient
samples of one way to visualise a physical map of the ‘territory’ of the
future. The characteristics of the territory are more important than
any individual scenario. The parallel is that of a nineteenth century
explorer trying to convey what Africa, for example, is like by mentioning
mountains, deserts and deep clefts (e.g. the Rift valley). Similarly, looking
at the future of a situation there might be mountains of prosperity and
valleys of depression. A modified version of Lipinski and Loveridges’s
illustration of this idea is shown in Chapter 2 (Figure 2.2) where the
explanation of the basis of scenario writing is set out in detail. Briefly, for
present purposes the present time is a single point of known attributes,
though Whitehead (1964: 93) argues that the present and history are
both poorly understood. The ‘real’ future is unknowable, but some of its
characteristics (possible futures) are discernible, to an unknown degree.
Lipinski and Loveridge regarded scenarios as a concise way of conveying
information about the possible appearances of that territory. Increasing
uncertainty means that the paths described by scenarios diverge into
the future. Seen this way, the future is not one future, but a continuum
of individual improbable scenarios in which those scenarios, or futures,
reside side by side, the entire set being more important than any
individual scenario. The consequences of this viewpoint are considerable.
These individual scenarios are but a small sample of the entire set that may
be sorted according to some convenient measure. Then the scenarios can
be reshuffled in any fashion, as long as their probabilities sum to unity (the
transverse dimension in Figure 2.2 is always probability); the probability
domain of an entire lottery which is what a set of scenarios amounts
to. The information contained in the scenario set is unaffected by
reshuffling the scenarios. It merely becomes easier to examine if the
scenarios are ordered either by a particular element or its function
 Foresight, scenarios and scenario planning  157

5 Conceptual thought, conjecture and opinion lie at the heart of scenario

writing. Their underlying artistic theme is psychological and behavioural;
this is reinforced by the recognition that the strategic role of scenarios
imposes secrecy and limits the extent of any open and widespread
consultation among experts and opinion formers. Single subjective
opinions have to be treated with great caution as they are but a single point
on a distribution of many thousands of ways the future of a situation may
develop. For certain crucial factors it is important to have an appreciation
of the shape of that distribution. Some authors (e.g. Simmonds 1977: 13)
present these matters in a qualitative way giving a view of the important
matter of how alternative views of the future can be characterised, the
subject that scenario planning addresses, in terms of (i) their definability
and structuring; (ii) probability relationships; (iii) measurability; and (iv)
communicability
6 Consideration of the distribution of the entire set of event strings (or
scenarios) leads to the outcome that any single scenario has a negligible
probability of occurring; this is not a useful operational property. A scenario
of negligible probability ought to have negligible operational significance
for management; this is intuitively recognised by managers who tend, in
consequence, to grant scenarios low credibility, which is not equivalent
to low probability. By using a set of explorations sampling the unknown
number of pathways into the future, planned in accordance with the
principles of subjective probability, groups of scenarios (meta-scenarios)
can be aggregated (Chapter 2)
7 Deciding how many scenarios to present to management is not easy and
depends on the acceptability of scenario planning in the organisation and
the skill of the planners in conveying what scenario planning has to say
in the context of management’s current expectations and their views of
the world. Managers intuitively understand the point made earlier about
the negligible probability of a single scenario; that is not a problem. More
serious is their unwillingness to accept any view of the world that does
not fit with preconceived ideas. The intuitive disbelief in scenarios allows
managers to disregard all scenarios if they so choose. Scenario planning
must fit the situation and the organisation and present scenarios at the
edges of managers’ perceptions of their world, or just beyond them, leading
them beyond their present perceptions in a believable way in a form of
‘hand shaking’ (Boettinger 1969) that is illustrated in Figure 6.2
Scenarios in the region of indifference will provoke no interest; they are of
the ‘so what?’ variety. By contrast, scenarios that are utterly astonishing seem
detached from reality and leave huge gaps in perception between the manager
and the planner; these will be greeted with total disbelief. Scenarios pitched
in the regions indicated in Figure 6.2 will contain recognisable warnings,
threats and opportunities which, though outside the manager’s current
perceptions, can be connected to their world. Although two scenarios (for
158  Scenarios and sustainability

Almosttotal Regionofincreasinglystretchedbelief
Utterly
disbelief astonishing
M anagerial
response

content
Scenario
'Sowhat's Un-
new?' surprising
R egion of
indi f ference
Scenariospitched
here
p
S ectrum of scenario contents

Figure 6.2 Managerial response to placing of scenarios

example) may pose warnings/threats and opportunities from opposite sides

of the region of indifference, these help to create the new broad strategic
vision that will avoid the curses of narrow perception and overconfidence.
The marriage of this form of presentation to the notion of meta-scenarios
requires some care because of their probabilistic characteristics.

Learnin g processes
Most authors assume the existence of scenarios that guide the learning
process – I do not. The need for scenarios depends on the recognition by
an organisation that it faces or is soon likely to face an unfamiliar situation
creating uncertainty about its future; this emerges from intelligence gathered
in ways already discussed. Consequently, it seems illogical to assume that
scenarios already exist or are created to guide the necessary learning. Rather it
is the recognition of the situation, however fuzzily, that prompts the need for
learning to enable an organisation to cope with the ‘new’ world it anticipates.
There is then a need for two distinct steps in learning. Because the situation
will at first be described broadly and in a few words, its extent cannot at first
be anticipated; at this stage learning needs to be broad and open-ended within
limits that begin to emerge during the learning itself; as a result anticipation of
the situation becomes less fuzzy until it can be restated in a way that enables
more directed learning related to the emerging situation and anticipation of it.
The entire process is illustrated in Figure 6.3.
Every situation will be composed of elements of the STEEPV set of themes
so that these can be used to guide learning while simultaneously interrelating
knowledge of the themes as learning proceeds. In effect, learning about the
anticipated situation never ends but a time comes when sufficient foresightful
 Foresight, scenarios and scenario planning  159

Initial Intime,policy
perception failsinpartor
Learning& )
of(new)situation totally
Appreciationof
situation,its Policy
elements,theirinter- Formulation&
relatedness& Dynamicbroad
implementation
possible learning
boundaries programme
No
usingSTEPV

Newperception
Appreciation
ofsituation& 'good enough '
itsboundaries ?

In-depthlearning Y es
Directed&in- Y es
&appreciation depthlearning No
withinagreedbut programme
fuzyboundaries
usingSTEPV Systemicforesight Input
& Anticipation 'good enough '
inputtoPolicyMatrix ?

Figure 6.3 A process for learning to appreciate situations

intelligence exists to enable scenario preparation to proceed; clearly this is a

matter of judgement that needs to include ways of bringing new intelligence
into scenario preparation as it proceeds. An example of these steps is my
anticipation in the 1970s that there would be major shifts in the way the world
works toward the Eastern countries (India, China and Russia) arising from the
population distribution and growing skills. I was not alone in recognising this
pattern which, has only recently been recognised publicly by world leaders.
The context in which this shift would take place was, I contended, geographic,
demographic and political while its content would be a complex matter of
access to resources, capabilities of people with a long history of intellectual and
dextrous skills (although these were not recognised by those who thought of the
countries concerned as less developed countries) and education. Learning to
appreciate and anticipate the possible future situations needed consideration of
all of the STEEPV themes. As commented earlier my emphasis on the STEEPV
themes is not shared universally but other authors make liberal use of similar
artefacts in their own way.

A s cen ario pla nni ng process

I make no special claims for the process that is outlined below nor shall I make
claims for its successes or failures as I am bound by confidentiality agreements
that remain in force. The process has nine steps from conception to outcome
implementation. Whilst there are similarities between all descriptions of the
processes of scenario planning (an unsurprising outcome) opinions differ
160  Scenarios and sustainability

between authors on the order of, and emphasis given to, the steps in the
process. However, in my view there is not and never can be a simple ‘cookbook’
of instructions on how to conduct scenario planning.
An example to introduce the scenario planning process is the Interfutures
project, conducted by the OECD in 1979, where the purpose of scenarios is
described in the following abridged quotation:

(a) The object of the scenarios is to provide, on the basis of explicit

assumptions concerning … major trends, coherent … frameworks by
means of which it is possible:
• To assess how issues impinge one on another …
• To explore the consequences of the adoption … of strategic
guidelines …
(b) The scenarios are attempts to describe the sequence and images up to
the time-horizon 2000 …
(c) … the working out of a scenario involves first the selection of major
assumptions, then the calculation of … orders of magnitude with
the help of various models … then … analysing and criticising …
developments and the way they can be generated by the decisions of
the actors involved, and concludes by discussing the consistency and
plausibility of the scenario(s)’

The basis of scenario planning is not a matter of technique, but depends on

learning, integration and synthesis of alternative futures for the organisation.
As with all learning, particular methods can enliven its progress, but it would
be hard to argue for any particular method. In 1992 I proposed a scheme
(Loveridge 1992: 56) that, in the light of experience and to cope with the
notion of situations, I have since revised into the following format:

Summar y : a process of scena rio p l a nni ng

Step 1 Set up a preliminary description of the situation that the scenario
planning exercise is intended to ameliorate, together with its
preliminary boundaries and time horizon. While this initial perception
of the situation may be stark, the messiness of the situation ought to
be recognised
Step 2 Establish a broad learning programme, using the STEEPV guidelines.
The programme ought to be aimed at creating an appreciation of the
situation to enable the boundaries to be derived: these ought to be
appropriate to the exploration of the ‘territory of the future’. The
boundaries of the exploration and the exploration itself, ought to
(a) be perceived to be relevant to amelioration of the situation; (b)
enable identification of the broad trends that are likely to influence
the evolution of the situation; and (c) by asking ‘who and what’ is
 Foresight, scenarios and scenario planning  161

important to the situation, map out more specifically the driving forces
relevant to the evolution of the situation including the organisations
within it
Step 3 Through a directed learning programme, derived from Step 2, make
explicit the assumptions that will be used in writing the scenarios;
examine these assumptions for their relevance, reasonableness and
robustness in relation to the amelioration of the situation over the
time horizon, acknowledging the multidimensional uncertainties of
the unknowable territory of the future
Step 4 Assemble a set of alternative event strings and trends that will be the
skeletons for the scenarios
Step 5 From knowledge of the culture of the organisation write a set of
scenarios, usually two for presentation (see Figure 6.2), avoiding
one that may be perceived to mean that the organisation can avoid
change, using whatever presentational technique seems to be most
suited to the objective and the culture of the organisation
Step 6 Analyse the set of scenarios with particular reference to turning or
branch points in the evolution of the situation that may constitute a
crisis (with its Greek connotation of change rather than disaster) for
organisations within the situation
Step 7 From the analysis, derive alternative policies for ameliorating the
situation, within which organisations ought to work (the limits of
actions the organisations ought not to exceed in seeking to ameliorate
the situation) with an emphasis on adaptability in the instruments of
policy over which the organisation has complete or partial control,
while recognising those that are beyond its control
Step 8 Using the instruments of policy, derive alternative, adaptable strategies
that are robust in the sense that they will be:
(a) Somewhat robust toward the uncertainties likely to be encountered
in the territory of the future and able to withstand the impact of
their inevitable disturbances over the time horizon
(b) Comprehended by, and acceptable to, society
(c) Relatively insensitive to delay
Step 9 By using some form of model, evaluate these strategic alternatives
numerically, as far as that is possible, and qualitatively otherwise,
over the chosen timescale, paying particular attention to the strategic
allocation of resources, including financing, and the best routes to
achieving the desired financial returns.

C ommen tar y on process st eps

Step 1 Perceptions of situations are highly individual so that at first descriptions
of one should be brief at the expense of clarity. Newspaper headlines
162  Scenarios and sustainability

can be a useful analogy with their intention to draw attention to a

situation, indicating that something has happened but what has
happened remains unclear. Despite the lack of clarity the headline
description of the situation ought to be sufficient to orient thinking
toward broad areas where learning is needed
Step 2 The scope of the broad learning programme cannot be anticipated
except through the six guiding themes of the STEEPV acronym.
Asking ‘who’ and ‘what’ is important to the situation and follows
naturally from the initial sensitisation. Listing the internal and
external variables begins to build the required bridge between, on
the one hand, external trends and events and, on the other, internal
aspirations and capabilities. The risk is that learning will become
highly divergent so that the necessary free thinking needs to be
matched by careful control perhaps through raising questions of the
following kind:
• What do we understand of the situation now about its internal
and external interrelations?
• Who is important to the situation now and into the future?
• Where do we now think we need to get to in the future?
• How long do we now think it will take?
• What do we learn about now, through thought experiments, to
change our appreciation of the territory of the future?
• What do we need to do to improve our present level of under­
standing?
• With whom should we talk to aid the learning process?
• How will we monitor the field(s) we need to learn from?
• How will we identify the driving force(s), the crises(s), and the
learning field(s)?
• How important are the constants and the variables of our vision
and how do we identify them?
There are many sources of information about trends in the
STEEPV set, ranging from the global to the very detailed. At first
it is best to obtain a view of major trends and events at a range that
might be likened to the perspective from a high-flying aircraft, where
the main features of the terrain are clearly visible and correspond to
the major trends and landmarks in the external world in which the
organisation is embedded (see also Lipinski and Loveridge’s reference
to the ‘territory of the future’). The search must be for publications
which, and people who, can give that perspective. Only after this
initial sensitisation that leads to appreciation, should there be any
attempt to look into the situation in greater detail. The temptation is
to do precisely the reverse. Because an organisation believes it knows
so much about itself and its situation, the external influences receive
 Foresight, scenarios and scenario planning  163

relatively little attention; this is precisely the point about narrow

perception made earlier.
Aspects of the broad learning programme now become clearer.
First, there is the need to create an appreciation of the present
that ought to lead to an initial appreciative setting for the people
involved, a task that should not be underestimated as indicated
by Whitehead (1964). Second, there is the later normative step
of describing a desired final state. Third, is time: how long may it
take to get there? The subsequent questions all get beneath the
surface of the responses to those three questions. Many additional
matters are raised too, including: consultation with others (learning
cannot be an entirely self-centred process); monitoring (since all
fields of intelligence and knowledge change; this is an important
matter); timescale; and so on. It is important to be able to identify
the factors that will hardly change at all and those that will change
greatly in the chosen time span: this is the underlying metaphor
of panarchy (Gunderson and Holling 2002). Throughout this step,
interrelationships ought to be very much in mind. Influence or
interaction diagrams should be used to plot these interrelationships,
enabling them to be revised as learning proceeds, portraying the
changing appreciation of the situation as time passes. Development
of the possible interrelationships between the constants and the
variables revealed by the STEEPV learning can be done using
Checkland’s soft systems approach (Checkland 1981: 149) to create
an influence ‘map’ in which interactions are shown. Variables can
also be grouped together into sets which in themselves interact at a
higher level with other sets of variables (e.g. companies interacting
with other companies). These interrelationships are important for
another reason: they help to classify the variables into primary ones,
differentiating them from those that can be mapped directly or
indirectly or simply inferred from primary variables. At some point,
demarcation of the relevant situation boundaries must be made so
that a sharper and longer headline description of the situation can
be set out to enable Step 3 to begin
Step 3 Directed learning can now move on, since the boundaries to the
situation will have been defined by this point, to the more limited
level of those ‘deemed to be necessary for the management of the
complex process of development’ (Loveridge 1981: 59). How, or even
whether, the directed learning programme should embark on the full
process of eliciting expert opinion, outlined by Lipinski and Loveridge
(Chapter  2), is a question of choice. Frequently, a subset of that
process will be sufficient to help the learning process significantly, for
example, by using the self-evaluation criteria for judging the weight of
an expert’s opinion. Choice needs to be exercised in all these matters
164  Scenarios and sustainability

to illuminate the nature of the relationships from which the event

strings will be assembled.
In this step the learning programme becomes more highly focused
onto matters that lie within the boundaries that have been drawn,
bearing in mind that these are mental inventions to facilitate the
growth of mental models of the situation whose physical expression is
through influence or similar diagrams. Alterations to the boundaries
may still occur but the changes ought to be minor ones. As already
described (Chapter 2) boundary setting is a matter of judgement,
applying the tests of relevance, reasonableness and robustness to
the prime demarcation of who and what are important in and to the
situation. The earlier broad learning programme ought to have set
the situation in context; the directed programme should identify the
content and the interrelationships. As Step 3 proceeds it becomes
possible to identify the constants and the variables of the situation.
Both are related to the time horizon: the constants are those factors
whose rate of change is effectively zero over the time horizon; and
the variables are clearly going to change in that period, either in an
identifiable way as a trend or as a specific event or discontinuity,
effectively forming a library of constants and variables for use in
constructing the event strings
Step 4 Here sets of events are chosen from the library and placed in ordered
strings to make up the skeleton of the scenario. How many event
strings to create is a matter of judgement, bearing in mind the earlier
discussion of the technicalities involved and the best way to present
the eventual scenarios to the organisation. The learning process,
however it is constructed, will always have the investigative character
of sampling the unknown territory of the future. Meta-scenarios,
with assignable characteristics, can only be created if the basis of the
process is probabilistic, in the form described by Lipinski and Loveridge
(ibid.). Event strings arrived at by other more conventional processes
will result in single scenarios of negligible likelihood of occurrence
Step 5 Presentation of the scenarios is a preoccupation at this point. Tools
for creating change scenarios have a strong behavioural component
and are value full, so that there is a question to be asked about ‘whose
values do they represent?’ No learning process is value free as human
selectivity to favour some subjects, sources and authors over others,
is a prime issue in the NUSAP system that I am aware of as I write.
Selectivity is inescapable for behavioural reasons, from Simon’s
(1957) notion of bounded rationality and from the sheer quantity of
information that now deluges organisations. Methods of presentation,
much like a play, can take many different forms; the scenario planner’s
art must be to recognise the one that is most likely to be well received
by the audience. To have a mismatch at this point means disaster, no
 Foresight, scenarios and scenario planning  165

matter how well the earlier steps are done: this is a key to the ‘art of
strategic conversation’ (van der Heijden 2005 [1996]). The mode of
presenting scenarios is crucial and depends strongly on the culture of
the organisation. Some will readily accept the storytelling mode, in
which the assumptions are not explicitly set out, but are contained
in the narrative. In others quantitative information is thought to be
of prime importance: here the assumptions will be set out usually in
bald appendices. There is only one golden rule: know your audience.
Similar comments apply to the positioning of the scenarios on the
‘believability’ scale, as discussed earlier
Step 6 Analysis of the set of scenarios is probably the most misunderstood
part of scenario planning. To many people it seems paradoxical to
create scenarios and then to apparently take them apart again to see
what they mean for the organisation. However, it is analysis of the
set of scenarios in relation to the organisation and the situation, to
see how they may introduce branch or turning points in the possible
futures the organisation may face that is being searched for. Scenario
analysis is then conducted to:
• Search for those matters that provide opportunities for the
organisation
• Issue warnings on matters that lie outside the present perception
of the management
• Identify conjunctions of events which, if they occur, are likely
to lead to hitherto unanticipated changes in the organisation’s
environment
• Lead to definitions of the organisation’s policy and with that
identification of the appropriate instruments of policy
Step 7 Derivation of policies within which the organisation ‘ought to’ work,
which I defined earlier as the limits of actions the organisation ‘ought
not to’ exceed in seeking to achieve its purposes and objectives, is
the outcome of the scenario analysis. Scenario analysis is again a
process in which behavioural patterns come into play, through the
highest and least well defined level of the policy hierarchy (Chapter
2), sensing those future values and norms that imply a continuing
need for the organisation and its activities. The scenarios are a key in
this and the following matters, which is why there is a question to be
answered about whose values and norms they embody. Subsequently,
the organisation’s policy is set out in a set of statements delimiting
its activities using the phrase ‘ought to’ or ‘ought not to’ in the sense
of advisability and not commands. Once these statements have
been created the instruments of policy can be searched for: these
are contained in a set of instruments over which the organisation
has control, those where it has partial control and those that are
166  Scenarios and sustainability

beyond its control. Recognition of the latter is an important issue that

cannot happily be ignored and does not identify with the economist’s
exogenous variables
Step 8 The instruments of policy can then be used to derive alternative
strategies that are robust in the senses that they will:
(a) Probably be able to withstand the impact of inevitable disturbances
in the future
(b) Be comprehended by, and acceptable to, society
(c) Be relatively insensitive to delay
The keyword is ‘can’ and refers to the disposition of resources. The
second part of this step is that of detailed actions, the tactical step of
setting out what individual parts of the organisations and individuals
in them ‘will’ do within the framework of the strategy; this is very
much the region of operational command
Step 9 In this final step, the question of evaluation of the alternative strategies
needs to be addressed by modelling the outcome of the scenario
analysis to give a numerical characterisation to each of the candidate
strategies. Here the use of Ockham’s razor pays off. The principle of
Ockham’s razor is that the fewest possible assumptions should be
made to explain something, with its emphasis on simplicity. There is
a lingering belief that strategic models are necessarily complex and
complicated; this is not the case. Key measures relating to financial
returns, the allocation of resources, financing methods and costs, the
role of acquisitions, capital expenditure programmes, and research
and development programmes are expected to be identified during the
scenario analysis and the development of the candidate strategies. The
measures involved will represent complex matters, but at the level of
aggregation appropriate to strategic management, the corresponding
model need not be one of great complication. Should the reverse be
the case, there is good cause to suspect the depth of thought that has
gone into preparing the scenarios and their analysis.

Bringing focus to the learning programmes, indicated in Steps 2 and 3,

is a matter of judgement as are all matters relating to boundary setting. It is
here that Vickers’ notions of appreciation and appreciative setting (Vickers
1963:  274), and my own of behavioural pattern (Loveridge 1977: 53) come
into play. For the newcomer the process seems awesome, each step seeming to
call for many new steps in different directions, making the process seem highly
divergent. The circular (or feedback/feed forward) nature of Steps 1–3 and, to
some degree, of all those up to Step 6 has already been stressed. Learning will
affect appreciation of the present, as well as perception and conception of what
can be achieved in the future.
 Foresight, scenarios and scenario planning  167

C r itiqu e
Is scenario planning and all that is associated with it a valuable, or maybe an
indispensable, way for organisations to plan for the future in a changing world?
Or is it simply the latest planning gimmick? Anecdotal evidence points in all
directions with claims ranging from the stunning and successful use of scenario
planning to the opposite, with the former very much fortissimo the latter in
definite diminuendo. It is only natural for protagonists to trumpet their wares
while busy managers decide that their time is better spent in ‘getting on with
the job’ rather than writing press articles. There are much deeper difficulties
in deciding how useful scenarios and scenario planning are, ones that stem
from foresight, on which scenario planning depends, and the values, and
norms which scenarios and planning express. I raised the latter earlier under
the simple question ‘whose values and whose norms?’ These questions occur
in the context of human physical and intellectual capability that have brought
humanity to the global Ackoffian ‘mess’ that it now faces, a mindset typified
by the belief, now prevalent once again, that we are ‘in charge’ of the future
of the planet, an issue I shall return to in Chapters 7 and 8, while human
psychology and behaviour have remained unchanged over millennia. There
can be no clearer evidence of this belief that ‘we are in charge’ than the current
scenarios of climate change that are producing a clamour for actions by world
institutions, governments and individuals to ‘control’ the changes foreseen.
Even a cursory look back over aeons of time reveals that, in the solar system,
the Earth’s climate is highly unusual and that it has never been stable. Changes
from warm periods to cold ones and back again were present long before
human existence and scenario planning. The ultimate test of scenario planning
will be if the worst effects of climate change do not occur; the word averted
is not admissible as it will never be possible to prove conclusively that human
actions prevented the climate Armageddon currently in vogue. Whatever
happens, the biggest casualty will be science and technology, which will be seen
as failing humanity whatever the outcome, because it will not be possible to
demonstrate that humanity can control the Earth’s climate if the catastrophe
fails to materialise, nor can science simply sit back with ‘I told you so’ if it does,
as the results may be so dramatic as to make science irrelevant. Scenarios and
scenario planning may well be the best change tools around for some time.
The question ‘change to what?’ is inescapable, as is the indeterminacy of the
effect of foresight which, while shaping human societies, can rarely be traced
to specific events that reshape their trajectory. Hindsight enables strong claims
for the reverse, but if there is a trait that identifies real foresight (Loveridge
2001: 781) it is that it is ridiculed or ignored (the greatest form of oppression)
when it happens as Einstein, Churchill, the Meadows (and Forrester), Lorenz,
Commoner, Hardin and many others show. Scenarios and scenario planning are
useful: how useful depends on to whom you are listening. Its worst fate could
be to follow the pattern of Peters and Waterman’s analysis of companies that
168  Scenarios and sustainability

exhibited ‘excellence’ many of which no longer exist (Peters and Waterman

1982); this is simply a demonstration that organisations only exist for as long as
human societies need them. The best demonstration for scenarios and planning
is to help humanity to cope with the dynamics of the human world as part of
the natural world, keeping human organisations fit for their purpose within the
unknown limits of the Earth’s natural system.
Several different themes have been alluded to in discussing the development
of scenarios; each has something to offer to the others. While scenario building
is an everyday occurrence, its depth is not often appreciated so that there is
glibness about much of what emerges and is used in parading ideas about the
territory of the future – this is unfortunate. The study by Lipinski and Loveridge
is unique in its approach and may never be repeated. However, there is much to
learn from it regarding the probabilistic nature of all scenarios and how that is
ignored in most scenario development.
Playwrights, poets and artists intend to display passions for situations past,
present and future unashamedly in their own highly personal way without any
inhibitions about embodying their values and norms in their works. All use
scenarios, for that is what their works are, to influence human thought and
behaviour. Scenario planners have the same intention. Their implied claim is
that the procedures used in gathering information and eliciting opinion from
opinion formers, enables ideas for the future and the situations they will be
embedded in or will create, to be represented impartially in their scenarios.
Judgement on this matter does not lie in the lap of the scenario writer, but
in that of the users through their view of the offerings. The earlier diagram
(Figure 6.2) showing the placement of scenarios and Boettinger’s notion
of handshaking is where these judgements are made. It comes down to the
question of ‘Whose values?’
Ch a p t e r 7
Sus taina b l e worl d

Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable – to ensure that

it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs.
G.H. Brundtland, ‘Our Common Future’ (1987)

I ntroduction
There can hardly be an occasion where synergy between foresight and systems
thinking can be more significant than in the future of humankind; this chapter
will present a personal view illustrating this synergy. Sustainable world? It
is an inappropriate question to ask about a planet that has existed for some
four billion years. Foresight for, and systemic thinking about, a sustainable
world needs much preparation. Whether the popular notion of sustainability
is supportable leads to many questions about definitions, of which there are
many – all of which create an aura of mysticism that can become misleading.
My initiation into the mysteries of ‘sustainability’ came in the 1970s when
Philip Holroyd and I learned the essentials of the ‘Limits to Growth’ debate
and speculated about what would bring population growth to an end. Which
of the ‘four horsemen’ would bring the apocalypse? Would it be War? Famine?
Pestilence? Death? Or is it more likely all four causes will occur in unison? Or
would there be some other events that could provide food for the horsemen?
We speculated about these, knowing that there were and still are many well-
substantiated events that could be apocalyptic. Asteroid impact, huge volcanic
eruptions, the eruption of a giant caldera or super-volcano (Yellowstone Park
is one), thermonuclear war, unusually strong sunspot activity with a marked
increase in cosmic ray bombardment. The potential for climate change and
the likelihood of the return of an ice age was well known, though we felt, along
with so many other people, that the time scale for these two events seemed
long enough for them to be a lesser focus of attention.
In the 1970s the forecasting world was agog at the ‘Limits to Growth’ debate
(Meadows et al. 1972) and other similar ‘world modelling’ studies each with
their protagonists and antagonists. In 1973, the ‘first oil shock’ seemed to
amplify the messages from ‘Limits’ and placed the question of security of fuel
170  Scenarios and sustainability

supply on national agendas for the first time; it soon disappeared from these
agendas and, despite all efforts, security of fuel supply has largely remained
a low key matter for politicians until events in 2005 have forced it back onto
the agenda. Even now, the near universal dependence of social coherence
and development on a secure supply of electricity hardly makes the headlines.
We also worked with the Intermediate Technology Development Group that
enabled us to absorb some of their ideas about what were then rudely called
the LDCs (less-developed countries), a further insight into ideas that have
since become associated with ‘sustainability’. Moving nearer to this topic,
Herman Daly’s work on steady-state economics, from 1968 onwards, and the
ever growing introduction of mathematics into ecology, beautifully described
by Maynard-Smith (1974), made it possible to perceive as others did too, that
the time for a marriage between ecology and economics ‘was near’ (Loveridge
1981: 12): thanks to Costanza and Daly (1987: 1) ecological economics has
been placed firmly on the agenda of sustainability since 1990. Some of our
speculations were described to the UK Futures Network in 1984 (Oliver et
al. 1984: 286). These informal and mainly unintentional steps helped when
coming up against the notion of sustainability more directly.
It was in the early 1960s that Lorenz laid the foundations of weather
forecasting models (Lorenz 1963: 130); these had to await the development of
super-computers before they became capable of staying ahead of the weather
in the real world. Now these models are widely used and relied upon for many
commercial and non-commercial purposes. Subtly, the weather forecasting
models were transformed into the various forms of climate models (there
are several different types) for which expansive claims are now made despite
known uncertainties about their parameters and their completeness which is
fully exposed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2007).
Nevertheless, climate models have captured political imagination with startling
expediency. As with the ‘Limits’ models, the usefulness of climate models, in
their various guises, remains contentious, especially as some aspects of climate
science or its representation remain in dispute. As will be seen later, both the
‘Limits’ models and their climate counterparts have, in combination, created a
political debate that is focussed currently on the possibilities of climate change,
not in itself an exceptional event as the Earth’s climate has never been stable,
having varied greatly over the aeons of the planet’s history. Nevertheless, the
prospects of climate variations beyond common experience are frightening to
a vulnerable species like humanity, particularly when painted in apocalyptic
terms for real or imagined purposes.

Might s u s ta i na bil i t y exist ?

The notion of sustainability, the ability to prevent something from failing
under stress, seems disarmingly simple. Currently, in the political debate
‘failure under stress’ refers to either the extinction of the human species or
 Sustainable world  171

to a gross change in humankind’s life-support system, altering drastically

the conditions under which people live. It remains unclear whether that
change would be for better or for worse: it depends on how apocalyptic
the storyteller chooses to be. Why a storyteller? Because all descriptions of
the future, however they are created, are scenarios or stories that have to
await events in the real world for their unveiling. Rephrased the question
is ‘What is life?’, a question posed many times in humankind’s history, most
cogently by Schrödinger (Schrödinger 1944) which prompted a reply in 1995,
from Margulis and Sagan, that places the debate about ‘sustainability’ in an
altogether different context with a far more extensive content than is usually
evident (Margulis and Sagan 1995).
Many people question the relevance or even the reasonableness of the
notions of sustainability and sustainable development to humankind’s
current situation. Attempts have been made to represent sustainability in
simple terms, but without much success (Upham 1999); sustainability is
complex. Lovelock’s Gaia theory (Lovelock 1972, 1979, 1988, 2000, 2006)
and Holling’s (in Linstone and Simmonds 1977: 129) work and that of
Gunderson and Holling (2002) are manifestations of the complexity involved.
Holling (1977) makes the difficult differentiation between the engineering
‘fail-safe’ procedure, with its assumption that the system can be completely
specified, and his proposal that real ecological systems remain ‘safe when
they fail’. The latter means that ecological systems never fail completely, as
explained more exhaustively by Gunderson and Holling (2002), even though
the circumstances in which the systems exist can never be fully understood.
The notion of sustainability is not universally accepted nor is its practical
counterpart sustainable development (Lovelock 2006: 3), though Gunderson
and Holling (2002) present an elegant explanation of the two phenomena
derived from their evolution of the notion of ‘panarchy’. Consequently, the
ensuing politicisation of both ideas has simply diverted the debate away from
the essence of the question, which is the continuance of life on the planet.
Margulis and Sagan (1995), and Lovelock (2000: 91) describe the continuance
of planetary life as requiring the complex inter-working of factors ranging from
the Earth’s position in the solar system and its consequent dynamics, to the
ecological web of organisms down to bacteria and viruses. The complicated,
systemic nature of the Earth has been described by Huggett, amongst others,
in publications of rare clarity and enormous scope (Huggett 1995, 1997). In
a different and more astonishing way the Gaia theory (Lovelock 1979) is an
evolving systemic theory of how the Earth’s functions have evolved since its
formation some four billion years ago. The most recent version is beautifully
presented in a popular format (Lovelock 2000: 91). These points of view will
be discussed later; suffice to say here that whilst the breadth of Huggett’s
canvas is based on normal science, Margulis’ serial endosymbiosis theory
(Margulis 1968: 3845) and Lovelock’s Gaia theory are not, both having taken
many years to gain limited acceptance.
172  Scenarios and sustainability

The ‘sustainability’ debate has reached its current intensity because the
future of humankind is purported to be threatened, if not totally then to the
ways of living evident in the ‘developed’ world, itself a questionable attribute.
This is a stark description of the situation that requires appreciation of the
planet’s systemic properties within in the solar system. Drawing the situation’s
boundaries in this way places sustainable development in physical scales
that are immense, ranging from the dimensions of viruses to astronomical
distances, a range of 1037. The cascade – down from the latter and up from
the former – to the scale of human activity and business places these in a
perspective that has mostly been absent from the debate over past decades.
Similarly, the current emphasis on environmental sustainability is misleading
as it rests on a number of untenable assumptions. Chief amongst these is
the belief that man is in control of the planet, a belief set down in Genesis
(1:28–30), but which has been evident from the time humanity began
moulding the natural world to survive. It is a belief that has gone through
many reincarnations. In the 1970s it occurred in its modern format only to
die again. Now it seems to be re-emerging in the guise of what humanity
can do to ameliorate, if not control, climate changes. Within the situation
boundary set out, sustainability has to be the far wider concept described by
Margulis and Sagan (1995) and by Lovelock (2000) rather than the current
concern for the ‘environment’ and concerns for the developed world’s way
of life. Despite Lovelock’s criticism of sustainability (Lovelock 2006: 3), it
contains a hint that sustainable development might have been a valid notion
had humankind paid more and earlier respect for the natural world in which
its societies are embedded. For that reason I shall use the terms sustainability
and sustainable development throughout the remainder of the chapter to
provide a conduit, Boettinger’s notion of ‘hand shaking’ (Boettinger 1969),
between the ideas of the protagonists and antagonists in the current debate.
Before doing so it is necessary to dispose of the penchant for humankind to
seek definitions of subjects to facilitate debate.

Def inition s of sust a ina bil i t y: ut i l i ty o r f uti l i ty ?

Definitions of sustainability and sustainable development abound and so do
criticisms of them. Even obvious supporters have reached the conclusion that
‘attempts to find an exhaustive definition for sustainability seems to be futile’
(Voinov and Smith 1994). A similar state pertains to sustainability’s close
relative, the knowledge society. Paradoxically neither can be specified to enable
their recognition let alone their achievement: ‘To a certain extent this may be
because once scientific analysis is applied to the sustainability concept [or to
the knowledge society – authors’ addition] it turns out to be either redundant,
or ambiguous’ (Voinov 1998). Both sustainability and the knowledge society
have become political issues more than part of science, exhibiting many of the
aspects of trans-science (Weinberg 1972).
 Sustainable world  173

The knowledge society is a set within the entire set that makes up
sustainability. There ‘efforts to mobilise S&T for sustainability are more likely
to be effective when they manage boundaries between knowledge and action
in ways that simultaneously enhance the salience, credibility, and legitimacy of
the information they produce’ (Cash et al. 2003). Cash et al. (ibid.: 8086) go on
to suggest that:

credibility involves the scientific adequacy of the technical evidence and

arguments. Salience deals with the relevance of the assessment to the needs
of decision makers. Legitimacy reflects the perception that the production
of information and technology has been respectful of stakeholders divergent
values and beliefs, unbiased in its conduct, and fair in its treatment of
opposing views and interests.

Cash et al. went on to claim their ‘work shows these attributes are tightly
coupled, such that efforts to enhance any one normally incur a cost to the
others.’ Cash et al.’s notion of credibility implies the need to use the NUSAP
system (Funtowicz and Ravetz 1990a: 28) when examining data, while salience
faces the policy makers quandary of Barker and Peters’ (1993: 2) six levels of
cognitive difficulty. Both components come together through Weinberg’s (1972)
notion of trans-science, which embraces Barker and Peters’ two highest levels
of cognitive difficulty (Chapter 2), so that legitimacy becomes an emergent
property in society (Figure 7.1) rather than a well understood one that could
have been foreseen.

Figure 7.1 Legitimisation of new forms of behaviour

174  Scenarios and sustainability

Reasonableness

Social
Relevance Robustnes
Robustness
ess
es

Human Technological
values

Politics Economic

Ecology

Figure 7.2 Influence of the 3-RRR’s (relevance, reasonableness and robustness) on the
STEEPV set and their interactions

Legitimisation is a step toward a change in personal and collective mindset

(Chapter 2) that occurs through the inter-working of thought experiments
and real world events in the STEEPV set. Sustainability, if it exists at all as
a concept and a practical endeavour, requires the triangular interrelatedness
between relevance, reasonableness and robustness (Chapter 2) to operate over
the interrelatedness of the whole STEEPV set, as illustrated below (Figure 7.2),
rather than Cash et al.’s (2003) notions of credibility and salience.
If legitimacy is an emergent property it can only be appreciated in hindsight,
whereas the role of foresight is to synthesise possibilities for sustainability,
incorporating the systemic thought patterns illustrated in Figures 7.1 and 7.2.
Recognition of a situation in which sustainability might exist, will then need to
detect events that arise from the individual strands of the STEEPV set and also
from the increasing number of complex intersections between them, with the
most complex of all being the intersection formed from all six strands. These
intersections only convey the boundaries and contexts involved; their content
is made up of the elements within each intersection, which display the extent
to which events, trends and issues in each of the six themes are common or
unique to any single intersection. It is this staggering complexity that makes
sustainability a uniquely difficult situation, as will be referred to again later.
Critics use this situation to denigrate sustainability, while its supporters flounder
to explain its possibilities, often resorting to extravagant claims for them that
are difficult to support.
 Sustainable world  175

Given the above comments do definitions of sustainability have utility or are

they simply futile endeavours? The scene can be set by Lovelock’s expression of
amazement at the way the Brundtland’s definition of sustainable development
has been manipulated and ‘so grievously misunderstood’ (Lovelock 2006: 78).
Susan Murcott compiled a list of 57 definitions of sustainability, proposed
between 1979 and 1997 (Murcott 1997), while the International Institute
for Sustainable Development (IISD) simply claims that there are ‘as many
definitions as there are people working on it [sustainable development].’ By
now Murcott’s ‘57 varieties’ will have spawned many more. The plethora
of information about sustainability may give an indication of the current
interest and expectation about it, which is being fanned by the politicisation
of the IPCC’s reports on climate change. However, if sustainability is to be
based in a respectable theory and in practice, there has to be more to it
than massive amounts of information of highly variable quality and origin. To
gain some insight into how sustainability is thought about, a simple content
analysis of a well-known listing of the principles of sustainability has some
remarkable outcomes (Note 1). The procedure is only an indicative one and
its shortcomings are openly acknowledged. The analysis was conducted on the
words derived from the listed principles (the definite and indefinite articles
and similar words were removed during the initial steps in the analysis) and
revealed the Table 7.1.
Of the 888 distinct words, three non-specific ones (environment, sustain­
ability and principle) occur most frequently. Use of the word ‘system’, in its
colloquial meanings, occurred at moderate frequencies. It was only at the lower
frequencies of occurrence that more specific words began to appear. Many
important words relating to foresight and systems thinking, in the context of
sustainability, occurred only once in the entire set: these included words and
phrases such as appreciation, boundary, carrying capacity, clean air, climate,
context, dynamics, foresight, situation, stability, synthesis, unsustainable and
warming. It would be wrong to over-emphasise the indications from this rough
and ready analysis beyond the obvious conclusion that the principles in this list
are not overly concerned with systemic thought.
So what does any definition of sustainability tell us? The abundance of
definitions, some with similarities, but many being unique, indicate that each
is set down for a specific purpose without the need to regard any unifying
principles so that each definition:

• Is related to the situation concerned

• May be unique to the people concerned representing their interests and
predilections in relation to the situation
• Will be a representation of the behavioural pattern of the individual or the
aggregate pattern of the group of individuals concerned with respect to the
situation effectively mapping its boundaries
• Will effectively prescribe the way the situation may be ameliorated.
Table 7.1  Content analysis of a listing of the principles of sustainability
Range of occurrence >50 49–40 39–30 29–20 19–10 9–5 4 3 2 1
Number of distinct words 3 5 5 7 40 107 61 76 141 446
% of total distinct words 0.3 0.2 0.6 0.8 4.5 12.1 6.9 8.6 15.9 50.2
 Sustainable world  177

In general, the abundance of definitions indicates a healthy diversity of ideas

about the nature and purposes of sustainability (and sustainable development)
from which a minimum set of guiding principles may emerge, leaving sufficient
flexibility to allow definitions or, perhaps more appropriately, specifications of
what is intended in each unique situation. In itself this state of affairs typifies
the growth of new ideas that come and go rapidly until a set of durable ideas
emerge from the welter of those that are short lived, but not forgotten. In human
affairs (and in ecology in the evolution of species referred to later) this is a
common experience. Even academic disciplines are not immune to apparently
chaotic times during their evolution, and periodically thereafter, though these
ideas have been most highly developed for the nature of paradigm shifts in
science (Kuhn 1962). Because of the all-embracing character of sustainability
and its relationship to the continuity of life on the planet, elucidation of a
minimum set of guiding principles is unlikely to evolve quickly, despite the
presence of a raft of assessment methodologies related to the limited notion of
environmental protection.
The public debate in the 1970s about sustainability returned in the 1990s,
but most noisily focussed on concerns about climate change.
The debate about sustainability goes back to ancient times, but its modern
incarnation began with Robert Wallace’s concern for population growth and
food shortages (Wallace 1761). Two strands of the current debate emerged
simultaneously, and without any connection, in the early 1960s, when
Lorenz laid the foundations of the current climate models (Lorenz 1963) and
Forrester developed the systems dynamics approach to modelling complex
systems (Forrester 1961: 21). Just as important was the deeper understanding
of the dynamic history of the Earth that was emerging, at the same time,
from other disciplines. The ferocity of the current debate stems from the
social phenomena of single issue groups in the ‘environmental’ field. The
Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace are just two of the current galaxy of
organisations that circle round the notion of sustainability. However, the
current debate is but a repetition of events that occurred in the 1970s
following the publication of ‘The Limits to Growth’ (Meadows et al. 1972)
and the first ‘oil crisis’. Understanding of the many phenomena involved in
sustainability and of the complexity of the Earth, and its life support systems,
may have improved, but their politicisation has done little to improve the
public perception or understanding of the underlying issues, if only because
many of the caveats and qualifications attached to research outcomes are
happily ignored in the search for ‘clarity and simplicity’ of presentation by the
media and political institutions. The many earlier warnings and entreaties for
governments to take actions in various fields were largely (but not entirely)
ignored, while industry was left to make the considerable progress it has in
many aspects of sustainable development, through market forces and the
influence of some regulation. Perhaps this is only right. In the end it is people
who will make sustainability and sustainable development a reality. Lastly,
178  Scenarios and sustainability

from here onwards the terms sustainability and sustainable development are
not used indiscriminately or interchangeably as it may seem. For reasons that
are explained, sustainability is reserved for the underlying philosophy, while
sustainable development is regarded as its practical implementation.

T he ‘s itu at i on’
Is successful continuity for humanity possible indefinitely? From a systems
view, is sustainability ‘unavoidable’ or simply an option? How do foresight and
systems thinking relate to sustainability? There is something quaint about the
way the current debate surrounding ‘sustainability’ is being conducted. In
September 1999 The Sunday Times reported how footprints of Homo habilis
had been found in central Africa, indicating a migration dating back 2 million
years. Other forms of life existed long before these migrations, evolving over
several aeons (1 aeon = 1 billion years) by adapting to changed circumstances
on the Earth’s surface and in its oceans, that far exceed those that are the
source of so much current excitement. Indeed, ‘… for the past three and
a half aeons the climate has never been, even for a short period, wholly
unfavourable for life. Because of the unbroken record of life … the oceans
can never have either frozen or boiled’ (Lovelock 1979: 19). Life has adapted
to the greatest change of all, the shift from an atmosphere largely devoid of
oxygen to one that is oxygen rich and has remained of stable composition
(Lovelock 1979: 67) for many aeons, despite its curious chemical composition.
There is then nothing new about sustainable development in nature – it is
not optional but inevitable.
Successful life on the planet requires the complicated inter-working of
factors ranging from the Earth’s position in the solar system and its consequent
dynamics, to the ecological web of organisms down to bacteria; in these
wide limits human activity has little control, but humanity’s interventions
and activities, as practiced over millennia, has brought many uncertain and
unexpected outcomes and may continue to do so. By contrast, the current
interventions and pronouncements by politicians, policy makers, the media
and single issue groups relating to the environment (not sustainability) lack
coherence and a proper historical perspective. One can only conclude that the
current source of excitement is then about two possibilities: either a paroxysm
in the solar system causing the Earth to lose its life support system, or more likely
the rapid return of much harsher climatic conditions (Agar 1973) promoting
the possible need for mass migrations by all species in which humans may not
fare best.
The notion of sustainability seems disarmingly simple but in practice
it is slippery. The complicated nature of the system in which the Earth and
sustainability reside has been described by Huggett (Huggett 1995 illustrated in
a systems diagram Huggett 1997: 7). Huggett’s description can be summarised
briefly in three levels and four sub-levels as follows:
 Sustainable world  179

• The galaxy and universe

• The solar system
• The Earth
• The atmosphere
• The hydrosphere
• The lithosphere
• The barysphere

All of these levels interact, but the present situation boundary is drawn at
the solar system, and within that, at the Earth and its subsystems. Huggett
breaks the system down into the:

• Atmosphere
• Biosphere
• Hydrosphere
• Pedosphere
• Toposphere

These are given their current colloquial name of the ecosphere. To para­
phrase Huggett, environmental change comes from the interactions within the
ecosphere and from its interactions with its external surroundings, the ‘solid’
below it (the lithosphere and barysphere) and with the external forces arising
within the solar system.
Standing on the Earth’s ‘surface’ it is hard to remember that the planet is
far from stable, but is a ‘semisolid’ body whose surface is cracked into tectonic
plates that are in continuous movement, driven by the cooling of the molten
core and shaped by weathering effects. Also, several forces cause motions and
shifts in the Earth’s spin axis (Huggett 1997: 43). Examples are the Chandler
wobble and other motions of the poles, which have wandered over geologic
time and continue to do so. The occurrence of earthquakes, sea floor spreading
and rising, and volcanism are some of the surface manifestations of the turmoil
that occurs deep in the Earth. While movement of the tectonic plates is most
obvious in geologic time, the immediate impact on surface life is considerable
and extensive, while there are constant reminders of humanity’s inability to
anticipate let alone control these events as demonstrated, for example, by the
Indian Ocean tsunami of December 28, 2004.
Similarly, the influence of the cosmosphere is crucial, including, as it does,
solar activity and the likely impact of asteroids (Schilling 1999: 655) and
comets. Solar activity includes sunspot cycles, cosmic radiation levels and the
changes in the solar irradiance. Each of these, and other solar effects, have
different influences on the successful continuity of life on the Earth. Arguments
rage over the likelihood of a major asteroid impact, but a ‘recent calculation
gives a 1-in-10,000 odds on a 2 km diameter asteroid smiting the Earth in the
next century’ (Chapman and Morrison 1994); episodic bombardments are not
180  Scenarios and sustainability

in the past. It is easy to forget that the cosmosphere is a violent place; the
Galaxy and the Earth itself were born of violence beyond our appreciation.
For all the foregoing reasons it has to be recognised that the human species
has little or no control over its successful continuity, other than in a few minor
ways. Indeed, the notion that ‘we are in control’ should be avoided in all
circumstances (Margulis and Sagan 1995: 243). The best that can be hoped
for is that the Earth’s life support system will remain ‘safe when it fails’ (Holling
1977: 129), for humans in particular. If the physical dynamics of the Earth were
not fearful enough, the multiplicity of predatory life forms, bacteria and viruses,
in particular, add a further interrelated factor in the web of systems that control
the existence of life on the Earth and is one that is happily downgraded if not
ignored in the current ‘debate’ on sustainability.
Strangely, the modern debate does not focus on the concerns that occurred
centuries ago: population, food supply and disease, but on factors relating to
climate change, presumably on the (incorrect) assumption that these original
concerns are no longer of importance. Now it is necessary to add another often
neglected factor, water supply, to the original list. In antiquity, successful societies
maintained high fertility rates. They did so partly by stressing the duties of
marriage and procreation, stigmatising persons who failed to produce children.
Many of these pronatalist motives were incorporated into the broad spectrum of
religious dogma and mythology, yet more factors to be considered systemically.
Population and its general demography are fundamental to systemic
thinking about sustainability. In the present situation, successful continuity
of the human population is the focus; that requires the life-support systems
referred to above to be present, a major assumption. The names Wallace
(1761) and Malthus (Malthus 1798) are inextricably tied to population matters
following the publication of their ideas concerning population growth, food
supply and other matters. In particular, Malthus’ ideas influenced public policy
(such as reforms in the English Poor Laws) and the ideas of the classical, and
neo-classical economists, demographers, and evolutionary biologists, led by
Charles Darwin; the evidence and analyses that Malthus produced dominated
scientific discussion of population during his lifetime. Though many of Malthus’
gloomy predictions have so far proved to be mistaken, his later work introduced
analytical methods that clearly anticipated demographic techniques developed
more than 100 years later. The debate started by Malthus has never stopped, so
it is instructive to look at the way the distribution of the world’s population has
changed in recent years (Table 7.2).
The relative decrease in the population of the current group of ‘rich’ or
‘developed’ nations compared to the rest of the world is evident and is of
immense importance for sustainable development, for international relations
and for business. There is nothing new in this conclusion: it has been evident
for many decades. The implications of this shift for sustainable development
have also been known for many decades, but it helps to restate these rather
obvious conclusions lest they get forgotten. The Earth’s population by all species
 Sustainable world  181

Table 7.2  Estimates of world population (1971, 1995 and 2030) – from Table 5.2
Average annual growth rate between 1995 and 2030 = 1.4%
Actual population (millions) Estimated population
(millions)
1971 1995 2030
Asia 2,313 3,443 5,176
Africa 372 707 1,807
North America 235 279 332
South America 274 474 919
Europe 470 506 494
Russia 235 283 274
Oceania 20 26 31
Caribbean 39 60
Total 3,920 5,756 9,094

and the nature of those species is a key factor in sustainable development, as is

the rate at which species suffer extinction or evolve; this applies particularly to
viruses and organic diseases.

C ompu ter m odel l i ng: GI GO or a n i m p o rta nt

t ool?
Modelling of a situation is an essential part of foresight and systems thinking;
how it influences ideas about sustainability is important. Chapter 1 outlined
the way models evolve from concepts into their descriptive forms: this is the
point of departure here. The idea of describing the future of the world by a set
of equations proved difficult to come to terms with when the ‘Limits to Growth’
was published (Meadows et al. 1972). The publication of ‘Limits’ brought
ripostes in such a way as to bring a concern and a focus onto sustainability in
a way that nothing else had done, though the ripostes were not often referred
to in those terms. The reason for this is not hard to find; the Meadows’ work
breached too many conventions simultaneously, even if the claims made at the
time went beyond probity. The other reason why ‘Limits’ attracted so much
attention was the direct way sustainability and its importance to everyday life
featured in the outputs; these included representing the ‘state of the world’ in
terms of:
• Resources
• Population
• Food
• Industrial output
• Pollution.
182  Scenarios and sustainability

The ‘material standard of living’ was represented by:

• Life expectancy
• Services per person
• Consumer goods per person
• Food per person.

The behaviours of these variables, as an interacting set, were presented

as trends rather than absolute values: this was part of the problem the work
faced. In cultures where the political argument is so often subverted from
governing principles into a morass of statistical information of doubtful
relevance, a practice that still abounds, the ‘Limits’ form of presentation was
difficult to cope with. The Meadows work had, and still has, shortcomings,
in such a major effort that is hardly surprising. What is irrational is the way
that climate modelling has been granted wide credibility with relative ease,
when the earliest work was no more credible than that of the Meadows and
has only become slightly more credible now. The comparative usefulness
of the Meadows ‘world models’ and of the four types of climate models,
which range from the zero-dimensional models to the complicated three-
dimensional general circulation models (GCM) described in the latest IPCC
assessment report (IPCC AR4 2007), must remain a matter of opinion. As
the saying goes ‘models are models – they are not reality’. There is no way
in which the two kinds of model can be compared. However, in the political
domain climate models have achieved a status not accorded to world models
that attempt to deal with the complications of sustainable development.
Again, the reason is not hard to find: however complicated climate change
models may be they have been portrayed as addressing a single issue, that of
the outcome of humanity’s interaction with the ‘environment’ though the
scope of that term is rarely defined. By comparison ‘world models’ address
a complicated set of issues that cannot be reduced to a single convenient
statistic or a notion, such as the atmospheric CO2 concentration or a rise
in global mean temperature, even though that latter statistic is meaningless
operationally. However, these simplifications have enabled public debate to
proceed unhampered by a need to pay attention to the many caveats and
qualifications that climate modellers, climatologists, geophysicists and many
other groups of scientists, and non-scientists, have placed on the outcomes
of climate simulations.
Global circulation models have become more realistic as more features have
been incorporated. Until recently, short cuts had to be taken if the simulations
were to run in a realistic time even on the most powerful computers; there
was also no option but to use these short cuts due to physical constraints of
in situ observations. Now these ‘fudge factors’ are beginning to be dispensed
with but uncertainties and caveats remain. Part of the art of simulation is in
verification, usually by running the simulation for a period for which input
 Sustainable world  183

and output data are known, verisimilitude granting validity to the simulation
model. The practice is successful for systems that are completely specified, a
necessary condition to run the simulation forward since this assumes that the
unknown future is an extension of the past, no new or unexpected features
being involved. In climate simulation there are doubts and uncertainties that
question whether the future will be a simple extension of the past or whether
the system is anywhere near fully specified, if only because of the many factors
whose influence remains uncertain. Many of these factors are encapsulated
in Huggett’s (1997) systems diagram. As an aside, a very different kind of
climate change study was based on the elicitation of expert opinion with no
simulations to guide them (Anon 1978); the time horizon was to the year
2000. The objective function was the mean average temperature change in the
northern hemisphere over the 22 year period to the year 2000; the outcome
was expressed as a probability distribution, as it must be in this kind of exercise,
and showed a median change of +0.45°C with probabilities of 0.9 and 0.1
for temperature changes of +0.95°C and +0.05°C respectively. One wonders
what the outcome would have been if the time horizon had been 100 years.
The outcome is certainly comparable with climate simulations.
Mahlman (1997: 1416) set out to clarify many of the arguments about the
use of GCMs. He posed the question of why should any attention be paid
to attempts to model the Earth’s climate, claiming that the models do a ‘…
reasonably good job of capturing the essence of the large-scale aspects of the
current climate …’ (ibid.) but added that GCMs still contain weaknesses
and important uncertainties. Mahlman listed nine ‘virtually certain “facts”’
relating to GCMs, two ‘virtually certain projections,’ seven ‘very probable
projections’ and five ‘probable projections’. He dismissed many of the
commonly made assertions about climate change and pointed out that none
of the GCMs can be relied on to give much guidance about the all-important
‘small scale’ variations in climate, an issue that the IPCC begins to address
in its 2007 reports, that will be important for understanding where living
conditions may undergo significant change. The importance of this latter
point lies in the way that agricultural and biological effects, especially the
shifts in the distribution of disease vectors and their hosts, may occur around
the world, together with changes in water availability; models attempting
to tackle these problems are now (2007) under discussion but this is a field
rife with anecdote of such strength that current science relating to these
matters is often drowned out. Lastly, Mahlman did not say how the effects of
human activity can be separated from that of the natural changes that always
occur (e.g. arising from volcanism, tectonic plate movement and sea floor
spreading) and are, for the most part, of far greater magnitude than human
activity.
The comment made a few years ago that the debate about climate change
was ‘taking place inside a computer’ has a ring of truth. But what is the debate
really about? There are perhaps two salient notions:
184  Scenarios and sustainability

• The Earth’s ecosphere, and hence the climate, has never been ‘stable,’ but
has always been and will always be in a state of flux. There is no ideal state
to which the ecosphere can be ‘returned’
• The ecosphere has sustained ‘life’ for several aeons, only very recently
including human life. During these aeons, once the atmosphere became
aerobic the composition of the atmosphere has remained unchanged,
with only minor variations, at its present unusual composition (Lovelock
1979: 67), though during the last 300 million years there have been five
extinction events (Permian, Triassic, Toarcian, Cenomanian/Turonian
and Paleocene) that have been attributed with vicarious authority to the
concentration of some ‘trace’ gases, including carbon dioxide and water
vapour.

The debate cannot then be about the sustainability of life on the planet
but about the way that human activity is interfering with the behaviour of the
ecosphere. Humanity has always interfered with the ecosphere to benefit its
ways of living as embodied in past and present human cultures. Interference
has been particularly noticeable in and by the current group of developed
countries, and those that aspire to be like them. The future behaviour of the
ecosphere is unknown (it is unknowable). It will be a continuum from the past,
so that models verified in the traditional way, using verisimilitude with the
past, and then used to forecast the future of the ecosphere, already include
human activity. These forecasts then assume the continuing validity of the
models’ structure into the far future. It, therefore, becomes logically dubious to
claim that these models can be used to detect a ‘fingerprint’ of human activity,
unless:

• Forecasts and observations of given parameters are in due time in reason­

able agreement
• The influences arising from human activity rather than that from all
forms of life can be established with comparable veracity by a different
process, the difference between the two estimates then being found to
be significant though this may arise from the difference between two
comparable numbers.

It is these kinds of arguments that are ignored or simply not appreciated

by the media and in the political world. Worse still, the future behaviour of
the ecosphere is only part of the story of sustainability, which is the arena that
world models have attempted to shed some light on.
World models have been difficult to come to terms with so it is worth
understanding something about their genesis. The roots of world modelling lie in
process control system engineering with its concerns for system inputs, outputs
and regulatory feedback loops; the field had developed over many decades
prior to the late 1950s. At that time management scientists were looking for
 Sustainable world  185

tools for creating frameworks for describing industrial activity and to enable
‘enterprise design’ (Forrester 1961). To quote Forrester (ibid.: vii), ‘Industrial
dynamics is a way of studying the behaviour of industrial systems to show how
policies, decisions, structure, and delays are interrelated to influence growth
and stability.’ To study industrial dynamics Forrester developed a symbolic
language, now known as ‘systems dynamics’, to allow ‘… the investigation of the
information feedback character of industrial systems and the use of models for
the design of improved organisational forms and guiding policy.’ (ibid.: 13).
System dynamics models are used in modelling unstructured systems in
which many of the relationships are not explicit: they are made causal through
appreciation of the feedback loops which are often characterised through empirical
statistical analysis of existing data. To quote Forrester (ibid.: 60), ‘The questions
to be answered precede model design. The closed-loop system structure must
be reflected in a model. Time delays, amplification, and information distortion
must be adequately represented.’ These comments reflect some of the essential
differences between modelling a physical system, such as the climate, and systems
modelled using systems dynamics. With the encouragement of the Club of
Rome, the Meadows team developed the World 3 model using systems dynamics
methods. The major outputs have already been mentioned and were typically
presented as sets of trends showing how the model behaviour represented for
example, a transition to a sustainable system based on policies adopted in 2015.
The publication of ‘Limits’ in 1972 sparked a series of similar studies, summarised
in 1982 (Meadows et al. 1982), that were much in the public perception for
about a decade. However, since 1981 the visibility of global modelling activity
has declined so that its effects on policy remain uncertain.

S us tain ab ilit y: compl i ca t ion vs. co m p l ex i ty

Of the types of formal modelling, it is world models (World 3 and its variants)
that attempt to deal with sustainability in its context of human society, but
neither World 3 nor climate models deal with the notions of sustainability or
sustainable development in their full context. Similarly, Watson and Lovelock’s
‘Daisyworld’ model (1983: 284) was built expressly to demonstrate the feasibility
of Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis (Lovelock 1972). Both World 3 and the GCMs
have to assume that the system they attempt to represent is fully described.
However, it is in World 3 and its variants that there are the beginnings of a growing
together of the notions of sustainability and economics. These emanate from
Daly who proposed three conditions for the physical sustainability of material
and energy throughputs (Daly in Meadows et al. 1992: 46) that resemble those
found elsewhere (Meadows et al. 1992: 47; Robèrt et al. 1997: 79) as follows:

• The rates of use of renewable resources ought not to exceed their rates
of regeneration, a phenomenon described differently elsewhere (Hardin
1968: 1243)
186  Scenarios and sustainability

• The rates of use of non-renewable resources ought not to exceed the rate
at which sustainable renewable substitutes are developed, a condition used
later in the Natural Step (Robèrt et al. 1997: 79)
• The rates of pollution emission ought not to exceed the assimilative
capacity of the environment, an assumption later used by Meadows et al.
in 1992 (p. 47).

The above is but a brief example of the breadth of the discussion that
accompanies the simulations set out by Meadows et al. (1972, 1992) of a
transition to sustainable development. It explains why it has been so difficult
for the outcome of world modelling to be politicised; there is no simple or single
statistic or idea that can characterise its message.
The purpose of dwelling on just two streams of thought, the notion of the
simultaneous conditions of complication and complexity involved, needs
some explanation in relation to sustainable development: it demonstrates
the last point. Perrow (1984: 88) provides a convenient distinction between
the two phenomena. Perrow’s argument develops from an analysis of ‘normal’
accidents in many kinds of systems, but can be extended into the debate about
sustainable development. I have summarised and extended Perrow’s arguments
in the following way (Table 7.3).
The parallels between Perrow’s notions and the conditions in which
sustainable development will exist are self-evident. Complicated systems are
those in which linkages are largely understood even when they involve much
complication: unintended outcomes are possible but are a rarity. Human
engineering attempts to create systems with these characteristics and in
many instances is successful in doing so (the engineering ‘fail-safe’ regime),
but the potential for ‘normal accidents’ reveals that complicated systems can
also become complex through interconnections that are neither obvious nor
understood. It is also clear that sustainable development must take place in a
world where complexity is the norm rather than the unusual.
Complex systems are far removed from equilibrium and exhibit self-
organisation. From what has already been said about the Earth’s position in the
Galaxy and the universe, together with the above- and below-surface phenomena
that are at work, the Earth’s system is far from equilibrium. It possesses many
aspects of self-organisation and its planetary-wide living systems are autopoietic
(Margulis and Sagan 1995: 20) though the notions of sympoiesis (Dempster
1998) question this conclusion. It then becomes disingenuous to suggest (or
worse maintain) that human society can be separated from that system in such
a way as to remove its inherent complexity. Successful continuity for humanity
must then recognise this inherent complexity; the extreme limitations on
human interventions, which will always have unexpected outcomes and the
restrictions of these interventions to activities that are intended to maintain or
promote ways of living that fall within the scope of the Brundtland definition.
However, the viewpoint of the arch critics (Simon 1977; Beckerman 1974) of
 Sustainable world  187

Table 7.3  Summary of Perrow’s arguments about complicated vs. complex systems

Nature of
system Complicated Complex
Linear
Coupling
Use of higly engineered AI in living
systems where AI is believed to be Living systems with sympoietic
well-understood but its interaction characteristics where understanding
with the living system is not, placing is limited with evolutionary
Loose special demands on the fail-safe outcomes. The systems integrity
principle. Examples include AI and successful continuity depends
programmed stock market trading, on the 'safe-fail' principle
automatic language translation and
tracking customer purchasing habits
Transforming processes where
Process control systems
understanding is limited with
highly engineered with design
unsuspected interactions and
based on fail-safe principles.
feedback loops involving many
Tight System understanding believed
control parameters with potent-
to be complete. Examples
ial interactions and relying on many
include fly-by-wire aeroplanes
indirect and inferential sources
and pick-and-place robots
of information

the notions of sustainable development cannot be denied, as will be seen later,

since the conditions for and limits to sustainable development are unknown,
and always will be, until they have been transgressed. Consequently, critics
maintain the notion is an empty one and that each generation should look after
its own interests without respect for the future. If the Earth is autopoietic then
there is nothing to worry about, the future for ensuing generations will evolve
as so far it has!

S ustainability vs. sustainable deve l o p m e n t :

t he ar gument
‘Sustainability is like happiness – everyone believes in it and everyone has a
different definition.’
Gow 1992: 49

The above trenchant comment leads directly into the Alice in Wonderland
(Carroll 1865: 70) world of sustainability interpretations discussed earlier, that
have done so much to devalue its philosophy and implementation.
Brundtland’s seems simple but its flexibility and its breadth are very
demanding. Sustainable development has so many aspects that policy for it is
not conceived as a whole, indeed it is of such complexity that Simon’s principle
of bounded rationality (Simon 1957) cannot be avoided. The penalty then
lies in the risks posed by being either over cautious (later referred to as the
‘Precautionary Principle’) leading to stagnation or continuing the traditional
188  Scenarios and sustainability

piecemeal policy process. The latter implies an unrecognised reliance on the

self-organising nature of the wider natural world to rescue humanity from its
fallibility, if not its foolishness. The situation is a classic example of the notion
of a ‘safe-fail’ system (Holling 1977), which is not of our creation, since human
contrived polices and interventions will always fail at some point, producing
unexpected outcomes that are often perceived as ‘undesirable’ for the polity.
The touchstone of sustainability is stewardship – the care, maintenance
and development of what we have inherited – but within those narrow limits
that human activity can influence as defined by the dynamic policy trio of
what can be controlled, what can be partially controlled and what cannot
be controlled. As has already been said, the notion that we can ‘manage’ the
planet to our benefit is undesirable and dangerous, a theme made severely by
Margulis and Sagan (1995: 243). Development is an important part of the
philosophy of sustainability if only because the dynamic evolution of the planet
is continuous and does not enable human society to stagnate or to remain at
some constant state. The notion of dynamism is fundamental as there is no
pure and unadulterated state to which the planet can be returned as if to atone
for human activity, pollution or destruction. Species come and go as part of
the natural evolution of the planet through alteration of the Earth’s dynamics,
predation and the carrying capacity for the species being exceeded; at some
point extinction of the human species is certain. For the duration of humanity’s
existence the notion of stewardship is essentially that of an interface between
human activity and everything that it comes into contact with. All interfaces
require protocols if they are to achieve their purpose of two-way communication
and transformation. However, for sustainable development communication is
across an interface of great complexity where recognition of the signals from
the natural, non-human world requires unusual skills for which humanity’s
protocols are poorly developed (there is no C3PO protocol droid as in the ‘Star
Wars’ trilogy!).
At this point it is necessary to take up the argument posed by Gow (1992)
and Therivel et al. (1992) that sustainability and sustainable development are
not equivalent. The latter authors emphasise that sustainable development is a
subset of sustainability, claiming that it assumes that the concepts of sustainability
and development cannot coexist. Earlier it was said that sustainability is ‘the
ability to prevent something from failing under stress’. Therivel et al. refer
to Jacobs’ definition of sustainability (1991: 123), which relates solely to the
‘environment’ (without properly defining the term) and to the ability of future
generations to ‘… enjoy an equal measure of environmental consumption’. The
notion of ‘environmental consumption’ is far removed from what is intended
here; it should be far removed from any notion of sustainability and is equally
far removed from the notion contained in the Brundtland definition. One can
only assume that Jacobs did not intend the phrase to be interpreted in the
most obvious way as it is the seed of the problem of carrying capacity (Hardin
1968). Therivel et al. go on to say that carrying capacity is the cornerstone
 Sustainable world  189

to sustainability, without knowing how it can be determined. Gunderson and

Holling’s (2002) elegant description of how sustainability and sustainable
development can be related is a further reason not to regard sustainability
and sustainable development as synonymous, but as mutually supporting –
the second being the practical embodiment of the former. For these reasons
the arguments of Gow and Therivel et al. are set aside as irrelevant and the
two terms will continue to be used one for the philosophy (of sustainability),
the other for its implementation; the latter must now become the focus of
attention.

S us tain ab ilit y a nd preca ut ion

The Precautionary Principle (the ‘Principle’ hereafter) is an important part
of foresight and systems thinking with respect to sustainability and is one of
the most contentious. The contention arises from claims from antagonists,
as will become clear shortly, that the Principle is baseless and also because
of the Principle’s potential influence in application, especially on invention,
innovation, social well-being and business. For these reasons the Principle
demands examination.
The Principle has been endorsed internationally on many occasions. At the
Earth Summit meeting in Rio de Janeiro (UNCED 1992), world leaders agreed
Agenda 21, which advocated the widespread application of the Principle in the
following terms:

In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be

widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are
threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty
shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to
prevent environmental degradation (Principle 15).

The Principle originates from environmental impact analysis (EIA) and has
been described by Gilpin (1995: 171) as follows:

A guiding rule in EIA to protect people and the environment against

future risks, hazards, and adverse impacts, tending to emphasise safety
considerations in the occasional absence of clear evidence.

If it was not clear at the Rio Summit (UNCED ibid.) and to Gilpin (ibid.)
that use of the phrase ‘the occasional absence of clear evidence’ would lead
the notion of precaution into quicksand, then it should be abundantly clear
now. EIA has to be conducted in a world of great complexity. As a result, the
absence of clear evidence is normal and not occasional, especially under the
assault from post-modern thinking, which seems to have penetrated human
societies more deeply than is often recognised. In the present era, science,
190  Scenarios and sustainability

termed Post-Normal by Funtowicz and Ravetz (1990b: 20), is ‘… neither value-

free nor ethically neutral …’ while other authors are even more damning in
their criticism of science, as has been drawn out by Laudan in his ‘dialogue’
between a realist, a pragmatist, a positivist and a relativist (Laudan 1990). The
science used in decision making is often uncertain, but it is used nevertheless,
to make decisions in the public domain when often there is urgency, with that
uncertainty in mind. However, Funtowicz and Ravetz were not the first to draw
attention to this state of affairs, post-normal science being but a particularisation
of earlier arguments in these terms (Weinberg 1972; Maxwell 1984: 63). If the
Principle is to be of any value at all its proponents have to come to terms with
the characteristics of trans-science (Weinberg 1972) which is conducted in a
complex world, accompanied by uncertainties and risks. If the Principle is used
bluntly, as some proponent’s do, to forbid any activity in which clear evidence
that it is ‘safe’ is absent, an inversion of the intention of the UN Earth Summit
definition, then there are three consequences:

• The nature of the real world is being denied

• All science and technology, and associated invention and innovation, may
stop
• All development may cease, creating a stagnant world in which the
capability of social, technological and value shifts to promote the dynamism
needed to satisfy Brundtland (or any other notion of sustainability) will be
denied.

Science advances through doubt; the time when scientists claimed certainty
for their work is long past, if it ever existed except in the media. There is now
a mountain of evidence from all disciplines that the outcomes of research must
be hedged about by qualifications and caveats that trap the unwary proponent
in either the scientific community or the world of the media and politics, if not
in both. Now that the courts intervene in the search for ‘integrity’ in science
(Foster and Huber 1999), there is a double jeopardy for the unwary scientist.
In some instances at least it seems that the time honoured ‘peer review’ is no
longer good enough particularly in view of an apparently rising incidence of
fraud in science.
What then is to become of the Principle? Should it be abandoned completely?
The response is clearly ‘no’. Paradoxically, sustainable development depends as
much on the abandonment of or limitations to the use of the Principle as it does
on its application (perhaps the resolution lies through Hegelian synthesis). The
reason for this lies in the dynamic nature of the interfaces between human
activity and everything it comes into contact with. An example is the desirable
reduction in the use of nitrogenous fertilisers. These cause degradation of the
water supply and damage water flows in rivers and watercourses by promoting
bottom weed growth. If a desirable reduction is achieved, by enabling plants,
other than legumes, to fix nitrogen directly from the air, it is highly likely to
 Sustainable world  191

involve genetic modification of the plant stock, which may be rejected by the
polity because of its views on GMOs, to say nothing of the impact on agri-
business. To cope with these kinds of paradoxes, the Principle needs to embrace
the complexity involved and not attempt to destroy it by oversimplification.
Precaution cannot be separated from risk, which is simultaneously objective
and subjective, involving much psychology (The Royal Society 1981, 1983,
1992, 1997). For research intensive businesses, if not all businesses whatever
their size, invocation of the Principle by groups ranging from activists to
governments is one of ‘… the wider issues that now thrust themselves on
any science and technology programme [and] is forced upon management’
(Loveridge 1997: 15). The importance of this invocation is obvious and is
well demonstrated by Sterling and Meyer (1999) with respect to genetically
modified crops.
It is now time to move on to discuss the views of protagonists and antagonists
of sustainability, and in doing so to illustrate some possible pointers to watch
for as emergent properties following foresightful amelioration’s of situations as
‘problems of living.’

A rguments a bout sust a ina bil i t y

Critics of sustainability cite its philosophical fuzziness as one of its weak points;
it is hard to deny this. Principles, definitions, indicators and criteria are set
out by authors in relation to the systemic situations, or more frequently the
reductionist problems they are interested in, according to personal preferences
and preconceptions. In the formative years of a complex situation this is only
to be expected. The situation facing humankind now starts from population
size and growth rate; that has been argued about for nearly 250 years with
growing intensity, while recognition of its all embracing nature has been
denied for far too long. For the antagonists that state of denial persists and
they claim that sustainability is sophistry. By contrast, the widespread group
of protagonists includes: many politicians and prime ministers, their advisors
and their governments; NGOs and individuals: this group promotes ideas
involving technology – mass changes in people’s mindsets away from rampant
consumerism towards simpler lifestyles – and sometimes beliefs in humankind’s
ability to manage the Earth’s complex life support systems, an attitude of mind
involving faith and hope more than demonstrable human capability. Sometimes
the debate between the protagonists and antagonists becomes ferocious
but, come what may, it will shape the directions taken by sustainability and
sustainable development as a result. The situation is replete with trans-science
and beliefs that are inherently self-contradictory (Dawes 2001). The existence
of trans-science may mean that the science is unknown or that it may be only
partially known and uncertain. It may also mean that in the existing social,
economic, ecological, political and value milieux, scientists do not understand
the question(s) being asked nor know how to frame their response. In these
192  Scenarios and sustainability

circumstances, it is often the legal system that determines the outcome and
sometimes, through its own foresight, sets the parameters or boundaries of
the system within which the balance between science and society needs to
operate. The dynamics of legal processes may then become a determining force
in human survival.
Sustainability and sustainable development are real matters but are slippery
notions to protagonists and antagonists alike. The adoption of sustainability
by political parties, NGOs, the media and many other organisations, has
only served to confuse matters further while raising the temperature of the
debate if not its quality. The claim that ‘defining sustainability connects
abstract environmental issues with people’s personal and commercial
interests’ (Voinov and Smith 1994) is a potent one, but I would go further
to say that it involves the successful continuity of humankind, not simply
personal and commercial interests. Perhaps this is only right as the real work
lies among the ‘practical people’ who do things in the real world, sometimes
at considerable personal risk. In an imperfect world, patchy adoption of new
ways of thinking throughout the polity is all that can be expected. In the
end it is people who will make sustainability and sustainable development
a reality. As Lauterbach insists (1974: 147) modernisation, which is deeply
entwined with sustainability and sustainable development, is pre-eminently
a matter of mindset. Lauterbach’s concern for modernisation should not be
confused with post-modern thought, which has its own influences on the ideas
of protagonists and antagonists alike. In what follows the term sustainability
retains the function allotted to it earlier as a shorthand conduit for ideas
passing between protagonists and antagonists. There is now of tidal wave
of literature about sustainability and sustainable development, so I make no
apology for basing the following comments on a personal selection of sources
that seem to contain the seeds of the various arguments; this is a common
necessity in foresight and systems thinking referred to earlier (Chapter 2)
and is typified by M’Pherson’s testy comments on Popper’s criticism of holism
referred to in Chapter 1. The selection may also be a useful signpost to other
sources of discussion and opinion.

Pr otagonist s a nd t heir ca se
Protagonists of sustainable development include many international
institutions (UNEP, UNESCO, UNIDO, IPCC); most governments through
various departments; NGOs such as the Club of Rome, Greenpeace, Friends
of the Earth, IIASA, IISD, the Stockholm Environmental Institute, the
Worldwatch Institute, the Natural Step and the Forum for the Future; and
individuals including Hawken, the Lovins, Lovelock, Margulis, Huggett,
Hardin, Holling, Daly, Nicholson and many others too numerous to mention,
but all acknowledged indirectly. International organisations and national
governments are mostly concerned with regulation in its broadest sense;
 Sustainable world  193

their programmes are broad and are focussed mainly on conventional ways of
thinking bounded by what is colloquially defined by the term ‘the environment’.
These programmes are concerned with surface and atmospheric effects, and
their associated legal/regulatory regimes. NGOs use similar boundaries to
the international organisations, but are more concerned with presenting the
scope of the situation, pointing toward matters that societies, governments
and international organisations ought to (the policy intonation) appreciate,
along with their long-term influences on social behaviour and regulation.
NGOs also exhibit a spectrum of ‘ideological’ mindsets with an accompanying
variability in the depth and quality of the information used and presented to
the public; international institutions and governments with the intention of
influencing the choices contained within public policy and regulation. It falls
most often to individuals to work with situation boundaries, contexts and
contents that are far wider than those used by public institutions and NGOs.
For example, Lovelock (2000) and Margulis and Sagan (1995) are concerned
with the successful continuity of life, of any form, regarding the Earth as
autopoietic, an issue that is contested by Dempster’s notion of sympoiesis
(1998) as referred to earlier. Huggett’s canvas is wide (1995, 1997) but
stops short of Lovelock and Margulis’ ideas, being based on the less risky
ideas enshrined in geo-ecology. By contrast, Hardin’s classic paper (Hardin
1968: 1243) focuses on the human socioeconomic behavioural response to
population overcrowding in a locale but the situation might also be seen in
the wider context of life as a whole (Meadows et al. 1972; 1992). Holling has
evolved a series of ideas relating to managing ecological situations (Holling
1977: 114, 1978, 1986, 2001) the latest called ‘panarchy’, being developed
with Gunderson and others (Gunderson and Holling 2002) and outlined in
Chapters 1 and 5.
Daly’s development of the principles of steady state economics (Daly 1977)
was the culmination of a major attempt, in a series of papers (Daly 1968, 1972,
1973, 1974), to overturn the reigning economic paradigm characterised as
growthmania, an attempt that Daly continued after 1977 (Daly and Cobb 1989;
Daly 1992). Daly’s work also provided the basis for the Natural Step (Robèrt
et al. 1997: 79 ), a process for raising ecological awareness in organisations,
where ecology is restricted to environmental aspects of resource use, depletion
and management. Daly’s work also provoked interest in the possible synergy,
if not symbiosis, between ecology and economics, as described earlier, that has
now taken concrete form in ecological economics (Appendix 7.2). The near
relative of industrial ecology has also developed since the 1980s from humbler
origins in the 1920s (Soddy 1922, 1926). The basic tenet of industrial ecology
is ‘nature as a model’ and ‘views the industrial plant or system as an integrated
set of cyclical processes in which the consumption of energy and materials is
optimised, waste generation is minimised, and wastes from one process serve
as feed-stock for other production processes’ (Frosch and Gallopoulos 1989:
144). Ecological economics and industrial ecology are explored further in
194  Scenarios and sustainability

Appendix 7.2. These shifts in the way industrial activity is viewed lead toward
the regulatory aspects of protagonism for sustainability, which is an immense
and growing field in itself.
International regulations, laws and agreements, and their national and
regional counterparts impinge on sustainability, taking many different forms
with diverse sets of intentions involving pollution, toxic materials, mineral
extraction, water quality, laws relating to the use and protection of the oceans
and seas (similarly for the wildernesses and Antarctica), for wildlife, as well
as a plethora of laws – national and international – relating to every aspect
of human behaviour and rights, employment, finance, accounting, taxation
of corporations and individuals, economic and currency policy, to name but
a few. The international and national informal regulation of science and
technology, via peer review and similar processes, was established long ago,
but formal regulation of science and technology is a relatively recent addition
to the regulatory scene, largely through health and safety. In a different
way there is an ever growing, but largely uncertain, literature that makes
claims for the existence of systems of innovations (or even worse innovation
systems) of national or other varieties, where there is evidence of confusion
between invention, arising from scientific breakthrough or entrepreneurial
serendipity, and the social-technical-economic-values phenomenon of
innovation. In all, it is hardly surprising to find sustainability enmeshed in
what can only be described as an Ackoffian ‘mess’ (Ackoff 1974: 21) or as
cascades of interrelated situations where one set of laws and regulations are
at odds with others. Whether or not the ‘mess’ has caused the evolution
of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the Global Reporting Initiative
(GRI), both have sustainability embedded in their mindset and both have
gained in stature in recent years.
CSR and the GRI are linked to sustainability and are inter-linked themselves.
CSR has a history going back to the 1970s. At that time activists began pressing
for many forms of control over technology and industry. Technology assessment,
social audits and social accounting were the outcomes of this early agitation in
an era when the rate and breadth of the introduction of new technologies led
to social concerns, a situation that persists today. The involvement in CSR
of the UN, the USA, the EU and many individual countries shows that it is a
growing activity and is clearly global as illustrated by Welford (2005: 33). The
following eclectic choice of examples illustrates the point.
The UN’s Global Compact was launched at the World Economic Forum
in 1999. The Compact is intended to ‘bring companies together with UN
agencies, labour and civil society to support universal environmental and social
principles’ (UN Global Compact 1999). The Compact became effective in
2000 and ‘globally many companies and international labour, and civil society
organisations are now working to advance its ten universal principles in human
rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption.’ Through collective
action the Compact ‘seeks to promote responsible corporate citizenship so that
 Sustainable world  195

business can be part of the solution to the challenges of globalisation.’ The ten
principles of the voluntary Compact, summarised below, ask business to:

  1 Support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human

rights
  2 Make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses
  3 Uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the
right to collective bargaining
  4 Eliminate all forms of forced and compulsory labour
  5 Abolish child labour
  6 Eliminate discrimination in employment and occupation
  7 Support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges
  8 Undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility
  9 Encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly
technologies
10 Work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery.

The principles are intended to create business activities that catalyse actions
in support of the UN’s goals through policy dialogues, learning, networks of
experienced people and projects. The principles rely on ‘public accountability,
transparency and the enlightened self-interest of companies, labour and civil
society to initiate and share substantive action in pursuing the principles upon
which the Compact is based’ (UN Global Compact 1999). Implementation
relies on UN agencies including the Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights, the UNEP, the ILO, the UNDP, UNIDO and the UNODC.
CSR Europe is a non-profit organisation, launched in 1995 by Jacques
Delors, then CEC President, and European business leaders, with a mission to
help companies achieve profitability, sustainable growth and human progress
by placing CSR in the mainstream of business practice. The resulting network
of professionals share their knowledge and experience of CSR; the ways it is
shaping modern business and the corresponding political agenda relating to
sustainability, and competitiveness. Some 60 multinational corporations belong
to CSR Europe, which also has contact with 1,400 companies through 18
national partner organisations. A ‘roadmap’ for a sustainable and competitive
enterprise sets goals and strategies to integrate CSR into daily business
practices and includes integrating CSR across business functions, creating
respect for human rights, developing employees’ capabilities, preserving the
environment, and engaging with stakeholders. CSR Europe has taken note
of the Lisbon Agenda in its work and claims to be the only truly European
authority on CSR.
In the EU member countries, the Copenhagen Centre in Denmark, the
Swedish Partnership for Global Responsibility and the UK Government all
have interests in CSR. Opinions about CSR vary. The Copenhagen Centre
acknowledges that ‘the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has
196  Scenarios and sustainability

been surrounded by a lot of hype [and half-truths]’ (Nielsen 2006) and remains
uncertain about either the meaning of CSR or whether is it more than a
management fad of lofty aspirations that one cannot really disagree with. The
Centre also concludes that acceptance of CSR does not necessarily conflict with
Friedman’s view (Friedman 1970: 173), explaining that ‘today, “the business of
business is a different kind of business.”’ Since the early 1970s the business
environments of many companies have changed decisively, meaning that a
rising number of companies are increasingly forced to include CSR initiatives
in their overall business strategies (Knudsen 2006). By contrast, CSR is a tool
in Sweden’s foreign policy as part of an initiative launched in March 2002
‘designed to encourage Swedish companies to adhere to OECD guidelines for
multinational companies and the principles of the UN Global Compact.’ The
UK Government sees CSR ‘as good for society and good for business.’ It assumes
there are potential benefits for competitiveness of individual companies and
for national economies that may encourage the spread of CSR practice. The
operational department is the Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) where
the ‘business case’ for CSR has been explored and its links to sustainability and
competitiveness, examined. Meanwhile, US companies have developed a wide
range of partnerships ‘to facilitate education, improve labour standards and
even provide healthcare.’
The GRI is a much newer development, assembled during the 1990s into
a voluntary code, now supported by many companies with global businesses.
The GRI was launched in 1997 by the US Coalition for Environmentally
Responsible Economies (CERES) and United Nations Environment
Programme to enhance the quality, rigour and utility of reporting on matters
relating to sustainability. The first version of the GRI was released in 2000.
The revised version, implemented in 2002, was considered to be a milestone
in the evolution of the GRI as an institution and as a reporting framework.
The GRI has the essential attribute of being a ‘living process that operates in
the spirit of “doing” ’ (CERES 2002) enabling navigation towards continual
improvement. The initiative has enjoyed widespread support from industry
and many sectors of society; together they have built, by consensus, a set
of reporting guidelines. Hopefully, these will achieve worldwide acceptance
that will be aided by the flexibility and quality of their application, enabling
comparisons to be made between reporting organisations. The GRI is a long-
term process intended to develop and disseminate applicable sustainability
reporting guidelines globally for use by organisations reporting on the
economic, environmental and social dimensions of their activities, products
and services. The aim of the guidelines is to create an understanding of how
the reporting organisations influence sustainable development, taking into
account corporate governance, accountability and citizenship: these are now
mainstream policy and management issues. To quote: ‘The turbulent first
years of the 21st century underscore the reason for GRI’s rapid expansion
to form a significant part of organisational practice in the years to come’
 Sustainable world  197

(CERES 2002). The GRI process is inclusive, transparent and neutral while
its continual enhancement enables direct expression of accountability.
The key trends that have accelerated the use of the GRI are the:

• Expanding globalisation
• Search for new forms of global governance
• Reform of corporate governance
• Global role of emerging economies
• Rising visibility of and expectations for organisations
• Measurement of progress toward sustainable development
• Governments’ interest in sustainability reporting
• Financial market’s interest in sustainability reporting
• Emergence of next-generation accounting.

Does CSR work in concert with the GRI? Both have much in common and
both share the vagueness that goes with such widely drawn boundaries. Both
have similar contexts with common threads in sustainability and governance.
Otherwise the content of the GRI has a leaning towards money matters,
characterised by economics and accounting, even though those matters may
involve uncommon ideas only just gaining credence in current economic and
accounting principles. The content of CSR appears to be more socially oriented
than the GRI and its content, regarding sustainability, is openly restricted
to ‘environmental’ matters: for the GRI it is hard to know whether, in the
developer’s minds, sustainability is equated simply to environmental matters. It
is here that both CSR and the GRI are in the greatest difficulty. Sustainability
in its proper context is the senior matter with all remaining matters subsets
of it. The ‘proper’ context of sustainability is the continuance of life on the
Earth and in that context humankind is only one species among all those that
inhabit the planet. In all its posturing, humanity’s concern is for the successful
continuity of its species and it is the bounded subset of elements to achieve this
that humankind designates as sustainability. There is a major issue here: no-
one knows what the conditions for successful continuity are and the conditions
will never be known; they are certainly not those described in the book of
Genesis. Because of their complexity, life on the Earth and its maintenance are
emergent phenomena in which no animal species has ever survived indefinitely,
though the crocodile is exceptionally long surviving. Political and other pundits
currently peddle simplistic situations, themselves corruptions of the uncertain
science of life on the planet. Situations are masqueraded as problems that can be
solved by science, in its characteristic reductionist mode; they are the focus of
CSR and the GRI. All this despite the clear recognition, as pointed out earlier,
of the phenomenon of trans-science and that situations cannot be ‘solved’ like
puzzles but only ameliorated into a new form in a continuing cascade.
So far policy makers have struggled with the CSR debate as the element of
regulation, which is the policy maker’s forte, is absent. A new report released by
198  Scenarios and sustainability

AccountAbility and the World Economic Forum (Anon 2005) shows how the
financial community fails to meet the needs of the owners of capital, through
its unwillingness to consider material, social and environmental factors in
investment decisions. The key is seeing CSR as an investment in a distinctive
capability, rather than as an expense. Companies and investors then need a
means of managing and assessing the contributions of investments in CSR to
the creation of competitive advantage. Similar comments apply to the GRI.

Antagonis ts a nd t hei r ca se
Antagonists of sustainability profoundly disagree with the premise that human
activities are creating conditions that endanger life or humanity’s ways of life.
Their message to the world is simple and clear: there’s nothing to worry about
– life can proceed along its path of ever-advancing ‘economic development’,
whatever the latter means or entails. The antagonist’s second implied underlying
assumption is that humanity can manage the Earth through the application of
ever-deepening understanding of the planet’s systems achieved through science
and technology. There will not be any shortages of any kind as, through science
and technological ingenuity, substitutes will always be found or created for any
resource well before exhaustion occurs. The dismal ‘science’ of economics will
see to it that exhaustion and ecological change are avoided through forces
that include prices, taxes, regulation, capital and much else besides. However,
the human situation is not as clear as either the most ardent protagonist or
antagonist likes to believe. As with all foresight and systems thinking there
comes a time when ideas escape into the public realm and ‘positions’ begin
to be taken in which information is used for particular purposes, it was ever
thus. Lomborg’s mammoth work (2001) demonstrates the need to understand
information, a much rarer capability than is commonly supposed. The purpose
of the NUSAP system is just that (Funtowicz and Ravetz 1990b).
Antagonism to sustainability is surprisingly vehement, especially in its attacks
on environmentalism; as with all -ists and -isms those people on opposing sides
collide acrimoniously. Learning about this antagonism to environmentalism is
an essential part of systemic thinking about sustainability. Here this learning
will be based on a small sample of published opinions that illustrate the point.
Two opinions from the UK are those of Beckerman (2003) and Tavern (2005).
Beckerman is well known for his views against sustainable development. He
bases his argument on the influence of the price mechanism of conventional
economics. Both Beckerman and Tavern complain vigorously that protagonists
of sustainable development are sparing with the truth and very skilful at
manipulating the media for their own ends. Far from demonstrating convincingly
that sustainable development has ‘pathetically muddled principles’, Beckerman
illustrates that conventional economics is not much better despite all its
pretensions otherwise. Beckerman has always claimed that future generations
cannot have expectations of rights from a generation that sires them. It may
 Sustainable world  199

also be a viewpoint that has been absorbed too widely in some modern Western
societies. All in all, if Beckerman provides a strong riposte to the extreme forms
of eco-fundamentalism, its passion is about the same.
Tavern focussed his attention on evidence and its use in policy making,
drawing extensively on the genetic modification debate and the way eco-
fundamentalists frustrated the introduction of GMOs. He expressed concern
for the rise of fundamentalisms, of many varieties, that denied both the value
and the veracity of science. Tavern claimed that the current attacks on science
by relativists, post-modernists and eco-fundamentalists were undermining the
relationship between science, reason and democracy. Tavern’s reasoning about
evidence in relation to policy has a fundamental flaw that also occurs, in an
oblique way, in Beckerman’s discussion. Evidence is about the past and the
present, whereas policy is about the future for which there is little evidence,
except in highly specialised ways that require assumptions about the solar
system. Neither Tavern nor Beckerman recognise that evidence alone is not
sufficient for policy making, nor are indicators: anticipation or foresight is a
prime element. Both Beckerman and Tavern make hesitant steps in this direction
but to Tavern evidence seems to be the precursor to reaction with no sense of
foresight. Both authors attack the ‘woolly’ notions of sustainable development
and condemn the precautionary principle as either meaningless or downright
dangerous to innovation. Tavern more than Beckerman, neither of whom
are scientists, expressed concern over the way science has been rejected and
misunderstood generally. Tavern also recognised that post-modernist thinking
has penetrated society to the detriment of science and the devaluation of expert
knowledge. Whilst Beckerman does not explicitly enter this debate, he expects
science and technology to work marvels for society, removing any possibility of
shortages and the need for restraint in the form of sustainable development,
which is condemned outright.
Peter Huber is an MIT-trained engineer and Harvard Law School
graduate which puts a particular gloss on his attack on sustainability and
environmentalism in the US context (Huber 1999). The centrepiece of Huber’s
argument is over sustainability, conservation and the role of conventional
economics based on his view of Theodore Roosevelt’s claim that wildernesses
needed to be conserved and should not be exploited economically. Huber
uses this theme to attack a number of ideas relating to sustainability, which
he equates to environmentalism. Somehow he has become fascinated by
the ‘sand pile’ model of complex behaviour, referring to it at every turn.
Lovins, Perrow, Malthus, Hardin and Lovelock all come in for comments,
some favourable some not; on occasion an unfavourable view shifts to a more
favourable one later in the debate. Similarly, environmentalism is equated
with poverty; wealth with sustainability and conservation because of the
demographic transition so much derided by many people. Huber’s discussion
is a mixture of insight, hindsight and confused thinking. He claims that only
market forces will do, as only these are green, while environmentalism will
200  Scenarios and sustainability

simply maintain poverty in large areas of the world and is likely to create it in
the more developed countries. The precautionary principle also comes in for
harsh treatment in much the same way as Beckerman’s, though both seriously
misunderstand the nature of the principle, which is not claimed to be based
on science but on the lack of it.
Rees’ (2003) canter through the many situations that face humankind
serves as a timely reminder that ideas never die. The first is a reminder that
humankind has the power to destroy itself through the continuing existence
of nuclear and biological weapons, particularly the former. The second is the
re-emergence of the feeling that science is getting out of control and may be
posing a threat to humanity’s existence. The third is to remind humanity that
it is ‘not in control’ of the planet, a factor more cogently presented by others
(e.g. Margulis and Sagan 1995).
It is many years since Stafford Beer (1971) demonstrated the
inappropriateness, if not foolishness, of cost/benefit analysis to events similar
to those discussed by Posner (2004). The costs and benefits of events that may
extinguish human, and possibly all life, on the Earth is in a different league to
cost/benefit analysis, so that it is surely logically and technically inapplicable
to such a situation. Posner also makes short shrift of the precautionary
principle for reasons that he barely explains: his disdain for precaution is
presumably because it is not amenable to cost/benefit analysis. Posner
pleads for the (American) legal profession to become literate in the basic
principles of science and its methods, but others (Foster and Huber 1999)
have given a deeper account of the situations faced by judges in cases where
there is a high dependence on understanding the science involved and the
interpretation of evidence given by expert witnesses. Posner (2004) displays a
lack of understanding of matters that Foster and Huber make explicit, though
he does make two points, strongly emphasised by them that scientists are
often at a loss when acting as expert witnesses in court and come under cross
examination, and that, unlike scientific activity, a court has to come to a
conclusion with a judgement on the evidence presented and allowed. The
purpose of the court proceedings is simply to achieve this result where the
outcome depends on the skill of the prosecuting and defending barristers.
Judges preside over cases where a conclusion can be reached not those where
human survival is barely possible. Dawes (2001) extends this debate about
behaviour in courts in a discussion of irrationality as ‘adhering to beliefs that
are inherently self-contradictory, not just incorrect, self-defeating, or the basis
of poor decisions.’ Beliefs of this kind are commonly met with in the learning
processes involved in foresight and systems thinking relating to complex
situations. Interpretation of the Precautionary Principle is an example where
strong emotions lead to conflicts of this kind. Dawes demonstrates that many
everyday judgements, unsupported professional claims and social policy are
based on the same kind of ‘everyday irrationality’. There is a relationship
here to my earlier representation of how experts manipulate their internal
 Sustainable world  201

knowledge in the gradation from speculation (opinion or assertions based

on evidence) into conjecture (assertions with little or no evidence). The
transition in thinking is both fuzzy and risky, and an uncomfortably hazardous
transition for the individual involved in both foresight and systems thinking.
The transition I described is of paramount importance, as foresight depends
critically on subjective opinion, creating a strong tension between foresight
and systems thinking when the interrelationships between ideas are tested.
Critical thinking and hard, reproducible data are the cornerstones of
good science. Environmental sciences are no exception, but because their
concern is with living systems, with their importance to our biological and
economic survival, this makes meeting the requirements of good science
for the former more arduous (economics cannot meet these conditions).
Furthermore, biological and ecological, and economic survival are often at
odds with one another, which makes it even more important to separate
substantive knowledge in all three fields from rank opinion that often typifies
all of them, but especially economics. It is likely that these features were
in Lomborg’s mind when he set out to review the current environmental
data so that policy, relating to the sustainability of humankind’s way of life,
could be based on well-founded understanding of science and measurement.
Lomborg (2001) approached his task as a criticism of ‘environmentalism’ and
prefaced it with a well known quotation from Julian Simon, an arch critic of
environmentalism, perhaps portraying a predisposition against sustainability
whatever the acknowledged strengths or limitations of its foundations.
Lomborg’s conclusions were based on reinterpreting current data on human
welfare, life expectancy and health, food and hunger, and ‘prosperity’. Lomborg
(ibid.) reached the conclusion that the future for the environment is less
dire than is supposed, quite the contrary to conventional gloomy predictions.
Lomborg accused a ‘pessimistic and dishonest cabal’ of environmental groups,
institutions and the media of distorting scientists’ actual findings. His claim
was disavowed by many scientists, who responded that Lomborg’s seemingly
‘dispassionate’ outsiders’ view was marred by an incomplete use of data or a
misunderstanding of the underlying science. Lomborg’s work was criticised
in a specially commissioned of set papers (Schneider (global warming) 2002:
60; Holdren (energy) 2002: 63; Bongaarts (population) 2002: 65 and Lovejoy
(biodiversity) 2002: 67). These responses often disputed the soundness of
Lomborg’s interpretation of the data relating to the environment, claiming
that he failed to meet his own objectives. Even where his statistical analyses
were valid his interpretations were frequently ‘off the mark’, or so it was
claimed (Rennie 2002: 59). The argument rumbles on with counter-claims by
different authors. Much of this takes place out of the sight of lay people and,
perhaps, of policy makers too, who in any event may not be in a position to
judge the relevance, reasonableness and robustness of the emerging opinions,
each with its ‘unique’ claim to the ‘truth’. As a rule of thumb it may be better
to see who is not afraid to admit uncertainty, another essential feature of
202  Scenarios and sustainability

good science, into the discussion of their opinions and to beware of the myth
busters and ‘truth tellers’.
The argument between the protagonists and antagonists of sustainability
and sustainable development will rumble on well into the future. Indeed it is
unlikely to be settled as it has the nature of a cascade of situations into the
unknowable future. From the deep gloom of those who expect the extinction
of the human species and to those who believe in its saviour in the form of
science and technology are simply at the extremes of the argument. The former
is inevitable in cosmological time and possibly much earlier as the history of
species demonstrates: the latter is highly debatable and has some deep internal
paradoxes that weigh on both sides of the argument. In the terms of Gunderson
and Holling’s metaphor of panarchy, the present may represent the point where
the long- and slow-running ecological cycle is releasing its potential (the omega
phase) to reshape life on the Earth (the alpha phase) through the beginnings of
a new (and possibly chaotic) exploitation (the r phase) of new connectedness,
while ecosystem resilience prevents total collapse through the remarkable ‘safe-
fail’ phenomenon. These are times when humanity is truly in a wilderness with,
as always, only partial control over its future existence, a phenomenon that has
to be grasped by all who claim to be systems thinkers.

Sustainabi lity, sustainable devel o p m e n t a n d

human in ge nuit y
At the start of this final appreciation of sustainability and sustainable
development, the importance of history has to be made clear. Between 1960
and 1980, with much foresight and systemic thinking, the major issues that
face humankind now and for some distance into the future were identified and
made known extensively: there is plenty of evidence for this through books,
papers and reports published during two decades of intensive reflection on
what the Club of Rome called ‘the human predicament’. All were carried out
under the duress of the ‘cold war’ with its perpetual backdrop of the possibility
of a thermonuclear holocaust. It has become unconventional to continue to
include the possibility of a nuclear holocaust, or its equivalent in some other
form of human warfare, as part of the notion of sustainability, but I shall do so
here and again in Chapter 8.
It is doubtful whether the outpouring of reflections that occurred during the
1960s and 1970s has been matched at any time since; such was their number
and diversity that any choice of mine in these reflections is eclectic. Many
of my selections have already been referred to in earlier chapters or earlier
in this chapter, particularly with respect to methodological matters. At this
juncture I regard those of Kahn (1962), Ward (1966), Ward and Dubos (1972)
and Heilbronner (1974), who created the term the ‘Human Prospect’, Dubos
(1974), Peccei (1977, 1982) and Lovelock (1979) as of particular significance.
It was a time of a mixture of gloomy predictions and extravagant expectations
 Sustainable world  203

of the disappearance of poverty and disease. Indeed, it was two decades in

which much thought was given to the future of humanity and in which the
current human situation, a systems concept, was foreseen, but largely ignored
by governments in general, and politicians in particular. The notion of
modelling the human situation was born in this period and took on different
forms ranging from the formal analytical models that have grown out of the
early weather forecasting models (Lorenz 1963) into the modern GCMs; the
systems dynamic models that grew into World 3 used in ‘The Limits to Growth’;
to models, some descriptive and computable and others not, that depended on
the elicitation of ‘expert’ opinion (e.g. Anon 1978). The latter included the
now-popular art of scenario building that emerged from the military sphere,
largely under Kahn’s influence (Kahn and Weiner 1967), and the extensive
use of scenarios in industry, most publicly by Shell. The notion of scenarios
permeated the modelling world widely. Usually there was a requirement for their
quantitative characterisation as far as that was possible. However, sometimes
these computable parts of scenario models were used sanctify the entire textual
scenarios with an unwarranted air of veracity.
All of the foregoing implies that the present furore about sustainability has
arisen from a process of rediscovery in which long-established ideas and thought
processes are rediscovered by newcomers to the scene (Loveridge 2001: 785).
Much rhetoric concerning sustainability and sustainable development has
now emerged from the political sphere: there complex ideas are being reduced
to simplistic statements based on limited knowledge and understanding of
the matters involved while policies and their dependent strategies are being
planned under their guidance. In Dickens’s ‘A Christmas Carol’, the Ghost
of Christmas Present confronts Scrooge with two very ugly children who he
learns are called ‘Want’ and ‘Ignorance’; both are present now in the situations
called sustainability and sustainable development and the political approach
to them.
Human ingenuity alone can achieve a widespread understanding that
sustainability and sustainable development are not problems or projects
amenable to reductionist thinking leading to a solution and an end point,
a trap that many others in the media, politics and elsewhere fall into as
does Sachs in the 2007 Reith Lectures. They are, as in earlier terminology,
dynamic cascades of interdependent situations of ever-shifting character, that
emerge from interrelations between the human and natural worlds, in which
the absolute dependence of the former on the latter is recognised and acted
upon. Mind shifts of this kind were at the heart of the debate in the 1960s
and 1970s; their achievement throughout human societies remains elusive
and will be a considerable innovation in itself. Indeed, Peccei (1982) thought
that persuasion alone would never achieve the necessary mind shifts – a crisis
or worse would be necessary. In the political and policy world, the notion of
cascades of interdependent situations is a strange one that poses the need
for a reversal of humankind’s tendency to ‘consider ourselves not as lodgers
204  Scenarios and sustainability

on the earth, but as landlords’ (Ward and Dubos 1972: 24): even a partial
a change in mindset in this direction, in the policy-cum-political world,
will be a major achievement. Complex situations, such as sustainability and
sustainable development, are fascinating but unwelcome intrusions into the
political and media worlds, unless they can be reduced to simplistic headlines
and a television or radio sound bite, as is currently the case in Spring 2007
for ‘climate change.’
The emphasis on the need for a change in mindset, by so many past
and present contributors to the debate about sustainability or future of
humankind, has promoted the view, among its antagonists, that sustainability
and sustainable development are ephemeral concepts lacking a theoretical
basis and numerical validation. Indeed, a mind-shift is seen as ‘hand waving’
to escape the ‘realities’ of reductionist problem solving, considered by the
arch antagonists as the way ahead. Their views, some of which were reviewed
briefly earlier, bear this out. Meanwhile, independently of the antagonists, in
the 1970s modelling prompted a rising concern for humanity’s future voiced
by the authors already mentioned, particularly by Ward and Dubos (1972),
Peccei (1982) and the Club of Rome. The only similarity shared between
the modelling and the antagonist’s viewpoint is the underlying theme of
economics in many of the models. However, their purpose was not to support
the economics of ‘growthmania,’ but to reverse it and to see what role there
might be for ‘world models’ in policy making.
Inescapably, the international political climate of the 1960s and 1970s
influenced the way these modelling programmes were either welcomed
or played down if not rejected outright as, with or without justification,
some were seen to have distinct political undertones: this arose from the
acknowledged notion that ‘[i]mplicit in every global modelling project is the
idea that some images of the future are preferable to others’ (Meadows et al.
1982: 44). It was not thought possible to build models of this kind without
reflecting on deep and broad qualitative questions relating to humankind’s
future. However, in a summary table (ibid.: 101) the way in which the
modellers drew the boundaries of the systems of interest to them indicates
the increasing influence of economist’s thinking and an absence of qualitative
influences in a wider range of fields. Indeed, Meadows et al. comment that:
‘The zealotry and leaps of faith that characterised the early global models have
now been supplanted’ (ibid.: 100). They go on to conclude that, ‘a model is
a synthesis of science, art and technology. The modeller is the synthesiser’
(ibid.: 105), a reasonable view on the matter. Essentially, world modelling is
concerned with sustainability and sustainable development, but in a defined
and structured way that the modelling processes used enforces and make
explicit. Their authors are well aware of the limitations of the process of
boundary setting and of how many less quantifiable and qualitative matters
lie outside their boundaries. The essential step accomplished by the world
modelling of the 1970s and by its critics (e.g. Cole et al. 1973) was to place
 Sustainable world  205

Carrying
Population capacity

Climate TFR
a
W ysof
living

Earthas a Belief
Livingsystem systems

Supportinginfrastructureof:
-energy ,fuelandfueltechnology
-securityoffoodsupply
-availabilityofwater
-naturalresources
Figure 7.3 Kernel of a model of sustainability

the ‘world problematique’ and sustainability (its outgrowth) firmly in the

public domain. Sadly, the political and media worlds, particularly the former,
chose to ignore the possible characteristics of the ‘world problematique’ that
the models revealed, but continued to promote an unsustainable philosophy
of economic ‘growthmania’ based on ever-rising expectations, consumerism
and debt, which remains the central plank of economic policy in most OECD
countries.
I propose to use a simple model (Figure 7.3) as the basis of the closing part
of this chapter.
The basic premise is that sustainability and sustainable development arise
from the inter-working of a kernel of seven essential themes (population, carrying
capacity for all species, the Earth as a living system, climate, human ways of
living, belief systems and the human total fertility rate) each of which is itself
interconnected with many other themes that are themselves interconnected
with many others (see Appendix 7.1) to form a complex situation, subject to
explicit and implicit boundaries. The seven themes of the kernel are mostly
qualitative, but similar to those used in world modelling and is placed against a
background of pervasive influences that include:
206  Scenarios and sustainability

• The possibility of huge volcanic explosions or the eruption of a giant

caldera
• The probability of impact(s) by asteroids of kilometre dimensions: these
events are of low probability (referred to earlier); their destructiveness is
indicated by the Torino scale (Schilling 1999: 655)
• The effects of solar flares, particularly those associated with the solar
maximum and coronal mass ejections, that occur at intervals of between
seven and eleven years. The next maximum is due in 2012. In other
respects the effects of changes in solar irradiance remain uncertain in
relation to climate change
• War, especially when it involves thermonuclear weapons, is an ever-
present background, more so than the use of biological weapons
where their less directed delivery and lack of selectivity may make
them less serious contenders to extinguish most life on the Earth.
  (All of these events, when they occur with sufficient magnitude, may
lead to extinction phenomena affecting many species or to potentially
highly disruptive events for extended periods of time, for human societies
in particular, especially if two or more were to occur at about the same time
or within a few years of each other)
• Continuity of energy in the Einsteinian sense to maintain the Earth as a
living system.

Some explanatory comments follow; their order is of no significance in this

interactive set:

• Population includes mammalian and non-mammalian species. The

human population is a subset of the mammalian part and its size depends
on its interaction as both predator and prey in the interaction between
the mammalian and non-mammalian groups (the latter includes disease
vectors)
• Carrying capacity is the conventional notion of the quantity of life of all
forms that the Earth can support and depends especially on the Earth’s
climate, and on human ways of living
• Climate is the emergent outcome of all those factors that influence the
population’s living space and depends on the Earth as a living system
resulting from the behaviour of the:
• Solar system
• Earth crust and core
• Earth atmosphere
• Earth vegetation
• Population
• Carrying capacity
 Sustainable world  207

• Earth remains a living system in the manner described by Lovelock (2000),

Margulis and Sagan (1995), Margulis (1998) and Wilson (2002)
• Ways of living are the geographical distribution of socio-cultural-
economic-political patterns of human societies across the world. In world
modelling there have been various attempts to reflect ways of living, but
with an emphasis on their economic character. In some models the world
was divided into fifteen different regions. However, in the wider context
indicated, Peccei comments ‘… as long as society is organised as a system
of sovereign states, human activities will continue to be regulated at the
national level … to harmonise more than 150 selfish nationalisms in a
serious and constructive manner is almost impossible’ (Peccei 1982: 142).
Since 1982, the time of Peccei’s comment, the world has divided still further
through the break-up of the USSR in 1989 into new independent states,
while Russian influence at first retreated throughout the old Eastern bloc
as its component states became sovereign but may now be re-emerging. At
the time of writing there are 192 states that are members of the UN
• Belief systems include all the world’s major identifiable codes of values
and norms that guide significant groups of people, independent of their
nationality, in the conduct of their daily lives and are likely to bring
reproach or punitive action if they are transgressed by individuals. These
are entirely human constructs that may or may not be concerned with
humanity’s relationship with the Earth as a living system, though this has
shaped these constructs indirectly through human ways of living and will
continue to do so. Belief systems both shape and are shaped by ways of
living
• Total fertility rate (TFR) applies to human societies and adopts the
conventional demographic meaning, which in its simplest form is ‘the
average number of children expected to be born to a woman during her
[reproductive] lifetime.’ The reference to ‘reproductive lifetime’ has
become necessary following the introduction of IVF treatment that may
enable a woman to bear a child after her normal reproductive age.

The kernel set of factors outlined form a dynamic situation and cannot be
discussed in the reductionist way; they have to be discussed as a set. Population
and ‘carrying capacity’ may capture immediate attention by seeming to lie at
the heart of sustainability and sustainable development. Wallace’s concern
for these two matters in 1761, a time when the Earth’s human population
was in the region of 1 billion people, was foresight-full. Human population is
far from the whole story in the search for sustainability. Carrying capacity is
indeterminate and is only recognisable after its ‘emergence’. Hardin’s classic
paper on the ‘tragedy of the commons’ (Hardin 1968) drew attention to the
class of ‘problems’ for which there are ‘no technical solutions’; the ‘population
problem’ is one of them (ibid.: 2). From earlier chapters it will be obvious that
the current interactive set is a ‘situation’ amenable to amelioration in which
208  Scenarios and sustainability

population is an embedded element. Hardin’s work is deep and attempts

interdisciplinarity by cutting across many themes despite its reference to the
population ‘problem’. The interdependencies within and beyond the remainder
of the kernel set, some of which are not amenable to the quantification so
frequently expected to sanctify ideas, ensure that changes in population alone
will simply reshape and ameliorate the situation; it will not resolve it because
situations cannot be resolved.
Many authors, from the 1960s onwards, have commented that the
compound growth in population, energy and expectations cannot continue.
Hubbert argued convincingly against the ever rising expectations of ‘growth’
concluding that:

It now appears that the period of rapid population and industrial growth
that has prevailed during the last few centuries, instead of being the normal
order of things and capable of continuance into the indefinite future, is
actually one of the most abnormal phases of human history. It represents
only a brief transitional episode between two very much longer periods,
each characterized by rates of change so slow as to be regarded essentially
a period of non-growth … [that] … poses no insuperable physical or
biological problems, it will entail a fundamental revision of those aspects of
our current economic and social thinking which stem from the assumption
that the growth rates which have characterized this temporary period can
be permanent.
(Hubbert 1969: 238)

Few people have demurred, but Kahn initially countenanced world a

population of 20 billion only to moderate this later in a well-judged explanation
of how the world population might change under the influence of a decline in
the total fertility rate and the ‘demographic transition’ (Kahn et al. 1976: 27),
presenting a picture that virtually repeated Hubbert’s of some years earlier.
The demographic transition is a well-established trend in many regions of the
world in which rising economic well-being (assessed by gross national product
per capita) in a nation is accompanied by a decline in the crude birth rate
to below the replacement rate. When this trend is associated with a rising
death rate, a characteristic of ageing populations, it leads to expectations of
declining indigenous populations. The accumulation of Hardin’s ideas on the
‘commons’, Hubbert’s work on energy and Kahn’s futuristic study (Kahn et al.
1976), together with the outcome of ten years of world modelling ought to
have provided sufficient warning concerning humankind’s future to counteract
economic growthmania based on consumerism and an industrial society based
on the extractive destruction of human and natural resources. But, no – the
disastrous opinions, for that is all they are, of conventional economic thought
and growthmania continue to dominate human societies to create ways of
living that cannot be sustained.
 Sustainable world  209

All of these studies reiterate the need to look at the future of humankind
over much longer time scales than those that usually prevail in human societies.
Hubbert’s study, based on energy, the key to the carrying capacity, population
and climate triangle, and to the ways of living, is instructive: it led him to
propose three possible courses for the human population over the next few
centuries, provided a nuclear holocaust is avoided:

1 ‘It could continue to rise for a brief period and then gradually level off to
some stable magnitude capable of being sustained by the world’s energy
and material resources for a long period of time
2 It could overshoot any possible stable world and then drop back and
eventually stabilise at some level compatible with the world’s resources
3 Finally, as a result of resource exhaustion and a general cultural decline,
the curve could be forced back to a population corresponding to the lowest
energy consumption level of a primitive existence.’

The one type of behaviour for this curve that is not possible is that of
continued and unlimited growth (Hubbert 1969: 238).
It is here that Gunderson and Holling’s ‘panarchy’ metaphor, described in
Chapter 5, offers insights into the population situation and its interdependence
with the other six aspects of the model. The panarchy metaphor involves the
r and K strategies that are common in ecology and relate to Hardin’s notion of
commons; both stem from the Verhulst equation used in population dynamics.
Gunderson and Holling (2002) proposed an extension to the simple r and
K strategies by incorporating them into an adaptive cycle that incorporates
the additional features (described in Chapter 5) that allow reorganisation
and transformation in a system. Panarchy can also recur as a series of nested
cycles, illustrating that the ‘functioning of those cycles and the communication
between them determines the sustainability of the system’ (Holling 2001: 396).
In a socio-ecological system the panarchy metaphor can interpret the ability
of such a system to ‘invent and experiment, benefiting from inventions that
create opportunity while it [the system] is kept safe from those that destabilize
the system because of their nature or excessive exuberance’ (Holling 2001:
398), a phenomenon reminiscent of Holling’s earlier safe-fail principle (Holling
1977: 114). Because the whole panarchy is creative and conserving it helps to
clarify sustainability as being the

capacity to create, test and maintain adaptive capability. Development is

the process of creating, testing and maintaining opportunity. The phrase
that combines the two, ‘sustainable development’, therefore refers to
the goal of fostering adaptive capabilities while simultaneously creating
opportunities. It is, therefore, not an oxymoron but a term that describes
a logical partnership.
(Holling 2001: 399)
210  Scenarios and sustainability

Perhaps panarchy, through its breadth and depth, is another step in the
considerable body of similarly broad and deep theory or metaphor to rebut the
accusations of the antagonists of sustainability and sustainable development
that it is without a theoretical base.
There is little experience in modern times (if at any time during humankind’s
existence) of the behaviour of low birth rate populations and none at all of
countries facing declining indigenous populations over an extended period
of decades, by comparison with the short-term effects of major epidemics. So
far, the most common feature has been migrations from poorer to apparently
richer countries, as the latter struggle to perpetuate economic growth that is
their characteristic. This is the picture painted by the ardent antagonists of
sustainable development, as described earlier. In many of the wealthy OECD
countries TFRs are well below replacement rate. If the trend continues, as
seems likely from current ways of living, then the outcome later in this century
will bring striking changes to ways of living, especially if demographic change is
accompanied by significant changes in climate (Day 1992). These are complex
matters involving personal choices that depend on belief systems, another
member of the kernel set of the model outlined earlier, and physical factors
that influence the reproductive capability of human beings. These matters will
be discussed again in Chapter 8.
Belief systems and ways of living (see Appendix 7.1) influence each other
– both are influenced by all the themes in the kernel of the model and by all
the themes in the STEEPV set, where there are interactions embodied in the
principles of ecological economics and its close relations industrial ecology, and
behavioural economics (see Appendix 7.2). Perhaps belief systems and ways of
living are driving the development of these three themes in economic thought
as classical economics continues to become less relevant to sustainability and
sustainable development. Indeed, since the 1980s real events on the Earth have
enabled ecological economics, industrial ecology and behavioural economics to
gain credence and relevance to policy making, finally weakening conventional
economic opinion (but not by much!) as the basis of policy making. The
emergence of these three themes of economic thought in their nascent form
over 35 years ago and their persistent development is surely enough to indicate
that all is not well in the economic camp.
It may seem odd to include the ‘Earth as a living system’ as part of the kernel
of the model as, in its broadest sense, the other six elements are elements of
the ‘Earth as a living system’ set. However, there is a purpose in making the
distinction. There has been a good deal of unwillingness in some quarters to
accept that the Earth is a living system, not of the reproductive kind that some
people (Dawkins 1982: 234) strangely wished upon Lovelock’s original Gaia
theory, which Lovelock rebutted through the ‘Daisyworld’ model (Watson and
Lovelock 1983). One of the benefits of world modelling and climate modelling,
perhaps the latter more than the former, has been to push the notion of the
Earth as a living system toward the forefront of appreciation in Vickers’ sense.
 Sustainable world  211

It is now more widely accepted that the Earth is a complex system in which
living and inanimate matter work together to create, maintain and destroy
life and its support systems in a continuous process that can be likened to an
extreme version of panarchy. In that sense the Earth’s carrying capacity is ever
changing according to the outcome of this continual ‘battle’ between mutually
supportive and mutually destructive forces, a battle in which humanity has
chosen to intervene on the basis of (unavoidably) incomplete understanding.
Indeed, humanity is unlikely ever to possess the breadth and depth of
understanding needed to ‘manage’ the ‘Earth as a living system’ yet that is what
is being proposed and where the ‘successful management’ of the recovery of the
ozone hole may have provided humanity with a false sense of competence. One
benefit of recognising the presence of the mutually supportive and mutually
destructive forces at work in the world as a living system, ought to be the
recognition of the predator–prey interaction between viruses and bacteria, and
other parts of the living system, meaning that the eradication of ‘disease’, while
remaining a human ambition, is one that is unlikely to be realised.
The second reason for including the ‘Earth as a living system’ in the kernel
set is to direct thought to the wider systems in which the Earth resides and
that make up its behaviour. Huggett (1995, 1997) directs attention toward the
inanimate geophysical and geo-ecological aspects stepping carefully round the
notion of the Earth as a living system. It fell first (remarkably) to James Hutton
(1785) to make that controversial step with Lovelock (1972), Ward and Dubos
(1972), Margulis and Lovelock (1974), Capra (1996), Wilson (2002), and
others to follow, perhaps unknowingly, in Hutton’s footsteps. Of these authors,
Ward and Dubos (1972: 290) retain the view of humanity’s need to ‘manage’
the Earth through a ‘strategy for Planet Earth’ while acknowledging the
‘infinitely sensitive issues of divisive economic and political sovereignty’ that
concerned Peccei (1982) so much. Wilson, in particular, doubts the wisdom of
entrusting humanity with such a task maintaining that ‘[t]he human species
is, in a word, an environmental abnormality. It is possible that intelligence in
the wrong kind of species was foreordained to be a fatal combination for the
biosphere’ (Wilson and Baird 1999). Underlying any appreciation of the ‘Earth
as a living system’ is the principle of bounded rationality: the human mind
simply cannot cope with the complexity involved. Sustainable development,
in its real meaning, is not ‘manageable’ in the sense of achieving an expected
outcome in the form of successful continuity of the human species interactively
with the multiplicity of other species on which humanity depends, nor can the
Earth’s inanimate resources be managed to the same end because of the complex
interdependencies involved between the animate and inanimate worlds.
What role is there for modelling in appreciating the ‘Earth as a living system’?
All models are incomplete, by definition: were it to be otherwise each would be
a ‘duplicate’ (Riggs 1970), in this case of the ‘Earth as a living system’, which is
absurd and would render the model superfluous. All models also have a purpose
(Meadows et al. 1982: 44) and begin as a matter of opinion with statements
212  Scenarios and sustainability

like ‘I believe this can be modelled.’ Thereafter, opinion intercedes throughout

until the model is finally completed, warts and all. Opinion is often the only
way to navigate through the complexities of what is being modelled and of
the model building itself. So, for the ‘Earth as a living system’ the Daisyworld
model (Watson and Lovelock 1983) demonstrates how homeostasis can occur
in a complex system like the ‘Earth as a living system’ and how it can change
stepwise to a different stable state, the phenomenon of homeorrhesis (Lovelock
2000:  141). The purpose of the model was to demonstrate this effect, as an
essential part of the Gaia theory. Homeorrhesis is not often mentioned in the
debate arising from climate modelling as their purpose is to model the behaviour
of the atmosphere physically and chemically with an objective function of global
mean temperature related to the chemistry of the atmosphere. Similarly, the
world models set out purposely to test the role of this form of modelling, as an
aid to policy making, by demonstrating the nature of the ‘human predicament’
through the models behaviour represented by a defined set of outputs – in
the terms of the model builder’s intentions the outcomes were successful.
Other models that throw some light on the vexed question of sustainable
development include Hardin’s ‘tragedy of the commons’ and Gunderson and
Holling’s, idea of ‘panarchy’ with the possibility of linking these two sets of
ideas. Varela et al. (1974) and later (Maturana and Varela 1980) created ideas
that emerged as autopoiesis (an autopoietic organisation is an autonomous
and self-maintaining unity which contains component-producing processes,
i.e. (self-producing)), has obvious attractions when considering the ‘Earth as a
living system’. There is a drawback as autopoiesis will create its own boundaries
within which to maintain the system. The drawback arises from Dempster’s
query (1998: see Chapter 1) about autopoeisis as a phenomenon as she was
concerned that self-learning based on the metaphor of an organism is often
inappropriate and misleading when applied to complex systems: this led her
to propose a ‘new concept [sympoietic systems] based on an interpretation of
ecosystems’ (Dempster 2000: 1) which has been extended recently (Dempster
2007: 93). Dempster described sympoietic systems as ‘complex, self-organizing
but collectively producing, boundaryless systems’ as distinct from autopoietic
systems that create their own self-defined boundaries that are organisationally
closed, whereas sympoietic systems are organisationally ajar. Other charac­
teristics arise from these differences in as much as autopoietic systems are
‘homeostatic, development oriented, centrally controlled, predictable and
efficient. Sympoietic systems are homeorhetic, evolutionary, distributively
controlled, unpredictable and adaptive’ (Dempster 2000: 1). These descriptions
are set at the opposite ends of a conceptual spectrum and present a useful aid
to self-learning by drawing attention to many, often neglected, complex system
characteristics providing a means for recognising trade-offs between the sets of
characteristics that are associated with autopoiesis and sympoiesis, and their
application to situations, that include social, political, economic and cultural
elements. The ‘Earth as a living system’ is then not autopoietic but sympoietic
 Sustainable world  213

with fuzzy rather than well-defined boundaries. Dempster’s proposition of a

system with collectively produced, uncertain or fuzzy boundaries would be
typical of any attempt to model a real-world situation. The application of systems
thinking to situations, which are unstructured and complex, with boundaries
that are fuzzy and subject to intense philosophical debate and depend on an
individual’s perception and appreciation of the situation (see Chapter 1), has
much to learn from Dempster’s proposal as sympoiesis seems more fitted to
assist understanding than autopoiesis. Perhaps synergies between Hardin’s
tragedy of the commons, Gunderson and Holling’s panarchy and Dempster’s
sympoiesis may provide new ways to appreciate the ‘Earth as a living system’
alongside the Gaia, World and climate models.
The kernel set of the model I have used may well be criticised for apparently
lacking many of the physical necessities of sustainable development by
concentrating on elements of the situation that are qualitative. In addition to
their complexity, these elements have very different time scales. For example:

• the ‘Earth as a living system’ and climate have very long time scales
• population and carrying capacity have time scales comparable to that
of species generations, which can vary widely but lie within human
comprehension
• in the human world, belief systems are not coherent in as much as the
underlying codes may endure for centuries but their interpretation may
well alter from generation to generation
• the TFR tends to follow the influence of the demographic transition that,
once completed, has so far not been reversed, giving a time scale of decades
and is apparently independent of generations
• the time scale in the important matter of ways of living is volatile and
within generations.

Bearing in mind the conceptual and perceptual nature of model creation

(Chapter 1) I can offer a second model (Figure 7.4), related to sustainable
development, created in the mid-1970s with the objective of providing a set
of elements likely to influence business until the next millennium at least
(Note  2).
The interactions that form the background to the model are illustrated
in Figure 7.5: the interrelatedness of the main elements is typical of systems
models and of systemic foresight, a term coined by Saritas (2006: 6) to link
systems thinking and foresight more explicitly.
Both models are systemic, displaying properties that have been referred to in
similar, but different ways by different authors (Varela et al. 1974; Maturana and
Varela 1980; Checkland 1981: 75). The common threads are organisation, the
shape of the interrelationships between the elements that map out the situation,
and its structure, which describes the characteristics of each element as far as
that is possible within the fuzzy boundaries of a situation. Checkland extends
214  Scenarios and sustainability

Exploration
Fuel
Eficiency
Appliances
Suficiency Energy Productivity Domestic
Recycling & Fuel Renewables Industrial
Access Abatement
Newtechnology Water
Definedproperties Raw & proce- W aste & Air
Quality ssed materials pollution Land

C hange
Growth/decline
Fertility Long- Deforestation
Climate Desertification
Distribution
Population T erm Waterquality
Employment human & water Resources
Literacy
Longevity need s Winds
Erosion

Preventive Agriculture
Compatibledrugs Health Food Horticulture
Non-invasive Mariculture
procedures Animalhusbandry
Qualitydiagnosis Growth Processing
Patientcare Comunication Urbanization Quality/diversity
Terminalcare Security Eficiency
Ageing Homes, Productivity
Industry
Services,
Retailing

Figure 7.4 Long duration world needs

Energy
& Fuel

Raw & proce- W aste &

ssed materials pollution

Long-
T erm Climate
Population
hu m an & water
need s

Health Food

Urbanization

Figure 7.5 Interrelatedness of world needs

 Sustainable world  215

the description of organisation describing it as ‘emergence and hierarchy’ and

similarly for structure, which is described as ‘communication and control.’
Capra (1996) and Lovelock (2000: 141) invoke the notion of homeorrhesis,
the process through which living things ‘change while staying the same’
(Waddington 1974: 231), as the process through which living systems change
dynamically from one stable state to another. As a result Capra sets out his ‘Key
Criteria of a Living System’ as being composed of its pattern of organisation,
its structure and its life process, matters that flow from autopoiesis, dissipative
structures and cognition.
The models suggested here are systemic and their properties are quite general
to systems thinking and to systemic foresight with the possible exception of
the invocation of homeorrhesis as an important process linking organisation
and structure. Once again the interrelationship is clear between the notion
of the ‘commons’, panarchy, autopoiesis and its outgrowth to sympoiesis, and
the systems ideas summarised by Capra’s criteria; all are searching for ways
to enable the amelioration of situations, which are strange waters for policy
makers.
Is there then a viable way for policy makers to think about sustainability
and sustainable development? The question seems nonsensical as many people
already do while others claim to do so. These claims vary between complex, as
described, and simplistic with all shades in between. No one knows what the
conditions are for sustainability or sustainable development nor is there any
clarity about how decisions can be made that are thought likely to promote the
emergence of some unknown set of conditions or who will take these decisions
and how they will make them, since they may not happen in the same place
or involve the same people (Loveridge 1979: 22). Is it true to say that the
conditions of sustainability are ‘unknown’? Surely they are those that exist now
that favour the continuance of life as we know it? Maybe, but maybe not. After
decades of wasted opportunity humanity has woken up to the idea that it and its
societies are not separate from all the Earth’s other life forms, but rely intensely
on the resources the Earth provides, including the aerobic atmosphere, and on
the solar insolation that drives the Earth as a living system. However, the idea
that humanity is not essential to life on Earth nor does it control or manage life
on Earth, is a hard one to grasp, even though the evidence is clear enough.
For presentation purposes the notion of a constriction is a useful metaphor
for a way of compressing, sorting and discarding ideas to create an output
including a sustainable human species as part of a wider Earth-bound living
system. Humanity’s self-interest is in maintaining successful continuity for
itself for as long as possible for the populace and the activities it indulges in,
until the human population exceeds the Earth’s carrying capacity, where that is
created by both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial events. At that point the species
will either crash to a much smaller number or go into extinction. For small-
scale, reasonably well-defined problems, a constriction or filtering metaphor is
often used to describe a change from one state to another, provided the output
216  Scenarios and sustainability

Swarmsofideas
Emergentbehaviour
relatingto
ofsystem
sustainability

Figure 7.6 Symbolic representation of Venturi-like process for sorting ideas flowing
from thought experiments

can be defined. For larger systemic situations the constriction metaphor fails,
because of the veritable swarm of intelligent, interrelated ideas and entities,
presented to it. The swarm is of unknown size and complexity, consequently
the emergent outcome cannot be specified or easily appreciated as manifesting
either sustainability or successful continuity for humanity (Figure 7.6) except
retrospectively.
What, if anything, can humanity do to promote the successful continuity
of its own species? Perhaps the first step is a change in mindset among policy
makers and humanity as a whole (Peccei (1982) had little faith in this), to
recognise the interdependence of all life and that predator–prey relationships
are endemic in living systems: the search for sustenance is paramount. In that
respect, humanity is in tune with the rest of the planet’s life forms. However,
humanity claims to be different through its ability to choose how to support
its ways of living as though this can be done without paying due regard to the
natural world – this is sophistry. Despite the complexity of humanity’s modern
life-ways, the search for food, and the other basics of life so well described as
‘survival’ in Maslow’s hierarchy (Maslow 1954), is the ultimate objective of all
human activity; transgressions of this basic intent result in feasts for the Four
Horseman: Pestilence, War, Famine and Death. The key elements of human
survival seem obvious; that some are not universally available in today’s human
societies indicates that they are not sustainable. Global indicators, mostly
economic and monetary, of this or that element thought to be relevant to the
emergence of sustainable living systems, are irrelevant. It is local disparities
that hold the key, simply because, for example, an ‘over populated’ city or
geographic region is an extremely vulnerable one liable to be winnowed by
 Sustainable world  217

any combination of the Four Horsemen. The emergence of any sustainable

region then depends on situations that are shaped by the interrelated activities
of billions of organisms, including humanity, in which the latter, the minority,
believes it alone can shape the emerging situation. Whether individuals or
policy makers recognise this dilemma is a moot point, but it is suggested that
the latter might, either knowingly or unwittingly, recognise and make use of
the matrix illustrated in Figure 7.7, itself an evolution of the policy maker’s
dilemmas described by Barker and Peters (1993).
Each element in the situation needs to be presented to the front face of the
matrix to appreciate its relevance and to face policy makers with the dilemmas
regarding their appreciation of their capabilities to exert, through policy, either
control or partial control over that element of the situation and to determine
whether it is outside their control. The multifaceted choice for the policy maker
is likely to be an uncomfortable one requiring admissions of ignorance rather
than one of omniscience. The initial step into the matrix is the easiest for the
policy maker. The next step is to recognise that the matrix applies to each node
of the interdependent STEEPV set in the manner illustrated in Figure 7.8.
Each step at one node requires the consideration of the interdependencies
with the other five nodes. The complexity of this process is subject to bounded
rationality and is perhaps why emergence is the key property of the evolution
of sustainable living systems. If the first step into the use of the matrix looks
reductionist, the second step should remove all illusions about the complexity

Policymakersbeliefsabout
theirabilitytocontrol
Uniquely
u nknow n
Barelypossible
muchunknowable
ing s
yris ma Dificulteven
lmpexit rsdile forexperts
c o yma e
k Dificultbut
on polic non-expertscope
uSitati Recognisab le
complication
Elaborated
indetail
Controllable Partialcontrol Nocontrol
Whatis
possible?
on
r e
m u nts trol& ituatui
Whatis t n
feasible? yins lofco
p olic toleve ultyofs
ble g f fic
Whatis tifia in
desirable? Iden cord ofdi
ac ree
deg
Primaryassessmentofsituationelements

Figure 7.7 Notional policy matrix (Repeat of Figure 2.5)

218  Scenarios and sustainability
Uniquely
unknown
Difficulty near
unknown
Difficult
for experts
Difficult for
non-experts
Recognisable
complexity

Elaborate
detail Uniquely
unknown
Controllable Partiial control No control
Difficulty near
unknown
What's possible Difficult
for experts

What's feasible

What's desirable
Social Elaborate
Difficult for
non-experts
Recognisable
complexity

detail

Controllable Partiial control No control

What's possible

What's feasible

What's desirable

Human Technological
values
Uniquely
unknown
Difficulty near
unknown
Difficult
Uniquely
for experts
unknown
Difficult for
Difficulty near
non-experts
unknown
Recognisable Difficult
complexity for experts
Elaborate Difficult for
detail non-experts

Controllable Partiial control No control Recognisable

complexity

What's possible Elaborate

detail

Controllable Partiial control No control

What's feasible
What's possible

What's desirable
What's feasible

What's desirable

Politics Economic
Uniquely
unknown
Difficulty near
unknown
Difficult
for experts
Difficult for
non-experts
Recognisable
complexity

Elaborate Uniquely
detail unknown

Controllable Partiial control No control Difficulty near

unknown
Difficult
What's possible for experts

What's feasible
Ecology Elaborate
Difficult for
non-experts
Recognisable
complexity

What's desirable detail

Controllable Partiial control No control

What's possible

What's feasible

What's desirable

Figure 7.8 Interrelatedness between the notional policy matrix and the STEEPV set

of the cascade of situations that comprise sustainability and its dependence on

emergence.
There are three other interdependent questions that policy makers need to
have constantly and simultaneously in mind as they work systemically on the
cascade of situations humanity now faces:

• What is possible?
• What is feasible?
• What is desirable?

The three questions were originally set down for product development, but
they are applicable much more widely. In its original context, ‘What is possible?’
related to known science and what that would allow. Human ways of life are
about much more than science so there are other matters that concern, more
generally, what is possible in human interrelations between individuals, groups
of many different kinds and beliefs, nations and the Earth as a living system.
In product development ‘What is feasible?’ relates to technology that ought
to (the policy ‘ought’ described in Chapter 1) enable the creation of artefacts,
both products and services. Again, these notions are applicable more widely in
human affairs, becoming visible in the physical world through many aspects of
politics, multitudes of agreements, international bodies to regulate trade and,
more recently, human interaction with the natural world. The latter is still not
seen as the kind of communication interface referred to earlier in this chapter,
but rather as a dominant controlling influence over an unintelligent world
 Sustainable world  219

instead of communication with a world that humanity depends on absolutely

and has far more inbuilt ‘intelligence’ than at one time imagined. Perhaps CSR
and the GRI are the beginnings here of an appropriate information protocol.
The latter issue leads on naturally to the last of the three questions, ‘What is
desirable?’ Thus far, the response by humanity has been to require satisfaction of
human wants in the ‘developed world’ and human needs in those regions where
survival and sustaining, in Maslow’s hierarchy (1954) are daily preoccupations.
To paraphrase Gandhi, ‘to a poor man God comes in the form of bread,’ whereas
the rich look to gadgetry on which to spend their excess wealth, ultimately
with the hope of achieving either time-occupying activity, or perhaps, the
transhumanist’s aim of everlasting youthful life. These relationships can be
represented conveniently by the Venn diagram (Figure 7.9).
Desirability covers that area of contention in the kernel set of the model
where people discuss and argue about what kinds of belief systems and ways of
living may be expected by, and be acceptable to, society within the constraints
and opportunities of the other equally important elements of the set. Desirability
is then the most socially oriented (also the most public and politicised) of
these three interrelated questions that will influence the evolution of human
societies. The complexity of these matters has been illustrated in Figure 2.5.
All the foregoing ways of thinking about sustainability and sustainable
development imply that policy makers can no longer think in terms of decisions
with their background of problem solving, but in terms of steps, knowing that
all policies fail, some immediately as is happening now with the market for
carbon off-set credits, while some are partially successful. Humanity’s approach

Socio-economics,Politics
& V alues

Desirable
Feasible&Desirable Possible&Desirable
butNO T possible butNO T Feasible

Feasible Possible

T echnolo gy Science
&Economics &Ecology

Possible&Feasible Possible,Feasible
butNO T Desirable &Desirable

Figure 7.9 Venn diagram illustrating role of possibility, feasibility and desirability in
sustainability
220  Scenarios and sustainability

to sustainability and sustainable development will depend heavily on Holling’s

notion of systems remaining ‘safe-fail’ (Holling 1977: 129) while ‘listening’
intently to the signals flowing across the communication interfaces between
the ‘Earth as a living system’ and the other six elements of the kernel set of the
model. For policy makers the often unrecognised dilemma is that humankind
is but one species that is part of the Earth as a living system with no guarantee
that it will not suffer extinction just like many past species have done and
present ones are doing.
In this chapter I have endeavoured to illustrate the necessity for systemic
thinking and systemic foresight in order to learn the language of cascades of
situations in relation to sustainability and sustainable development. In the
initial, broad learning about a situation many threads go un-revealed, this
comes later during deeper exploration. Throughout, Vickers’ (1963) notion of
appreciation, with its intonation of complexity and fuzziness, is a powerful one
within the limits of bounded rationality. My second purpose in this chapter has
been to show that sustainability and sustainable development are far from being
short of theoretical bases, but their extreme complexity makes a ‘complete’
theory nigh on impossible. In 1999 Wilson and Baird posed the question ‘Is
humanity suicidal?’ Their answer was given in terms of two extreme viewpoints
‘exemptionalism’ and ‘environmentalism’. The first means:
‘that since humankind is transcendent in intelligence and spirit, so must
our species have been released from the iron laws of ecology that bind all
other species. No matter how serious the problem, civilised human beings,
by ingenuity, force of will and – who knows – divine dispensation, will find a
solution.’
In other words, the viewpoint of those whom I have classed as antagonists
to sustainability. The second, environmentalism, is the antithesis of the first,
proposing:

that human physical and spiritual health depends on sustaining the planet
in a relatively unaltered state. Earth is our home in the full, genetic sense,
where humanity and its ancestors existed for all the millions of years of
their evolution. Natural ecosystems … maintain the world exactly as we
would wish it to be maintained. When we debase the global environment
and extinguish the variety of life, we are dismantling a support system that
is too complex to understand, let alone replace, in the foreseeable future.

Wilson and Baird (1999: 55) conclude that ‘in its neglect of the rest of
life, exemptionalism fails definitively’ whereas ‘the environmentalist vision,
prudential and less exuberant than exemptionalism, is closer to reality’, though
it is not one that the protagonists of sustainability or sustainable development
accept in all its aspects. Sombrely, they conclude ‘[y]et the awful truth remains
that a large part of humanity will suffer no matter what is done.’
 Sustainable world  221

Appendix 7.1
A n otion of int er-rel a t ionships i n
s us tainability

Figure A7.1  A notion of inter-relatedness for sustainability

Appendix 7.2
E cological economics, industrial ec o l o g y a n d
b ehavioural economics: brief desc r i p t i o n s a n d
s yn thes is
Costanza (1992) has described how ecological economics is conducted in a
‘systems’ framework addressing the sustainability of interactions between
economic and ecological systems, while acknowledging the fundamental
conservation laws. It is a conceptually pluralistic discipline based on shared
assumptions and theory. Ecological economics represents a commitment by
natural and social scientists and practitioners, to develop a new understanding
of how different living systems interact with one another, drawing lessons
from this for both analysis and policy. The complexity of ecological economics
requires the inclusion of some aspects of environmental economics, traditional
ecology, ecological impact studies and several other disciplinary perspectives.
The systemic approach encourages new, and hopefully more integrated,
linkages between ecological and economic systems, under the premise that
222  Scenarios and sustainability

these two themes are complex, adaptive, living systems that need to be studied
as integrated, co-evolving systems to be adequately understood (Holling
1986:  292; Proops 1989: 59; Costanza et al. 1993). ‘Consumer sovereignty’,
on which most conventional economic opinion is based, is only acceptable
to the extent that it does not threaten the overall system or the welfare of
future generations. By contrast, ecological economics focuses on the complex
interrelationship between ecological sustainability (including system carrying
capacity and resilience), social sustainability (including distribution of wealth
and rights, and co-evolving preferences) and economic sustainability (including
allocative efficiency), playing down consumer sovereignty.
Industrial ecology is a near relative of ecological economics and is systemic
in its approach to understanding the interaction between industrial systems
and natural systems. The design of manufacturing systems is based on natural
or ecological principles; its concerns are wider than the alleviation of pollution.
The methodology stems from in the 1960s and 1970s (Forrester 1961) and was
used in world modelling (Meadows et al. 1972) to highlight the unsustainable
course of the then-current industrial system. In 1989, Ayres developed the
concept of ‘industrial metabolism’ (Ayres 1989: 23) through which inefficient
products and processes could be identified through mass and energy balances.
Subsequently, Frosch and Gallopoulos developed the concept of industrial
ecology proposing that an ideal industrial ecosystem would function as an
analogue of a natural living system, ‘nature as a model.’ The view is of ‘the
industrial plant or system as an integrated set of cyclical processes’ in which
the consumption of energy and materials is optimised, waste generation
is minimised, and wastes from one process serve as feed-stock for other
production processes’ (Frosch and Gallopoulos 1989: 144). In his discussion
of eco-accounting Smith (1999: 337) records how Ayres (Ayres 1993) ‘views
industrial production as a “metabolic” process’ that attempts to ‘close the “open
materials cycle” characteristic of industrial society … by eliminating waste from
production processes. The ‘nature as a model’ metaphor is fundamental to
industrial ecology indicating that the waste produced by one company should
be usable by another. Waste would be eliminated together with its destructive
influences on natural systems. In a further evolution, the interdependence
between companies, stressed in the above metaphor, promotes an ecology of
industries characterised by networks of companies with different purposes to
facilitate the minimisation, if not the elimination, of waste from the network.
The techniques used in industrial ecology are now becoming well established.
Behavioural economics is the most recent addition to the fragmenting field
of economics and is a combination of psychology and economics relating to
markets, which display human and irrational limitations and complications.
Do some combinations of market forces, learning and evolution make human
qualities irrelevant? There are three important ways in which humans deviate
from the standard economic model. Bounded rationality reflects the limited
cognitive abilities that constrain human problem solving. Bounded willpower
 Sustainable world  223

captures the fact that people sometimes make choices that are not in their
long-run interest. Bounded self-interest incorporates the comforting fact that
humans are often willing to sacrifice their own interests to help others. These
concepts can be applied in two settings: finance and savings. Financial markets
have greater arbitrage opportunities than other markets, so behavioural factors
might be thought to be less important here, but even here the limits of arbitrage
create anomalies that the psychology of decision making helps explain. Since
saving for retirement requires both complex calculations and willpower,
behavioural factors are essential elements of any complete descriptive theory.
Chapter 8
The wo rl d of 2 0 3 0 ,
2050 an d b e yon d

DOPELER EFFECT (n), the tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when
they come at you rapidly.
Neologism submitted to ‘The Washington Post’s
Style Invitational’, 2007

The intention of this chapter is demonstrate, as far as is possible in a few pages,

how many of the ideas discussed earlier can be used. The title may convey the
impression of a series of scenarios but that is not my intention, and scenarios
will not figure in the text. The intention of the title is to convey the notion that
situations run in cascades and that frequently a ‘scenario for 2030’ is nothing
other than a static photograph of a set of ideas, this despite that a scenario
should be the skeleton of a play that demands dynamism. There is a second
reason for not presenting scenarios: the magnitude of the task. To develop a
set of dynamic scenarios exploring the cascade of situations indicated in the
chapter’s title is a book in itself. With the purpose of the title in mind, the
chapter begins with a necessarily short résumé of how humanity has arrived at
the position it is in at mid-2007; from most points of view it will be incomplete,
to some people woefully so, but it is the first step towards appreciating the
unknown territory of the future. It will be followed by that nebulous notion of
‘understanding the present’, before moving on to longer horizons indicating
some markers at a level of generality that may enable appreciation of the
unknown territory of the future.
Distant horizons are always hazy; the hotter the immediacy of the day the
more remote and hazy horizons become. The tendency to regard thinking
beyond the next election or next day as part of the ‘Dopeler Effect’ is ever
present. It has led humanity into many blind alleys and perhaps worst of all,
has led to the blindingly obvious being wilfully ignored in favour of a cheap
short-term gain or to satisfy some form of ‘messianic’ belief. In principle at least,
and often in great detail, the major causes of the current complex of situations
have been known since the mid-1940s and in some instances for 250 years
or more. When some world leaders announce that national security is more
important than securing fuel or food supplies for the societies they represent,
then the extent of their mis-appreciation of the situation becomes obvious.
 The world of 2030, 2050 and beyond  225

Denial of fuel supplies, especially the secondary form, electricity, is a certain

way of strangling a modern society very quickly – only thermonuclear attack
will be quicker and more devastating. Food supplies seem secure until harvests
fail globally as they did in 2007 and have done many times before, for example
in 1972. A recent report claimed that ‘In an age of uncertainty, peering 15 years
into the future may seem like hubris’ (Anon 2006). To look further forward, as I
shall (and as is done frequently, e.g. Kahn et al. 1976 is but one example among
many from authors with widely different interests), must place such writings
in the Dopeler class? Fortunately, for those who indulge in such speculations
and conjectures, that is not the case. Given the current lengthening of life
expectancy my daughter will live until the mid-2050s and my granddaughter
until past 2080; am I wrong to have an interest in the world in which they may
live? Their world is being formed now. Uncertainty has always accompanied
human endeavour; it is far from new, and declarations that the present is
different in this respect from the past is simply ‘trendy’. Too often the inter-
working of the fast, short-term and the slow, long-term situations, as indicated
by Gunderson and Holling (2002), are conveniently forgotten or ‘overlooked’
when credit is sought by dignitaries for this or that ‘success’. The dynamics
of the present fractured, but generally upward trend in the world economy, is
painted in the colours of the Kondratieff or long-cycle (Kondratieff 1935) that
is believed to join invention and innovation to economic activity. Measures of
the long-cycle are fuzzy, vague and arguable, but a discernible cycle varies in
length between 45 and 60 years: the trough of the last cycle occurred round
about 1992 so that the upward part of a new cycle is now well established.

A brief summary of how Earth’s sit u a t i o n h a s

ev olv ed
There is a hoary old joke about the traveller who is lost and stops to ask
someone the way to a destination only to receive the advice, ‘If I was going
there I wouldn’t start from here!’ Humanity cannot exercise the advice given
to the traveller. So how did humanity arrive where it is? It is one of the tenets
of situations, or systems, that have emergent properties that these arise from
the inter-working of a small cluster of factors; this will be in my mind constantly
in the rest of this section as a way of looking for markers to use later. Note the
plural of the word property, as what emerges is multi-headed like the Hydra
referred to in Chapter 5.
How has social life reached its present condition? Social change is
a continuum punctuated, often drastically, by discontinuities. One such
discontinuity occurred in the early sixteenth century with the advent of the
Copernican revolution (more will be said about this shortly), which effectively
divided the old world of classical Greece from the new world now
characterised by ‘modernity’ (Chapter 2). The Copernican revolution was
much more than an astronomical one in which it was recognised that the
226  Scenarios and sustainability

Sun, and not the Earth, occupied the central position in the solar system. The
Copernican revolution forced people to change their whole mode of thought
and appreciation of their position in the ‘universe’, really the solar system. While
the cleavage between the old world and the new took several centuries
in its evolution, almost every aspect of life changed eventually as the modern
world evolved. Despite this discontinuity the basis of human behaviour has
remained unchanged for millennia and that will be my starting point.
Many authors claim that the instinctive behaviour of homo sapiens remains
unchanged from that needed during the frightening eras when survival, a trait
developed in the earliest days of hunter-gatherer tribes in the Mesolithic period
(Note 1), was of paramount importance. Has humanity’s behavioural capability
kept pace with its creative counterpart that has resulted in art, music, theatre
and, above all, tools that have multiplied and extended human capabilities
so significantly? Again, many authors say ‘no’, pinpointing this mismatch as a
major cause of the present situation. Skipping over several thousand years my
next marker would be the last millennium bc, the period of the pre-Socratic
and later Greek philosophers whose influence persists into the present time.
Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes and Euclid made the last 500
years bc, the classical Greek period, particularly noteworthy. The coincidental
birth of the Roman Republic (509 bc) and Empire (27 bc), Buddhism and
Confucianism during the same period and the subsequent birth of Christianity
and Islam (seventh century ad) made the 1300 years from approximately 600 bc
to 700  ad one of the most influential periods in shaping human development
and history. The collapse of the Roman Empire in the fifth century ad (the
eastern part of the empire lasted until 1453 ad as the Byzantine Empire) was
followed in Europe by the so called ‘dark ages’, the period of warfare between
500 and 1000 ad in which urban societies virtually disappeared.
The late Middle Ages from 1000 ad onwards saw the rebirth of urban life
and a renewal of interest in learning that led to the Renaissance, the beginning
of the modern period in Europe. At the end of the Middle Ages the church in
Europe was the established authority in all forms of knowledge, a situation that
began to change during the early Renaissance. To begin to grasp the nature of
the change that took place what began as discrete micro-events became
macro scale, not characterised through a single event, but rather by a cluster
of events spread over one or two lifespans. Opinions differ about the important
micro-events that brought about the change, but to my mind the end of the
era of pre-modernity was brought about by three events. The first was in 1450
when Gutenberg brought together the various aspects of the then-current
printing technology to build the world’s first printing press. The appearance
of the Gutenberg Bible in 1455 was an event of staggering social importance,
as up to that time books of any kind, and especially the Bible, were possessed
by very few people and literacy was at a very low level. Many unforeseeable
outcomes followed, one of which was a direct challenge to the authority of
the church. The second event was the publication of Copernicus’ book
 The world of 2030, 2050 and beyond  227

on heliocentricity (Copernicus 1543) challenging Ptolemy’s theory of epicycles

and the establishment’s tenet that the Earth was at the centre of the solar
system. The third was Vesalius’ book on anatomy (Vesalius 1543) that presented
a careful examination of the organs and the complete structure of the human
body, none of which would have been possible without many of the advances,
including artistic developments and the technical development of printing
that had been made during the Renaissance. Because of this, Vesalius was able
to produce illustrations superior to any that had been come before. Amongst
these three identifiable events Leonardo da Vinci’s immense talents also made
their mark, beautifully illustrating the intense relationship between art and
invention. While no one person would have lived through all three events,
a select few, whose lifespan even then exceeded ‘three score years and ten’,
would have built the bridge between the old world and the new. They would
have witnessed the great surge of scientific activity, over a period of about
150 years from the mid-sixteenth to early eighteenth centuries, by Tycho
Brahe, Kepler, Galileo and Newton. In parallel with the trilogy of events –
printing, heliocentricity and the new view of anatomy – the social scene had
its own particular discontinuity, created in 1517 by Martin Luther’s 95 theses
(these were distributed widely through the use of the new printing processes)
that initiated the Reformation with its subsequent enduring influence on the
Christian church. Here, then, is a primary cluster of events that by the end
of the seventeenth century led to a movement that posed an undeniable
challenge to the existing modes of social life and organisation that had been
based largely on principles handed down by ‘authority’. However, despite
the intellectual fervour, modernity was only in its infancy. Throughout this
period it is both common and natural to focus attention on Europe as the
cradle of intellectual and technical evolution, but the influence from wider
spheres, including the Middle and Far East, for example in the creation of
algebra, arithmetic, the Arabic number system and the concept of zero, are
among important developments that filtered through to Europe.
The next turning point in social life and organisation started in the first
half of the eighteenth century as the industrial revolution began with ‘deep’
coal mining, the arrival of the steam engine (e.g. Newcomen’s in 1712) and
Darby’s blast furnace (1740), and came to a climax some 60 years later in the
early 1800s. The Industrial Revolution was initiated by a stream of technical
inventions that, in the UK initially, led to the creation of factories and factory
work, and the steady depopulation of rural areas, a feature that has spread
globally since then. At this point in the UK there was an age cohort who
could remember, from first-hand experience, the forms of social life and
organisation that prevailed before the mass migration to towns and cities;
subsequent generations could not share this experience so the conditions of
industrialism and its separation from rural life, forming one of the main planks
of modernity, was laid firmly by then. The second major plank was the steady
increase of technical knowledge and the acceptance of its certainty. These
228  Scenarios and sustainability

characteristics demonstrated that social change is about the ‘destruction’ of

the existing basis of the organisation of social life in favour of a new form.
In the world of pre-modernity, appearances formed the basis of authoritative
knowledge, handed down without question. In contrast, modernity embraced
technical knowledge, created through science, and rejected ‘handed down’
authority (science soon became its substitute owing to the restricted cohort
that understood science).
If the nineteenth century was regarded as one of certainties, the
twentieth was just the opposite. Two ‘global’ wars and many smaller conflicts
represented clashes between different ideological groups. Ideologies came
and went: notably Nazism in Germany and Fascism elsewhere; Bolshevism
in Russia; the Chinese form of Marxism (Maoism) that has mutated into a
form of ‘controlled free market’ ideology. Though Adam Smith’s and Marx’s
ideas in economics and social organisation dated from earlier centuries, the
battle between them was joined in the twentieth. By the end of the century
it had largely, but not entirely, been settled in Smith’s favour in modified
formats.
Modern social organisation and ways of living were formed on the
platform of the staggering technological and engineering achievements of
the nineteenth century; based on the extractive and fuel technologies of
solid, liquid and gaseous fossil fuels that enabled their widespread extraction
and distribution. The widespread generation and distribution of electricity
and coal gas, and, more recently, natural gas and gas liquids, followed to
create the current dominant fossil fuel supply infrastructure. In turn, these
developments in fuel availability and use enabled industrial processes, all of
which depended on temperature, pressure and concentration gradients to
transform materials from one form into another to create usable products.
Nuclear electricity generation is but the latest in this armoury. All products,
ways of life and the continuation of scientific research have depended
ultimately on these fuel technologies and they still do.
The rate of change seemed to accelerate in the second half of the century
as some trends, moving at an almost ecological pace (Gunderson and Holling
2002), were able to release their accumulated potential to influence social
organisation and ways of life. The ‘sudden’ influence of television as a major
source of information, agenda setting, arts and entertainment, particularly
direct, real time reporting of all kinds of events, typifies this release of
accumulated potential. The rapid growth of intercontinental flight, following
the evolution of the jet engine (an extension of liquid fuel technology) from
the 1930s onwards, the evolution of space and satellite technologies (also
uniquely dependent on fuel technology), and the evolution of the Internet
and the World Wide Web over a period of some 50 years, has further added
to the influence communications technologies can exert in all themes in
the STEEPV set. Similarly, developments in genetics, with the unravelling
of the human genome, in biotechnology, biomimetics and bioinformatics,
 The world of 2030, 2050 and beyond  229

and the general merging of biology and genetics with mathematics and,
perhaps, medical science (including new procedures in organ replacement,
IVF, pharmacology and prostheses), have further extended the influence of
these fields over social life and ways of living. Perhaps it is these influences,
growing in presence from the 1930s, that have created, from the early 1990s
onwards, the upswing in the Kondratieff cycle, with the evolution of other
influences yet to make their contribution as their potential accumulates.
The foregoing led some commentators and authors to regard the second
half of the twentieth century as an era of significant change. Toffler, in a
trilogy of books (1970, 1980, 1990), was perhaps the most expansive of
these authors. Bell (1974) presented a substantial case for the transition
from an industrial to a so-called post-industrial society. Touraine (1971)
announced the end of the industrial society and the arrival of the promise
of the Enlightenment. Giddens (1990: 1) described ‘the modes of social life or
organization that emerged in Europe from the seventeenth century onwards’, as
a ‘first approximation’ to modernity. Fukuyama (1992) declared the turning
point to be the ‘end of history’, while Giddens also claimed, perhaps over-
ambitiously, that these European modes ‘… subsequently became more or
less worldwide in their influence.’ Concepts such as modernity (Chapter 2)
are important because they associate modes of social life with distinct times
and starting places, and enable the developing and changing modes to be seen
in a broad context, which itself may change under the influence of another
discontinuity of ‘Copernican’ magnitude. Modernity destroyed appearances
and the form of social organisation they supported in Western societies, paving
the way for new forms of social life and organisation based on new knowledge
that grew to have its own format and credibility. The unresolved question is
whether new discontinuities are ending modernity, creating ‘post-modernity’
and even whether the concept of a discontinuity can cause a major revolution
in thought processes, leading to new modes of social life and organisation.
It is these notions of a classical Greek era, the era of modernity and its
evolution into post-modernity, each separated by discontinuities that are
markers in themselves.

U n der s tanding t he present

From newspaper columnists to social scientists, from politicians to
bishops, the message seems clear: since the 1970s British society has
undergone … dramatic changes. Indeed, for some, the changes are so
dramatic, so wide-ranging, that the United Kingdom has become “a
different country … You have to blink and rub your eyes.”
(Jacques 1987)

The quotation from Jacques’ article in the UK’s The Guardian newspaper
(Note 2), points to many of the essentials of change that are embodied in
230  Scenarios and sustainability

the present. First, change is easily recognised in retrospect. For example,

at the beginning of the 1980s the monarchy in the UK was held in high
esteem and few questioned its continued existence. By 1992 the role of the
monarchy was under continuous scrutiny. Again in the UK, rising crime
rates (particularly violent crime, burglary, car theft and sexual offences),
rising numbers of single parent families, the increasing frequency of divorce
and a multitude of other social changes in a matter of four decades at the most,
are all evidence by which social change can be recognised in retrospect.
Second, is the emphasis on the drama of change, implying a precipitate speed
of change if not a discontinuity in modes of behaviour. The rising number of
single parent families, the advent of organ transplant surgery, the arrival of IVF,
the acceptance of homosexuality, including parenthood, and other changes in
social life and organisation have all, in their own ways, faced society with
major changes in modes of thought and behaviour, and continue to do
so apace. Third, the reference to ‘for some’ implies the personal nature
of the perception of social change. What is shocking to one person may
go unnoticed by another. Lastly, the reference to the UK implies that social
change is not only a matter of personal perception, but is also a mass or group
phenomenon. Changes in social organisation and ways of living often appear
to be dramatic, but their drama represents the release of potential that has
accumulated over decades or longer, during which time faster, short-term and
short-lived events have come and gone in a pseudo-random fashion, each
representing an organisational or policy failure.
The present era incorporates significant changes in the nature of scien­
tific knowledge and of technology: these have been caused by the internal
momentum of science and technological development, or through socio-
cultural expectations and market forces, or have given rise to feedback
mechanisms (advertising, over-optimistic scientific and technological reports
and experiments, political manipulation and pronouncements made to raise
expectations in the polity for political ends, cultural changes brought about by
new modes of communication) that influence the directions taken by science
and technology. Similarly, new modes of production have brought major
changes in working practices and work opportunities; these are reflected in
changes in economic life globally in a multitude of ways and also in challenges
to economic theory, and the almost total collapse of Marxist ideas, at least
for the time being. The phenomenon of globalisation, ‘ the intensification of
worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that
local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice
versa’ (Giddens 1990: 64) is now clear to everyone, if only through the actions
of organisations like OPEC and countries, such as Russia, to influence the
world supply of oil and natural gas and of the World Wide Web in shaping social
expectations and behaviour. The way unedited real-time televised images now
bring world events into every home, as they happen, has also simultaneously
created a heightened awareness of world and local events and a dulling of
 The world of 2030, 2050 and beyond  231

response as awareness turns into mind-numbing familiarity and indifference to

their reality however shocking that may be.
As I indicated in Table 5.2, the root of humanity’s situation begins with
the human population, its geographic distribution allied with the total
fertility rate. In the 1960s–1970s it was clear that the highly skewed nature of
economic development in human societies, favouring the USA and the EU,
was not sustainable in the long term. The fast, short-term exploitation of this
mal-distribution was occurring against a slow-moving accumulation of socio-
technical-economic potential allied with political potential elsewhere. These
phenomena, discussed at length by Kennedy (1988), virtually ensured a shift
in international politics and international relations once that accumulated
potential began to be released. Japan was the first to release its potential in
ways that shook US and European manufacturers to their core. Now it is being
released in China, India and the Pacific Rim ‘tigers’ of the ASEAN group of
countries, with growing and intense competition within this group. Perhaps
most striking has been the collapse of the Eastern bloc and the accompanying
social and economic resurgence of its component countries. As anticipated
(foresight) the pieces of the socio-technical-economic-political chess board
are beginning to be rearranged. No longer can any country claim ubiquitous
leadership in science and technology, as essential skills are widely distributed
with, for example, national initiatives in nanotechnology (an inappropriate but
commonly used term to describe the production of artefacts at the nanometre
scale) being promoted by a wide spectrum of large and small countries. Creative
skills and deep learning have never been the preserve of particular countries
whatever their political posturing might endeavour to portray. Significant skills
now lie in some surprising places. It is almost a relief for me, after so many years,
to know that at least one public figure, Jeffrey Sachs, admits that changes in
geopolitics will lead to ‘a fundamental shift of economic power, and the political
power that goes with it’ (Sachs 2007). The enormity of the changes now
occurring globally seems to defy understanding while a new world evolves.
The form of broad analysis followed above is open to much criticism.
It ignores very significant events that shape social life and organisation – that
cannot be denied. The question is how is one to perceive the development
of change in social life and organisation in its formative stages? How can
the consequences, intended and unintended, of new knowledge and new
legislation be recognised? The outcome of both may be more far reaching than
either intended or thought possible, feasible or desirable. The characteristics
of the current and continuing attack on modernity, the ‘destruction’ of
meaning, history, criticism and other features of knowledge that underpinned
modernity, have been identified and some of its consequences seem to be
apparent in retrospect. Will broad or ‘holistic’ or systemic forms of study
enable hypotheses of the possible new forms of social life and organisation to
be developed? Or must evolutionary processes be followed blindly? In reality
neither of these two extreme positions is likely to be relied upon to the total
232  Scenarios and sustainability

exclusion of the other: humanity has been shaping its natural environment
for so long that it is unlikely to stop doing so now. Rather, some change will
occur because differing hypotheses have been advanced, while the adaptation
to any one hypothesis may be partial so that there is some semblance of an
evolutionary process. However, in absolute terms the future can only evolve
from the present, while the seeds for change must necessarily be found in
the past. The strangely philosophical writing of social thinkers is in itself
influenced by this process of thought and interpretation; these are two
phenomena that compose Vickers’ notion of appreciation that can be grown
through reflexive appropriation of knowledge (the thought process) and
as a double hermeneutic (the double process of interpretation) (Argyris
1977: 115; Giddens 1990: 15). As the discussion moves into anticipation
(or foresight) of the future, there is one important feature to grasp about the
sets of philosophical ideas used earlier, and described in Chapter 2, namely: they
form the basis of day-to-day living and social organisation. Pervasiveness is their
characteristic – they have penetrated modern society in subtle ways through
the diverse modes of communication now available. The lay person is mostly
not aware of the concepts that lie behind modernity and post-modernity, or
even with those terms, but has absorbed their influences through the processes
of reflexive appropriation of knowledge and its interpretation via the double
hermeneutic.
Elsewhere I have described the process of appreciating, rather than under­
standing, the present as being two stages of learning: the first being broad, the
second directed (Loveridge 1996: 546). Broad learning has dominated so far;
directed learning is related to scenario building as described in Chapter 6, but
my purpose in the remainder of the chapter is anticipation of possible events
over long and fuzzy horizons.

‘Fu z z y hori zons’

If to some people looking forward to 2020 is hubris then the longer horizons
dwelt on from here onwards must truly come under the heading of the ‘Dopeler
Effect’ referred to at the start of the chapter. Fortunately, there are many who
disagree and look much further forward as the evolution of humanity and its
interaction with the natural world demands. Anyone born today can expect
to live to the 2080s and some to 2100 as life expectancy at birth continues
to lengthen in the ‘developed’ world. Less fortunate are people in the ‘least
developed’ parts of the world, mainly in Africa, whose life expectancy at birth
remains in the low 40s; for them each day holds stark realities, never mind
those likely in 2030 and 2050. For these reasons it is unwise to focus only
on the excitement of short-term, fast-moving situations. Interdependencies
between the natural and human worlds, the Earth as a living system, drive
slower moving long-term situations that accumulate the potential to create
discontinuities when that potential is released. Neglecting the presence of these
 The world of 2030, 2050 and beyond  233

complex situations, that are degrees five or six in difficulty for policy makers
(Barker and Peters 1993), remains a source of concern for policy making.
How then can any kind of map be made of this ‘two speed’ territory of the
future? Starting from the present, the mapmaker faces endless uncertainties
about the unknown territory to be explored. Initial scenarios help the first short
and halting steps that often typify the opening act of a play. As any hill walker
or mountaineer knows, finding the key vantage points that enable further
exploration or upward progress is an elusive business. So it is with exploring
the unknown territory of the future, where the vantage points are virtual and
disputable, adding a further dimension to the ever-changing situation the
explorer faces. Today mapmaking is largely done from satellite observations,
the intrepid foot-slogging explorer plays a different role to the one he or she
occupied in the past. Exploring the virtual territory of the future remains
stubbornly in the realm of foot-slogging, in the form of intelligence gathering,
thought, learning, appreciation and anticipation, despite the many elegant
tools with which to plan visits to the virtual world of the future. In complex
systems the interrelatedness present in a small number of elements can, and
does, produce complex emerging patterns of behaviour. Historically, it seems
that events and associated people can be grouped into clusters, as already
described for the classical Greek era and the initial steps into modernity, indeed
this is the art of the historian. Is it then possible to identify, through a learning
process, sets of elements that surround the long-duration needs? Is it possible to
repeat the process in a foresightful way for the remainder of this century? Not
so much to identify people, which is a stunningly difficult, if not an impossible
task, but to look for the hand-holds, foot-holds and mind-holds that enable the
first steps in any exploration. The notions that follow are based on two ideas
that there are:

• Long-duration human needs, extending over decades or even centuries,

that interact with the natural world which accommodates human activity
into the continuous evolution of the Earth as a living system; institutional
politics with a commensurate time horizon are rarely in evidence
• Quintessentially human situations are shorter term, perhaps of a few years,
and interact with the long-duration needs influencing them in uncertain
ways as short-term institutional policies come and go.

These are unexceptional ideas where ‘institutional’ needs to be read as any

kind of human organisation or organised activity. Remember that my purpose
here is to demonstrate foresight as anticipation at work.
Foresight, real or institutional, has or ought to have a highly dynamic range
of time horizons: this is a characteristic of situations as their components move
at different rates, which is why the rate component of criticality is important.
With this property of time horizons in mind it becomes possible to sketch out
the nested range of horizons that are involved: this is done in Figure 8.1.
234  Scenarios and sustainability

Earth&
Moonas Earth&Moon 'Humanworld'as
Cosmos member asa'living' partof'Earthas
ofSolar system alivingsystem'
system

Figure 8.1  The Earth’s cosmological home in relation to foresight

Figure 8.1 may seem absurd to many ‘foresighters’ so some brief examples
of why it is not may help to persuade the sceptic. The cosmos, the outermost
horizon, is the unexplained source of very high energy cosmic rays that, when
added to those of lower energy emitted by the Sun, are believed to be a cause
of electronic controlled power and communication system failures. There
is also considerable argument about the role that cosmic rays play in cloud
formation in the Earth’s atmosphere with consequences for the climate: this is
demonstrated by two recent papers published by the Royal Society that seem
contradictory (Harrison and Stephenson 2006; Lockwood and Frohlich 2007).
Within the solar system the Earth remains vulnerable to bombardment by large
meteorites and, more importantly, asteroids: watching for any that are likely to
be on a collision path is now an organised activity. The Torino scale indicates
the likely effect of impact on life on the Earth by different sizes of asteroids.
Similarly, space weather forecasts are now a routine part of satellite operations
that play an important part in humanity’s ways of living and create a minor
intrusion into the solar system. Lastly, and where the major focus will be, is
the Earth and Moon as a living system in which humanity is embedded as an
integral but not necessarily dominant part; anyone involved in foresight and
systems thinking needs to be aware of how far reaching that grasping a feeling
for existence needs to be.
In Figure 8.1 the human system is indicated by a deliberately unclear boundary
to convey the correct impression that humanity has, over centuries, interacted
with the natural world to attempt to adapt it for its own benefit. However,
that view has not necessarily acknowledged the principles of mutuality creating
the feeling that humanity can effectively control the Earth system, eliminating
the necessity to remember that natural forces far exceed those contrived by
 The world of 2030, 2050 and beyond  235

humanity. The evidence for this is ever present in the current response to the
possibility, not more, of an appreciable change in the Earth’s climate. At the
core of the human system, indicated in Figure 8.1, lies a region denoted as
‘Long-duration human needs’ (these were indicated in Figures 7.4 and 7.5 but
are repeated here in a different order with changed emphasis): the forces acting
on these is shown enlarged in Figure 8.2.
The details of the long-duration set are shown in Figures 8.3 and 8.4 (Note 3):
these are used here despite their age, as they remain relevant, reasonable and
robust to the exploration of the unknowable territory of the future. The set of
long-duration human needs are assumed to persist throughout the increasingly
fuzzy horizon to 2100: they constitute the underlying strata of the map.
The interrelatedness of the set of situations indicates the complexity of the
entire set. Figure 8.4 expands the content of Figure 8.3 indicating some of
the elements that contribute to each of the interconnected set of situations.
Again completeness is not claimed, bounded rationality prohibits that, as some
obvious elements are missing.
While it is an obvious dictum, what is completely unknown to humanity at
one time can only be revealed during the reality of a situation as it develops. It is
a point that has to be made, as too often hindsight is used to denigrate foresight
and systemic thinking (the exception here is the highly original thinking of
Copernicus, Newton, Einstein and many others). For example, in Figure 8.4,
HIV/AIDS is not referred to under health, as in the 1970s it seemed to be

Socia
l
cont
e xt

Long-term
co /Norm
ext

humanneeds
nt
lue
V a

Expl oration
Fuel
Eficiency
Appl iances
Suficiency Energy Produc tivity Domestic
Recycling & Fuel Renewabl es Industrial
Access Abatement

Science&
Newtechnol ogy Water
Definedproperties Raw & proce- Waste & Air
Quality ssed materials pollution Land

C hange
Growth/decline

technology
Fertility Long- D eforestation
Climate D esertification
Distribution
Population Term Waterqual ity
Employment huma n & water R esources
Literacy
Longev ity need s Winds
Erosion

Preventive
Compatibledrugs
Non-invasive
procedures
Qualitydiagnos is
Health

Growth
Food
Agricul ture
H orticul ture
M aricu lt u re
Animal husbandry
Processing
context
Patientcare Comuni cation Urbanization Qual ity/di versity
Terminalcare Security Eficiency
Ageing Homes, Produc tivity
Industry Grai nstocks
Services, Securesuppl y
Retailing

cal
Politi ntext
co

omic
on xt
E c onte
Ecolo c
g
con ical
text

Figure 8.2  Long duration human needs and forces acting on them
236  Scenarios and sustainability

Energy
& Fuel

Raw & proce- W aste &

ssed materials pollution

Long-
T erm Climate
Population
hu m an & water
need s

Health Food

Urbanization

Figure 8.3  Interrelatedness of long duration human needs and world needs

Exploration
Fuel
Eficiency
Appliances
Suficiency Energy Productivity Domestic
Recycling & Fuel Renewables Industrial
Access Abatement
Newtechnology Water
Definedproperties Raw & proce- W aste & Air
Quality ssed materials pollution Land

C hange
Growth/decline
Fertility Long- Deforestation
Climate Desertification
Distribution
Population T erm Waterquality
Employment human & water Resources
Literacy
Longevity need s Winds
Erosion

Preventive Agriculture
Compatibledrugs Health Food Horticulture
Non-invasive Mariculture
procedures Animalhusbandry
Qualitydiagnosis Growth Processing
Patientcare Comunication Urbanization Quality/diversity
Terminalcare Security Eficiency
Ageing Homes, Productivity
Industry Grainstocks
Services, Securesupply
Retailing

Figure 8.4  Content of long duration needs

unknown. Research (Gao et al. 1999) has established the likely route that
HIV took in becoming a human disease: the first case is now believed to have
occurred in the 1930s. Similarly, MRSA and the antibiotic resistant strain of
TB were unknown in the 1970s, though there was much discussion about the
unwanted consequences of the over-prescription of antibiotics and their then-
 The world of 2030, 2050 and beyond  237

current broad use in animal husbandry. Again, the importance of public and
animal health, which are increasingly intertwined as the recent SARS scare
revealed, are not emphasised enough, although with the ever-rising proportion
of humanity and animals that dwell in cities it is a field of increasing importance.
Nevertheless with hindsight criticisms are often levelled at the ‘failures’ of
foresight and systemic thinking for not identifying events that have unusual, if
not strange, origins. It is now time to focus more closely on the long-duration
human needs and the forces acting on them.
Figure 8.3 illustrates the content of the long-duration human needs in a
highly aggregated way and how the interdependencies of the elements are
total. Figure 8.4 illustrates the elements believed to be important enough to
make up the content of each of the long-duration needs: no attempt is made
to illustrate the interdependencies within and between the sets of elements
though many of them can be readily identified. However, it is Figure 8.2 that
places the long-duration human needs in the context of the human system
as a whole. As far as bounded rationality allows, Figure 8.1 illustrates the
context of human systems as an embedded part of the Earth and Moon and
wider systems whose influence is all important to the existence of the Earth–
human system. The protrusion of the human system into the solar system is
deliberate to acknowledge space activity, including the international space
station.
The inner parts of Figures 8.1 and 8.2 repay further discussion. The boundary
of the human system is deliberately shown as irregular in an endeavour to
indicate its dynamic properties as it continually jousts with the natural world,
whose indefinably large sets of elements are not indicated. The latter range from
viruses and bacteria up to astronomical dimensions, and to some events that
in the past, it is argued, may have been responsible for extinctions as referred
to in Chapter 7 (e.g. the dinosaurs). Some of the reasons for including the two
outer systems shown in Figure 8.1 have already been mentioned. In Figure 8.2
the long-duration human needs are set in their external context drawing on the
STEEPV set to give these their context. The lack of divisions between these
external sets is deliberate, since not only do they have interdependencies with
the long-duration human needs, but each set of elements under the STEEPV
set has its own interdependencies at the contextual level and also within their
content. It is the massive connectivity and interdependence between the
elements of the systems of Figures 8.1 to 8.4 that place cascades of situations
into categories five and six of Barker and Peters’ (1993) hierarchy of dilemmas
for policy makers.
Before discussing each of the contexts it is necessary to look at the role each
plays and their general characteristics. Since each context is a set of elements
their required characteristics must be congruent with the actual ones of the
elements that make up the set that is the context. With respect to the core
of long duration human needs, the following five characteristics need to be
present in each context:
238  Scenarios and sustainability

• Interrelatedness at a higher level than the core to allow and create the
two-way flow of influence with the core and an influence across the fuzzy
boundaries with the ‘natural world’
• Time dependence, in that influences and interrelatedness may be present
at one time and absent at another: continuous existence is not a necessary
condition
• Must be dynamic, exhibiting an ability to behave in a self-organising way,
sometimes autopoietic and sometimes sympoietic
• An ability to act in a rate controlling manner after the fashion of rate
control in the notion of criticality
• Protocols to sustain information flow in a systemic manner.

The five characteristics constitute an interrelated set with a flow of infor­

mation as the common thread, as must be the case for any form of exploration.
However, it is also necessary to recognise that this flow is not homogeneous
but, as in turbulent flow, there are periods of quiescence interspersed among
others of intense energy and rapid changes in direction. The need for dynamism
arises from the general time dependence of the sets of elements that these
characteristics apply to, in which some elements will be rate controlling for
the set. Protocols, in the sense implied here, are sets of guidelines or rules
for use in various circumstances to facilitate communication across the fuzzy
and complex boundaries involved in explorations of the kind concerned here
and appropriate to the element of the STEEPV set involved. The following
examples from each element in the STEEPV set illustrate how the contexts
work.
It would be tempting to name all the elements at the outer context with
the prefix ‘geo-’ as they will be global inevitably. Instead that accolade will be
reserved for the entire set at each context the first of which will be geo-social
change. Figure 8.5 illustrates a possible group of elements in this set.
The set embodies the five criteria required by its context. Their inter­
relationships are at a higher level than the core. Time dependence is present as
enclaves, under classes, crime and violence come and go in their intensity, as
well as forming part of slow moving undercurrents that release their potential
in reshaping society, as they may be doing now in selected regions of the world.
Self-organisation is present in the evolution of the changing characteristics
of societies in different parts of the world, creating protocols that interface
with the natural world, which is far from being neutral in these matters. Lastly,
the rate controlling factors revolve around the influences of migrations, the
expectations of those people involved under the influence of the philosophical
notions of modernity versus post-modernity.
A possible set of elements for geo-science and technology is illustrated in
Figure 8.6.
The interdependent elements make up a set that has an outcome recognisable
as ‘geo-science and technology’ embodying the five criteria set out earlier.
 The world of 2030, 2050 and beyond  239

Human rights

Mobility, immigration &

emmigration

Enclav es, underclasses,

crime & v iolence
Social change

Rising ex pectations &

consumerism

Modernity vs . post-modernity

Povert y & relativ e poverty

Figure 8.5  Some possible elements of geo-social change

End of cyberspace

Personalised medicine

Materials construction
from basic principles

Global science &

Bionics & ' natural' technology
human repair

Real-time natural
language translation

Energy conv ersion

systems

Space ev ents

Bio-mimicry production
systems

Modelling & simulation

Figure 8.6  Some possible elements of a geo-science and technology set

240  Scenarios and sustainability

D ynamic stable state

economies

Rise of ' new' currencies &

monetary instruments

Globalisation & glocalisation

New International Economic

Economics
Order

Transition to new economic

theories that mirror nature

Rise of the debt society

L ong-cycle (K ondratieff)
effects

Figure 8.7  Some possible elements of a geo-economic set

In this set there is stronger persistence throughout so that time dependence

emerges through the almost random occurrences of major breakthroughs, say
in bio-computing, synthetic biology or energy conversion systems. The latter
are likely to remain as the rate controlling factor throughout the set as without
them human systems will grind to a halt. In this set modelling and simulation
have a major part to play.
For geo-economics the elements of the set of the economic context may
include the elements shown in Figure 8.7.
Some of the elements are characteristic of long-running (K-type)
phenomena that have yet to release their growing potential. These include
the continuing evolution of a new international economic order, first
mooted in the 1970s: major changes in economic theory toward ecological
economics, industrial ecology, behavioural economics, and the evolution of
dynamic stable state economies. These elements will be in strong contrast
to the perpetuation of the current economics of growthmania with its
dependence on the rise of consumerism and the debt society. Dynamism
can be interpreted from the much debated Kondratieff long cycle relating
economic activity to invention and innovation. It is here that continuing
innovation in information technology and myriads of inventions arising from
the convergence of mathematics, biology and biotechnology may begin to
 The world of 2030, 2050 and beyond  241

Longevity Population &

migration

Human - natural world

Public health - pestlience, interrelatedness
plague, pandemic & new
forms of disease
Earth as a living
system (Ecology)
Aasteroid impact, giant Extinction events
caldera, volcanism,
tsuanami & other
catastrophic events

Disturbance of ocean
currents and other
oceanic factors

Climate change Sustainable

development

Figure 8.8  Some possible elements of a geo-ecology set

have their effect. These notions lie behind the interrelationships between
the elements of the set. An important rate controlling factor is likely to be
the rate at which ecological economics, industrial ecology and behavioural
economics begin to merge and displace conventional economic theory and
practice.
The elements for the set for geo-ecology (Figure 8.8) illustrates some
striking differences to all the others and is deliberately taken to a lower level to
illustrate this difference.
First, it has influences on all the other sets so that the heading geo-ecology is
a matter of convenience as that actually represents the Earth as a Living system.
All the elements are time dependent, in as much as they are more in evidence
at some periods than at others. All are also rate controlling factors, while each
sends out signals in a systemic manner providing protocols for communication
across system boundaries and between context sets.
Geo-politics (Figure 8.9) is concerned with human actions globally but
in many senses these are governed by how much notice is taken of the
signals emerging from the natural world and those emerging from the geo-
ecological set.
All five of the characteristics required of the set are met. Time dependence
is always in evidence through the short-issue attention span that is rife in
political world and tends to overwhelm important, if not crucial, slow, long-
running matters that are neglected until their potential is released: perhaps
this is most evident in crime and terrorism internationally and locally. Many
of the elements of the set are inherently dynamic, while international justice
242  Scenarios and sustainability

Centralisation v s de-
centralisation

Traditional democracy v s
participativ e democracy v s
dictatorship

W ar & war fighting

capability

International crime

International & local

terrorism
Geo-politics

Roles of international
organisations

International j udicial
bodies

Shifting balance of
politico-economic
power

Politics & International

relations

Figure 8.9  Some possible elements of a geo-political set

and law, coupled with the constant shifting of the global balance of politico-
economic power are the most likely rate controlling factors. Protocols exist but
while information flows in a systemic manner the political issue–attention cycle
limits its effectiveness.
Last in the set of contexts is the most difficult one of values/norms, an
area that is assiduously avoided in almost all foresight. Elements of the set are
suggested in Figure 8.10.
The set has a small number of elements, each of which is immensely
powerful in the context of humanity and its interrelations within its ‘own’
world and with the natural world. It operates at the highest level, setting
the codes for conduct within the human system and between that and the
natural world. Values/norms are intensely time dependent. Long-established
belief systems are slow running and only rarely release their full potential as
the cause of change: by comparison norms are short running, dwelling on
 The world of 2030, 2050 and beyond  243

Interaction with artificial life

Global v alues/norms

Values/norms
W ays of liv ing

Belief systems

Figure 8.10  Some possible elements of a geo-value-norm change set

the immediate gratification of human wants and survival in many instances

and short-term trends in fashions of behaviour as revealed by a VALSTM style
exploration. Both values and norms act in a rate controlling fashion in the
evolution of the human world and its relation to the natural one in which
it is embedded. Interaction with artificial life forms, something that may
soon become possible, is presented as a particular example of the need for a
protocol in this set. Whether there is an element of globally accepted values/
norms is a moot point.
The foregoing may seem to be a rather tedious trudge through the under­
growth of an exploration of the unknowable future. However, the outline map
of the territory covered by Figures 8.1 to 8.10 indicate prominent features to be
looking for with the expectation of finding many more elements in subsets of
the major sets. Indeed, each of the major sets could be likened to the winged
seeds of Sycamore trees, as the seed head contains the germ of a new tree as
subsets of some complexity. As always, the ‘devil is in the detail’ which is why
in Chapter 6 (and elsewhere) there has been a strong emphasis on thinking and
learning as a precursor to model building to avoid the Wittgensteinian trap of
formal methods. Model building is the basis on which any explorer, hill walker,
mountaineer, businessman or human being, individually and collectively,
begin to appreciate the difficulties, uncertainties and opportunities in the
unknown territory of the future and its terrain, which is only revealed once it is
underfoot; even then, bounded rationality inhibits anything more than partial
understanding of its fullness. Formal methods amount to rescue missions with
specific, limited objectives. The elements listed in Figures 8.1 to 8.10 are neither
unique nor exhaustive, but are simply one such set to illustrate the complexity
of what is involved in exploring the unknown territory of the future. Another
set might include the population orientation of geo-politics. Many sets can be
created along these lines to describe the content of the STEEPV contexts that
interact among themselves and also with the long-duration human needs. The
contexts are time dependent so that all the situations will cascade from now
244  Scenarios and sustainability
World population
(UN data 2006 revision)
10
9
Population

8
7
6
(bilions)

5
World

4
3
2
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050
1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015 2025 2035 2045
Year

Figure 8.11  World population growth 1950–2050 (Source: UN Population data 2006)

into a different form, with changed elements, by 2030, and again by 2050 and
yet again by, say, 2100.
It will be a fitting way to close by outlining a possible cascade drawing
in ideas from throughout the book. The starting point will be the ‘carrying
capacity’ element in the Earth as a living system (ecology) context set, which
refers to the interdependence between the size of the human population and
the natural world, although carrying capacity is ultimately determined by the
combination of all forms of life that the Earth as a living system can support.
The first step is the size of the human population. Population censuses are
among the most carefully and frequently catalogued data in the UN. Even
so there will be errors (though error limits are not quoted). The reason for
selecting the UN dataset then lies in the Assessment and Pedigree categories
of the NUSAP system, with a heavy emphasis on Pedigree. The dataset runs
from 1950–5 to 2000–5 with a single forecast of population parameters up to
2045–50. A possible growth of world population is illustrated in Figure 8.11.
There is an indication of the beginnings of a decline in the rate of growth for
the first time since the exponential growth pattern became established in the
previous century.
The accompanying decline in the population growth rate is illustrated in
Figure 8.12. It indicates at least the possibility, no more, that sometime beyond
2050 the human population may stop growing.
Apparent support for this conclusion comes from the pattern of the total
fertility rate (TFR), illustrated in Figure 8.13.
The forecast proposes that the TFR may fall to 2, the replacement rate, by
2050. These three illustrations create cascades of situations within themselves
and throughout the remainder of the human system and its interrelationships
with the natural world. Some pointers to these, mostly in question form, are
as follows:
 The world
Population growthofrate
2030, 2050 and beyond  245
(%/year)
(UN data 2006 revision)

2.5
growth rate

2.0
(% per year)

1.5

1.0
Population

0.5

0.0
1955-1960

1965-1970

1975-1980

1985-1990

1995-2000

2005-2010

2015-2020

2025-2030

2035-2040

2045-2050
1950-1955

1960-1965

1970-1975

1980-1985

1990-1995

2000-2005

2010-2015

2020-2025

2030-2035

2040-2045
Year

Figure 8.12 World population growth rate 1950–2050 (Source: UN Population data
2006)
Total fertility rate
(Children per woman UN data 2006 revision)

5.50
5.00
Total fertility rate

4.50
(children per woman)

4.00
3.50
3.00
2.50
2.00
1.50
1955-1960

1965-1970

1975-1980

1985-1990

1995-2000

2005-2010

2015-2020

2025-2030

2035-2040

2045-2050
1950-1955

1960-1965

1970-1975

1980-1985

1990-1995

2000-2005

2010-2015

2020-2025

2030-2035

2040-2045

Year

Figure 8.13 World average total fertility rate 1950–2050 (Source: UN Population data
2006)

Within Earth as a Living system set:

• Why does the human population begin to reach saturation? The human
population might grow at an average rate of 0.1% per year between 2050
and 2075, leading to a world population of about 9.5 billion, and thereafter
the growth rate might become zero. At one time in the 1970s and 1980s,
the human population was projected to rise to 12 billion or more, so what
has changed to lower expectations? A decline in the human population is
rarely discussed but is feasible, so why is that possibility avoided?
246  Scenarios and sustainability

• Why may the human population growth rate decline consistently over a
period of 80 years as forecast? What are the patterns of interrelationships
that might support this slow moving but persistent trend?
• What patterns of interrelationships might lead to a persistent decline in
the TFR. Why might it asymptote to the replacement rate of two?

These questions create a complex situation in which some of the patterns of

relationships have implications for public health, disease control and longevity
with relationships to the decline of the TFR that may involve value shifts
relating to procreation. The latter can also arise from patterns of decline in
human fertility, and specifically, a decline in the male sperm count and sperm
quality. There are patterns in some societies indicating a decline in the quality
of the male Y chromosome, but all of these relationships are being argued
about in research findings. These patterns are likely to be both physical and
psychological, probably relating to behavioural genetics and to slow moving,
long-running subtle shifts (the K-phenomenon referred to earlier) in values and
ethics relating to patterns in family size and the sanctity of life (not necessarily
human) which may be related to patterns of beliefs. Family size also relates to
patterns of norms relating to marriage and cohabitation, the availability of IVF
treatment, the availability of abortion and contraception, divorce, homosexual
and lesbian relationships and family creation within them, and simply to casual
sex and prostitution. Throughout these value/norm patterns, law will develop
its own patterns either to represent the value/norm patterns and endeavour
to regulate their outcome or to endeavour to alter value/norm patterns and
relationships to new ones that are thought to be more desirable, embodying the
policy ‘ought to’ – all matters relating to legitimisation.
Socioeconomic patterns of relationships also intrude as a decline in the
population growth rate may also influence a decline in the TFR: empirical
data seem to indicate that increasing wealth, measured by GNP per capita, is
associated with a decline in the crude birth rate in discrete societies, the so-
called ‘demographic transition’. The patterns and nature of economic activity
then penetrate deeply into the viability of social life and organisation in any rural
or urban society, with interactions between both. Figures 8.14 and 8.15 illustrate
past trends in the slow moving patterns of the demographic transition.
Figure 8.16 illustrates the associated pattern of the distribution of the world’s
human population by six major regions.
It is the latter that was established clearly, nearly 50 years ago, as a slow-
moving pattern of a shift of socio-political-economic power toward the Pacific
Rim countries that is now beginning to release its potential so that international
relations and economic power is being altered in an ever-accelerating way.
Furthermore, it has to be recognised that human capabilities in invention and
innovation are widely distributed among the world’s population: no country
can now claim, if they ever could, to be the leader in all areas of science or
technical development. For serious study there are many more elements that
 The world of 2030, 2050 and beyond  247

CBR much greater than

replacement rate

N otional env el ope

of al arge nu m b er
Crude birth rate

of cou ntries

Direction of change
over several decades

R epl acem ent

rate
N otional env el ope
of aS m all nu m b er of
cou ntries

GNP/capita (constant money values) increasing

Figure 8.14 Notional pictorial description of the post-World War II demographic

transition

CBR m u ch greatert han

repl acem entr ate

N otional env el ope ofa

Crude birth rate

sm all er( and r ed u cing)

nu m b er of cou ntries
N otionall ev elf or
w orl d ' sri chest
Dir ection of change cou ntries
ov er sev eral d ecad es

R epl acem ent

rate

N otional env el ope

of ari sing nu m b er
of cou ntries

GNP/capita (constant money values) increasing

Figure 8.15 Notional illustration of the demographic transition after some decades
248  Scenarios and sustainability
Distribution of World population by regions
100.0
90.0
80.0
70.0 North America
Regionalpopulation

Europe
60.0
Oceania
50.0
LAFTA
40.0
(%ofworld)

Asia
30.0
Africa
20.0
10.0
0.0
1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

2010

2020

2030

2040

2050
1955
1965

1975

1985

1995

2005

2015

2025

2035

2045
Year
Figure 8.16 Pattern of world population by regions 1950–2050 (Source: UN Population
data 2006)

need to be added to the interacting sets of contexts to explore the territory of

the future with its influence on the set of long-duration human needs. Since
all of those listed in this simple illustration are time dependent, the cascade of
situations involved in the evolution of the human dimension of the Earth as a
living system becomes clear.
The final important context is that of the Earth in the solar system and the
wider universe. It might well be thought that these contexts are far outside
those of explorations of the territory of the future, unfortunately that is not
the case. Extinction events are a constant threat: if that were not the case
monitoring of space events, including the possible impact of an asteroid of
kilometre dimensions and disruption of communications and power supplies due
to cosmic ray bombardment, would not be taken as seriously as they now are.
Similar comments apply to more local natural events including unusually heavy
rain or snow, the onset of an ice age (an overdue event geologically), tectonic
plate activity causing very large earthquakes and tsunamis, or the eruption of a
giant caldera are all of non-negligible probability. Human and natural societies
are now so highly interconnected that the coincidence of any two or more
of these types of events has the potential to create immense disruption to
all the living societies on Earth, human in particular, now that some 60% of
humanity is expected to be urbanised by 2030 (it was 50% in 2007), a situation
anticipated by Doxiadis (1969: 199) in the form of oecumenopolis and Toynbee
(1970) and discussed ardently more recently (Henaff and Feenberg 1997: 59).
Human ways of living are rarely discussed much beyond their local context
despite the urgent need to take the much wider context into account.
The foregoing very brief illustration of the notions of cascades of situations
must draw the book to a close: it may well raise a sense of frustration in the
reader. The need for an emphasis on systems, appreciation with its modifier
 The world of 2030, 2050 and beyond  249

of behavioural pattern, as essential parts of foresight and the exploration of

the unknowable territory of the future, all rest in the end on what R.V. Jones
(1978) called intelligence gathering with all its human fallibility, excitements,
anticipations and actions. To some people the twenty-first century dream is of
immense computational power in machines that may be incredibly small for
their power. Even so, the question remains: what will these machines do? So
far no-one has identified activities that were not dreamt about in outline in
the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. Humanity’s information and knowledge
may increase beyond all expectations, but will that be accompanied by similar
advances in understanding and wisdom? The answer to that conundrum lies
in how humanity appreciates the notion of limits, not only of science but
also of human behaviour with its tendency to vaulting ambition that may be
beyond the capabilities of human evolution. The dream of improving human
performance has yet to respond to two questions: For what purpose? and How?
Behind the exploration of the unknowable territory of the future lie unspoken
fears and excitements about what that might involve, born of the resurgent
notion that humanity, through a relatively small cohort, will be able to control
the Earth to its benefit. Lessons to the contrary abound but go unheeded – the
need to understand limits is ever present.
E p ilogu e

Foresight: care or provision for the future or the muzzle-sight of a gun

Oxford English Dictionary

Foresight, the act of anticipation, is humanity’s way of attempting to answer

the fascinating and age-old desire to know what the future has in store. To
know the unknowable has never been assuaged since the dawn of humanity’s
time on Earth. Has human foresight improved? It is a question without an
answer as foresight becomes a will-o-the-wisp with the passage of time as
memories fade and immediate pressures become the focus of attention. Only
with hindsight is the origin of an event occasionally recognised to lie in some
(distant?) past anticipation. As has been made clear, the words foresight and
systems are ubiquitous in any language debasing their intent to a large extent.
The import of the contrasts in the above quotation is also clear enough, as
is Mark Twain’s counterpart regarding change in human societies: ‘Soap and
education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long
run.’ Mark Twain’s comment typifies the essence of Gunderson and Holling’s
panarchy (2002) that has figured prominently in various parts of the book.
Panarchy is one aspect of modelling which has also been an underlying theme
throughout. Too often the notion of modelling immediately brings to mind
computation and computers, but that is only the final and not necessarily the
most important part of the story. Without an adequate model of the past and
the present, anticipations (foresight) become ill-founded, a matter implied by
Donald Michael (1985) in his reference to futures studies being made with
‘both feet in mid-air’. Modelling of situations can never be complete because of
their dynamism and complexity allied to the influence of H. Simon’s principle of
bounded rationality. However modelling is an ineluctable and vigorous part of
life and foresight that emerges from learning and appreciation. It is situations that
foresight must now be concerned with not problems. The notion that problems
have, through reduction, solutions that solve them is now inappropriate. The
point of Whitehead’s comment (1964) that despite the welter of information
that permeates human societies their situation is poorly understood, while our
‘knowledge of scientific laws is woefully defective’, leading to the conclusion
that of the two parts of the welter, foresight is the more difficult. It must include
 Epilogue  251

both science and society. Learning about a situation and appreciation of it lead
to modelling it dynamically: that also prevents an early departure into the realm
of methods. The latter are mostly derived from technology and other forms
of forecasting, that have become associated with foresight. I have referred to
this early departure as the ‘Wittgensteinian trap’ of allowing a fascination for
problem-oriented methods to supplant appreciation of the situation much to
the detriment of the outcome. The rightful place for methods is as ancillaries
to obtain specific information related to very well-defined parts of a situation.
Modelling a situation provokes the necessity to recognise the many different
kinds of information involved and the characteristics of its sources, introducing
the contest between modernity and post-modernity with the intrusion of belief
systems and subjective opinion. In this arena even the great theories of science,
of evolution, relativity, quantum physics, cosmology and the understanding
of genetics fall into a different perspective unless they are open to ‘political’
exploitation. The longest chapter in the book touches on these matters in its
discussion of sustainability and sustainable development. In turn, these latter
issues lead to matters that are now emerging from the slow, ecologically paced
part of the panarchy cycle to begin to force a rearrangement of the chess
pieces of the entire living world. Humanity either retreats towards a belonging
behaviour (or those of sustaining or survival that might emerge from a broad
generalisation of the VALSTM hierarchy) or to believing it can ‘manage the
planet for its own benefit’, almost as an act of defiance and vaulting ambition.
There is no doubt that natural forces will win what is a highly unequal duel
leaving humanity to contemplate, as Macbeth (V. v. 24) did, that ‘Life is but a
walking shadow.’ Without a grasp of the notion of existence that shadow can
become an absurdly omniscient posture.
Throughout I have stressed the importance of situations over problems with
their tendency to be seen as ‘solvable’ rather than part of an ever-changing
cascade. The point of the final chapter has been to emphasise first, the need for
a grasp of ‘existence’. Second, that existence requires a mindset of appreciation,
based on learning and anticipation. Third, appreciation is of dynamic seedlings
that, as in the natural world, contain nascent linkages to diverse and interlinked
pathways in their evolution to influence every aspect of life, human life in
particular. All situations begin with their carrying capacity for living organisms.
Because of its complexity, discussion of the Earth’s carrying capacity, for human
beings in particular, has been and still is assiduously avoided in most circles: this
is perhaps the key change needed in humanity’s mindset. As ever, someone’s
foresight will make humanity’s future, be that for another week or for centuries
to come, though whether it can alter humanity’s sleep-walking that leads to
repetitive crises and crisis ridden behaviour seems unlikely given humanity’s
inherited behaviour from the distant past.
No te s

Preface
1 See: Industry and Higher Education Alternatives, in Higher Education Alternatives,
Stephens M.D. and Roderick G.W. (eds), Longman, 1978.
2 Homeorrhesis is a notion developed by C.H Waddington to describe a series of
different but connected states of homeostasis.
3 Donald Hicks was one of the founders of operational research; he died in January
1986.
4 A phrase coined first (I think) by Roy Amara when president of the Institute for
the Future.
5 Dennis Oliver, Leslie Wall and David Pilkington were Directors of Pilkington,
plc.
6 Philip Holroyd was my colleague at Pilkington in the 1970s before moving to
academia in 1980.
7 Andy Lipinski and Roy Amara were both at the Institute for the Future.
8 I first met Peter Schwartz at SRI International in 1974; subsequently he moved
to Shell International and later still he founded, with others, the Global Business
Network.
9 I met Willis Harman at SRI in the 1970s; his work and that of his associates
influenced me greatly.
10 Clive Simmonds was a real doyen at the National Research Council of Canada for
all the years that I knew him; it was WHCS, as he was known, who introduced me
to the notion of foresight in a conversation in 1975 or thereabouts, when I realised
that many of the ideas embodied in systems supported, or were, foresight.

Chapter 1: Foresight and systems thinking: An appreciation

1 Saritas developed the notion of systemic foresight in his PhD thesis.
2 Reproduced by courtesy of the European Commission.
3 Gödel, in 1930, proposed a theorem that demonstrated that certain mathe­matical
statements can neither be proved or disproved, they are ‘undecidable’; apologies are
made here for using this notion in a very different sphere and possibly incorrectly!
4 For example, in technology assessment knowledge extensions need to be embedded
in the STEEPV set of trends applicable to the boundaries defined in the objective
of the assessment.
5 Boettinger has described the phenomenon of ‘handshaking’ in Moving Mountains
or the Art and Craft of Letting Others See Things Your Way, as the art of leaving no
space between the user’s or audience’s current perception of their world and of the
world as you perceive it could be.
 Notes  253

6 Writing in 1962, de Finetti asked ‘Does it Make Sense to Speak of “Good Probability
Appraisers”?’ Similarly, does it make sense to speak of ‘good foresighters’?

Chapter 2: Foresight and systems – epistemology and theory

1 These traits are derived from Lipinski and Loveridge (1982) ‘How we forecast: the
Institute for the Future’s study of the UK: 1978–95,’ Futures, June, 205–39.
2 A comment made by the one-time UK prime minister Harold Macmillan when
asked what drove government activity.
3 The options as presented are a distillation of those developed by Michael Keenan
during a client-sponsored programme.

Chapter 3: Institutional foresight: Practice and practicalities

1 Legitimisation is discussed in Chapter 7.

Chapter 5: Generalisable outcomes

1 Gunderson and Holling derived the term ‘panarchy’ from merging the Greek
God Pan, for unpredictable, and the notion of hierarchies, to represent structures
‘sustain experiments, test results, and allow adaptive evolution’.

Chapter 7: Sustainable world

1 The definitions can be found at http://www.brocku.ca/epi/sustainability/sustprin.
htm. Though the EPI programme is now closed the web site is still accessible.
2 Figures 7.4 and 7.5 are derived from those used earlier in the course material
in ‘Foresight: a course for Sponsors, Organisers and Practitioners’ run by the
University of Manchester’s Programme of Policy Research in Engineering, Science
and Technology (PREST) since 1999.

Chapter 8: The world of 2030, 2050 and beyond

1 The Mesolithic period lay between the Palaeolithic period (>40,000 years bc) and
the Neolithic period (<9,000 years bc).
2 Jacques made this observation in an article in the Guardian newspaper in 1987 on
returning to the UK after a period abroad
3 Figures 8.3 and 8.4 are derived from those used earlier in the course material
in ‘Foresight: a course for Sponsors, Organisers and Practitioners’ run by the
University of Manchester’s Programme of Policy Research in Engineering, Science
and Technology (PREST) since 1999 (see also Chapter 7: Figures 7.4 and 7.5).
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Figure 1.9: © European Communities, 2007.

Figure 2.1: Source, SRI Consulting Business Intelligence (SRIC-BI); www.sric-
bi.com/VALS. Reproduced with permission.
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Figure 8.12: Data source, World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision, vol. I,
Comprehensive Tables (United Nations publication): World Population Prospects:
The 2006 Revision, vol. II, Sex and Age Distribution of the World Population. World
Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision, vol. III, Analytical Report. The United
Nations is the author of the original material.
266  Figure credits

Figure 8.13: Data source, World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision, vol. I,
Comprehensive Tables (United Nations publication): World Population Prospects:
The 2006 Revision, vol. II, Sex and Age Distribution of the World Population. World
Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision, vol. III, Analytical Report. The United
Nations is the author of the original material.
Figure 8.16: Data source, World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision, vol. I,
Comprehensive Tables (United Nations publication): World Population Prospects:
The 2006 Revision, vol. II, Sex and Age Distribution of the World Population. World
Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision, vol. III, Analytical Report. The United
Nations is the author of the original material.
Inde x
abortion 246
absence of clear evidence is normal 189
absence of interrelatedness 136
absurdly omniscient posture 251
Ackoffian mess 101
act of defiance 251
adaptation in hierarchical structures 142
adaptive change 141
adaptive cycle 142
adaptive cycle is three dimensional 143
aggregations of overt and covert
ambitions 116
Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights 125
agricultural and biological effects 183
Albus, J.S. and Mystel, A.M. 30
algorithmic stock market trading 16
all policies fail 219
all-important ‘small scale’ variations in
climate 183
Allstate Insurance 128
alter value/norm patterns 246
Amara, R. and Lipinski, A.J. 49
amygdala 47
analysis of ‘normal’ accidents 186
analytical framework 84, 132
Anaximander 3
annihilation of distance 1
‘anorexia industrialosia’ 116
antagonists 191
anticipation 251
anticipation (foresight) 251; basis of
successful continuity 115; no form is
risk free 115; of trends, events and
discontinuities 148
anti-trust considerations 124
apocalypse 169
appreciated in hindsight 174
appreciating the unknown territory of the
future 224
appreciation 23, 24, 26, 27, 139, 166,
210, 220, 248; of the planet’s systemic
properties 172
appreciative setting 18, 23, 29, 48,
152,163, 166
appreciative process 26
Argyris, C. 232; and Schon, D. 21
Aristotle: sum is greater than the parts
15; system of logic 40
‘art and craft of letting others see things
your way’ 59
art of the historian 233
‘art of strategic conversation’ 165
artefacts 218
artificial intelligence 29
assault from post-modern thinking 189
assessing ability 46, 47
assessment methodologies 177
assume the continuing validity of the
models’ structure 184
asteroid 234, 248
asteroid impact 169
astronomical dimensions 237
atmosphere, oxygen richness 178
atmospheric CO2 182
attack on modernity 231
attacks on science by relativists 199
aura of mysticism 169
autopoiesis 20, 215; create own self-
defined boundaries 212
Ayres, R.U. 222
bacteria 171, 237
Barker, A. and Peters, B.G. 58, 173
Barrow, J. 43, 44, 45
268  Index

Beckerman: ‘pathetically muddled carrying capacity 188, 244; ever changing

principles’ 198 211
Beer, S. 30 Cartesian 6
behaviour of living systems: theories of 39 Cartesian era: modelling and
behavioural aspects of Foresight 7 management 7
behavioural economics 30, 210, 222, 241 Cash, D.W. et al. 173
behavioural influences 104, 137 casual sex 246
behavioural traits 23 catastrophe theory 30
behavioural genetics 246 catastrophic 154
behavioural pattern 18, 23, 25, 29, 42, causal relations: analytical and
48, 152, 166, 249 quantitative 152; cognitive
behaviours of these variables 182 (behavioural) an qualitative 152
‘believeability’ scale 165 cellular automata 19, 30
belief in expert opinion 135 certainty–uncertainty 26
belief systems 219, 251 Chandler wobble 179
beliefs that are inherently self- ‘change to what?’ 167
contradictory 191 changes in geo-politics 231
Bell, W. 44, 45 Checkland, P. 152
below replacement rate 210 Chermack, T.J. 155
bench marking 110 Churchman, C.W. 15
bewilderment 42 claim that sustainability is sophistry 191
biased picture of the terrain of the future clairvoyants 40
141 clarity and simplicity 177
Bimber, B. and Popper, S.W. 62 classical Greece 225
bioinformatics 228 climate Armageddon 167
biological and ecological: economic climate change study based on the
survival – at odds 201 elicitation of expert opinion 183
biomimetics 228 climate models 170; have achieved a
biotechnology 228 status not accorded to world models
Boettinger, H.M. 45, 157 182;captured political imagination
bombardment by large meteorites 234 170; roots 30
‘both feet in mid-air’ 250 climate modelling has been granted wide
boundaries 164 credibility 182
boundary setting 151, 204; arbitrary basis Club of Rome – the ‘human predicament’
33; undecidable 33 202
bounded rationality 33, 141, 150, 151, coalition building 82
187, 220 Coalition for Environmentally
Brent Spar 135 Responsible Economies (CERES) 196
bring population growth to an end 169 co-evolution of social and technological
Brundtland definition 188; manipulated themes 108
175 cognition 215
business activity is future oriented 115 cohabitation 246
business and regulatory environment 116 coincidence 248
business cube 118, 123 ‘Cold War’ 149, 202
Business Futures Network 129 collaborative studies across international
business momentum 123 time zones 97
businesses reinventing themselves 119 collapse of the pseudo-certainty 149
Colossus 131
capabilities 159 common ground 21
capital 198 common ability of discourse 91
Capra, F. 72, 74 ‘communication and control’ 215

complexity 220; theories of 39
complicated systems can become
complex 186
components move at different rates 233
compound growth: energy 208;
expectations 208; in population 208
compulsory tasks 92
computable parts of scenario models 203
computer models: of businesses and
governments 6
computer-based foresight – remaina
transhumanist dream 131
conceptual thought 157
conditions for and limits to sustainable
development are unknown 187
cones of choice 37
confuse foresight with scenario planning
is potentially disastrous 85
confusion over possibility versus
probability 155
conjecture 157
conjuring about increasingly uncertain
futures 58
connectedness 142
co-nomination 51, 94, 95,
constants 164
constructing scenarios and Delphi topics
110
‘Consumer soverignty’ 222
contention in the kernel set 219
context of humanity and its interrelations
242
contexts and contents 193
continuity of life on the planet 177
continuum of individual improbable
scenarios 156
contraception 246
controlling factor 241
convergence 240
Copenhagen Centre 195
Copernican revolution 225
Copernicus, N. 4, 40
Corporate Associates for Environmental
Scanning 128
corporate decision-makers tend to weight
expertise 49
corporate social responsibility 124, 136,
194
corporate venturing 123
cosmic ray bombardment 248
cosmos 234
Index  269
cost/benefit analysis 30
Costanza, R. and Daly, H.E. 170
counter-intuitive 153, 154
courts intervene 190
creating vision 14
creation of factories 227
credibility 173, 174
‘critical technologies’ 121
critical events and choices 139
criticality 62; component of national (or
company) self-sufficiency 63; four
alternative definitions 62; generic
and precompetitive 62; important
aspect of policy making 62; national,
company or organisational self-
sufficiency 63; rate determining factor
62;state of the art 63
criticism of sustainability 172
crocodile 197
CSR: management fad 196
CSR Europe: mission to help companies
195; profitability, sustainable growth
and human progress 195; ‘roadmap’
for a sustainable and competitive
enterprise 195
Cuhls, K. 50
cultural and mental baggage 152
curious chemical composition 178
current law 136
current climate models 177
current debate is but a repetition of
events 177
curses of narrow perception and over-
confidence 158
‘Daisyworld’ 185, 210
Dalkey, N.C. 150
Daly, H.E 170; conditions for the physical
sustainability 185
‘dark ages’ 226
data protection 96
Davenport, T.H. and Prusak, L. 22
Dawes : irrationality 200
De Finetti, B. 34
de Vulpian, A. and Corry, C. 46
De Martino, B. et al. 47, 48
decision sciences 30
decision making under uncertainty 66
decline of the TFR 246
declining indigenous populations 210
Dedijer, S. 125
270  Index
definition of sustainability and
sustainable development 172
definition for sustainability seems to be
futile 172
Delphi process: creation of consensus 55
Delphi survey: dissent among responses
56; illogical causations between
propositions 56; lists of independent
propositions 56; in road-mapping
56; sampling opinion 55; to survey
opinion on likely occurrence of
propositions 55
demographic 159
demographic change 117
demographic variables – age, gender and
occupational position 51
demographic transition 199, 208, 246
Dempster, B.M 20, 186
denigrate sustainability 174
denigration of acts of anticipation 2
depopulation of rural areas 227
design and foresight are tightly related
134
desirable 139
devastating 154
Devlin, K 22
‘dialects’ 22
differing hypotheses 232
difficulty in modelling foresight’s impact
trails 111
digital communication – increasing use
42
dimensions of the grid 141
‘disciplined and not daydream’ 120
discrete ways 155
discriminating judgement 21
disease 180
disease control 246
dismal ‘science’ of economics 198
disruption to all living societies 248
dissemination 111
dissipative structures 30, 215
distinct forms of governance 101
distribution of disease vectors 183
diversity 41
divorce 246
‘Dopeler Effect’ 224
do definitions of sustainability have
utility 175
double hermeneutic 232
double-loop learning 21
drama of change 230
Dubin, R 155
dulling of response – turns into mind-
numbing familiarity 230
dynamic history of the Earth 177
dynamic-cum-systemic effects 137
dynamics of the human world 168
dynamics of legal process 192
dynamism is fundamental 188
each individual scenario has negligible
probability 156
Earth: autopoietic 193; as a living system
241; to lose its life support system 178
earthquakes 248
Earth’s climate is highly unusual 167
Earth’s system is far from equilibrium 186
eco-accounting 222
eco-fundalmentalism 199
ecological economics 30, 137, 170, 193,
210, 221, 241
ecological web 171
ecological principles 222
ecology 30
ecology and economics: symbosis 193
economic theory 240
economic power 246
economics of ‘growthmania’ 204
ecosphere 179
education 159
electricity 225
electronic controlled power and
communication system failures 234
elicitation of subjective opinion:
characterised by a distribution 52
elicitation of ‘expert’ opinion 163, 203
embedded part of the Earth and Moon
and wider systems 237
‘emergence and hierarchy’ 215
Emergence: gestalt property of systems
45; emergence – theories of 39
emergent properties 17, 225
emergent phenomena 197
emerging from the geo-ecological set 241
emotional intelligence 47
emotional processes within models of
human choice 47
emotional system – role in mediating
decision biases 47
empirical statistical analysis 185
enable wide participation 108

‘end of history’ 229
end of the industrial society 229
endanger life or humanity’s ways of life
198
energy analysis 30
engineering ‘fail-safe’ regime 186
enormity of the changes now occurring
globally 231
‘enterprise design’ 185
entire living world 251
entrepreneurialism 139
environmental abnormality 211
‘environmental consumption’ 188
environmental ‘footprint’ 136
environmental impact assessment 30, 124
environmental impact analysis 189
environmental protection 177
environmental sustainability 172
environmentalism 198, 220; equated
with poverty 199
epicycle theory 4
episodic bombardments 179
epistemology 38
era of modernity 40
era of pre-modernity 226
era of pre-science 4
era of pseudo-certainty 6
eruption of giant caldera 248
Euclid::geometry 40
Europe as the cradle of intellectual and
technical evolution 227
event strings 153
ever-advancing ‘economic development’
198
ever-rising expectations, consumerism
and debt 205
evidence 199; alone not sufficent for
policy making 199
evolution of scanning and the
anticipatory intelligence 128
evolutionary process 232
evolving systemic theory 171
evolving, complex, adaptive system 142
excess wealth 219
‘exemptionalism’ 220
exhaustion and ecological change 198
existence 15, 140, 234, 251; requires
a mindset of appreciation 251; of
a world created by science 45; of a
world of phenomena 45
expectations of the outcomes 86
Index  271
expert 48
expert – subjective probability
distribution 48
expert opinion 48; eliciting 48; and lay
opinion 50; relative worth 49
expert committees 90
expert witnesses 200
‘experts’ in uncertainty 73
expertise: nature of 48
exploitation of new connectedness 202
explorer must invent a procedure 140
exponential growth pattern 244
extinction: of the human species 170
extinction events 184, 248
extractive and fuel technologies 228
extreme limitations on human
interventions 186
factory work 227
‘fail-safe’ 171
‘failures’ of foresight 237
faith 43, 191
false sense of competence 211
family creation 246
family size 246
feasible 139
Feynman, R.P. 149
finding participants 93
first ‘oil shock’ 149
fitness for purpose 27
fitness-unfitness 27
Flood, R.L. 14, 72, 140
flow is not homogeneous 238
fMRI 25, 47
focus on prioritisation 63
follower mentality 81
food supply 180
foot-holds 233
‘for some’ 230
force of ‘discovery’ 90
forecasts – reliability of 43
foresight 1, 136; is about invention or
ideas or hypothesis generation 49;
abstract presentation of 46; act of
anticipation 17; always taken place
across all business activity 120;
anticipation of future possibilities as
distinct from probabilities 34; an art
form 80; becomes a will-o-the-wisp
250; ‘champions’ 105; competitive
advantage and market power 117;
272  Index

concrete developments related to functional foresight: multifaceted

business 118; creates controversy anticipation 122
– that is its intention 103; depends fundamental conservation laws 221
on intelligence gathering 125; Funtowicz, S.O. and Ravetz, J.R. 12, 52,
fragmented rather than systemic 130; 154, 173
a fundamental activity 115; helps Futur 50, 104
ensure successful continuity 117; future of living systems 80
intellectual property 122; intelligence future is an extension of the past 183
gathering is fundamental 126; future of humanity 203
intention to create change through fuzziness 220
controversy 131; intentions ultimately fuzziness of the boundaries of situations
political 80; lack of a theoretical base 136
45; law and regulation 122; little fuzzy boundaries 212; and complex
evidence of systems thinking 74; boundaries 238
much makes no use at all of formal
methods 131; in the nature of a gadgetry 219
proposition 49; paradox for industry Gaia 3, 171, 185
120; pedigree of 43; rarely a formally Gandhi 219
recognised activiity in business generalists 50
132; real or institutional, depends genetic algorithms 30
on opinion 74; relating to external genetic modification debate 199
and internal social structures 124; genetically modified crops 191
scanning is the Cinderella 127; is not genetics 228
scientific 43; securing future profits geo-ecological 211
117; simple intuition, induction or geo-ecology 241
logical inference 131; warnings of geo-economics 240
what to avoid 119 geographic 159
‘foresight process’ – ill-defined benefits geographic distribution 231
that will enhance public policy 132 geo-physical 211
foresight and systems thinking – geo-politics 241
exploring the unknown landscape 53 Georghiou, L.G; 51, 133
formal methods amount to rescue geo-science and technology 238
missions 243 geo-social change 238
Forrester, J. 177, 185 Germany, critical technology lists 64
foundation of weather forecasting models gestalt psychology 15, 45, 151
170 giant caldera 169
‘four horsemen’ 169 Gilpin, A. 189
four spaces – conceptual, perceptual, Global Circulation Models (GCMs) 7
physical and absolute 25 Global Reporting Initiative 124, 136, 194
fractals 19, 30 global Ackoffian ‘mess’ 167
fragmenting field of economics 222 global balance of politico-economic
France ‘key technologies’ studies 65 power 242
fraud in science 190 global circulation models 182
free of inconsistencies and impossibilities global mean temperature 182
153 globalisation 117, 230
free thinking 162 gloomy predictions and extravagant
freedom of information 96 expectations 202
Frosch, R.A. and Gallopoulos, N.E. 222 Goleman, D. 47
‘fudge factors’ 182 good probability assessors 34
fuel supplies 225 Gow, D.D. 188
Fukuyama, F. 229 Gödel, K. 33

gradients 20; increasing entropy 20
grant scenarios low credibility 157
grasp of ’existence’ 251
Greenfield, S. 4
GRI: corporate governance,
accountability and citizenship 196;
living process that operates in the
spirit of ’doing’ 196; long-term process
196; voluntary code 196
gross change to humankind’s life support
system 171
growthmania 193, 240; based on
consumerism 208
GST as a logico-mathematical field 72
‘guesstimates’ of probability 156
Gunderson, L.H. and Holling, C.S. 30,
137, 141, 163, 171, 189
Guttenberg Bible 226; major social
innovation 40
Habermas, J. 42
Hackett, J. 149
Haig, A. Jr 13, 32
hand-holds 233
handshaking 33, 157, 172
hard-soft system 30
Hardin, G. 188; tragedy of the commons
5 ‘not in control’ of the planet 200;
health and safety 194
healthy diversity of ideas 177
hedonism 42
Heilbronner: ’Human Prospect’ 202
Heisenberg, W.K 15
heliocentric theory 40
heliocentricity 227
hierarchy of dilemmas 237
high information content 23
hill walker or mountaineer 233
hindsight 1, 237; used to denigrate
foresight and systemic thinking 235
HIV/AIDS 235
holism 19
Holistic models 19
Holland, J.H. 19, 144
Holling, C.S. 18, 39, 171
homeorrhesis 72, 212
homeostasis 72
homo sapiens 226
homosexual relationships 246
how useful scenarios and scenario
planning are 167
Index  273
Huber, P.W. 199
huge volcanic eruptions 169
Huggett, R.J 171, 178; systems diagram
183
human activity: has little control 178;
pollution or destruction 188
human anatomy 40
human behaviour 249
human capability 191; in invention and
innovation 246
human conflict, greed and war 12
human cognitive life 28
human disease 236
human endeavour 225
human fertility 246
human organisations fit for their purpose
168; human physical and intellectual
capability 167
human population 180, 231; began to
grow exponentially 141
human psychology 167
‘human predicament’ 212
human socioeconomic behavioural
response – overcrowding 193
human system is deliberately shown as
irregular 237
humanity: can manage the Earth 198;
truly in a wilderness 202
humanity’s sleep-walking that leads to
repetitive crises 251
ice age 248
ideas enshrined in geo-ecology 193
ideas never die 139, 200
identification of expert participants 29,
51, 110
ignorance 217
‘I’ll give you a definite maybe’ 39
imagination 46, 47; substantive
knowledge and assessing ability 131
immediacy 42
implementation: mix of intended and
unintended outcomes 101; of the
outcomes 86
incompatible policies persist 136
Indian Ocean tsunami 179
individual’s behaviour 135
industrial activity 185
industrial competitiveness 135
industrial dynamics 185
274  Index
industrial ecology 30, 210, 222, 241;
‘nature as model’ 193
‘industrial metabolism’ 222
industrial processes 228
industrial revolution 227
industrial society based on the extractive
destruction 208
industry 177
influence the development of regulations
124
influence diagrams 152; are often
expressions of belief 153
influence ‘map’ 163
influence of communications
technologies 228
influence of television 228
information 12; incoherence and
unfitness 27; television as primary
source 41
information to knowledge 21
initial set of markers 141
innovation 194
institutional Foresight 13; adapt to
the different national cultures
132; benefits 80; benefits not
immediate 80; ‘best practice’ 130;
concerned with managing policy
132; constrained public milieu
130; consultation at heart of
86; Georghiou’s taxonomy 140;
inform government 79; initiation,
execution and the implementation
85; intentions 141; international
programmes 96; less shocking 132;
more emollient 132; multi-headed
Hydra 139; operational aspects 79;
Schartinger and Webber 140; simple,
hypothetical, idealised taxonomy 133;
specification of desired outcome 133;
stereotypes but are mixtures 133;
three characteristics are absent 139;
validate the process and its immediate
influences 131
integral part of policy process 133
intelligence: begets knowledge 126; must
also build picture of long-term trends
127; must turn into action 127
intelligence gathering 150, 249; and
learning 153
interaction, coordination, orchestration
97
interdependencies 232
international expertise: accessible
knowledge increases 99; collation
of 99; intellectual property 99;
individuals of international stature 99;
mutual learning 99; national security
99; will always be sought 120
international laws and agreements 194
International Panel on Climate Change
125
international politics 231
international justice and law 241
international relations 246
interrelatedness of the STEEPV themes
135
interrelation between the human and
natural worlds 203
interventionist or non-interventionist
88, 101
inter-working of thought experiments
and real world events 174
invention 194
investigative character 164
investigative processes 90
‘Is humanity suicidal?’ 220
IVF 246
Jantsch, E. 5, 59
Japanese technology forecasts 81
Jeans, Sir J. 23, 25, 28
jesters 1
joint opinion is a non-trivial matter 137
Jones, R.V. 125, 150;method 59
judicial processes: due diligence 90
Kahn, H. 149
Katz, J.S. et al 51
Keenan, M. 69
Kennet, Lord W. 13, 35, 37
key vantage points 233
kinds of expertise 50
know your audience 165
knowledge – inter-subjective 41;
objective 41
knowledge society 172
Kondratieff, N.D. 2, 30, 116, 225, 229
Kuhn, T.S. 14, 17, 177
Kurzweil, R. 29
Kuusi, O. 43
language 22
 Index  275

Laudan, L. 190 lowest common denominator 61

Lauterbach: insists modernisation 192
law will develop its own patterns 246 Macmillan, H.: ‘events, dear boy’ 55
laws: may vary throughout a chaotic MacNulty, C.R. 46
Universe 44 maelstrom 139
Laws of Nature 43 Mahlman, J.D. 183; five ‘probable
lay people 201 projections’ 183; nine ‘virtually
leading them beyond present perceptions certain facts’ 183; seven ‘very
157 probable projections 183; two
learning 21, 251; the basis of scenario ‘virtually certain projections’ 183
construction 155 major epidemics 210
legal system 192 male sperm count 246
legal/regulatory regimes 193 Malthus, T. 4, 5, 180
legitimacy 174; becomes an emergent man is in control of the planet 172
property in society 173 management team – executive arm of
lesbian relationships 246 Steering Group 92
level of programme 82 mapmaking 141, 233
library of anticipations 153 Margulis, L. 171; and Sagan,D 21, 171,
life cycle analysis 30 172, 180
life expectancy 141 marriage 246; between ecology and
likely impact of asteroids 179 economics 170; of computer output to
Likert-type scales 66 human interpretation 131
Lilienfeld, R 14, 71, 72, 73, 74, 137 Martin, B. 81
Limits to Growth 116, 169, 177, 181 Marx, K. 5
Lipinski, A.J. and Loveridge, D. 33, 50, Maslow, A 46; hierarchy of needs 216
156, 163, 168 mass broadcasting 41
Lipinski, A.J. et al 69 mass consumerism 41
listed principles 175 mass or group phenomenon 230
little or no control over its successful mass migrations 178; to towns and cities
continuity 180 227
living conditions 183 mass politics 41
living and inanimate matter 211 mass production 41
local ways of life 1 ‘material standard of living’ 182
Lomborg: criticism of ‘environmentalism’ mathematics into ecology 170
201; on human welfare, life Maxwell: ‘problems of living’ 20
expectancy 201 Meadows, D.: et al 3, 149, 169, 177,
‘lone rangers’ 139 181; breached too many conventions
long cycle theory 2, 30 simultaneously 181; World 3 7;
long-duration human needs 248 media 184
longer time horizon 103 medical science 228
longevity 246 memory 154
long-run underlying effects being ignored mental handshaking 23
42 mental inventions 164
long-running subtle shifts in values 246 mental modelling 29
Lorenz, E.N. 170 mental time-stream 1
Lovelock, J.E 3,171, 172, 178; Gaia ‘messianic’ belief 224
theory 171 metaphor of panarchy 202
Loveridge, D. 6, 7, 12, 25, 27, 32, 43, 45, meta-scenarios 54, 156
50, 59, 160, 163, 166, 167; and Street, methods as ancillaries 251
P. 50, 104; et al 98 Michael, D.N. 13
low birth rate populations 210 Miles, I. and Keenan, M. 13
276  Index

mind-holds 233 ’no technical solutions’ 207

mind-shifting is seen as ‘hand waving’ no new or unexpected features 183
204 non-expert’s view about their desirability
minimum set of guiding principles 177 58
misinformation 12 normal science 171
mismatch signals 26 norms 23, 26
Mitchell: VALSTM1 46 notion of sympoiesis 193
Mobius spiral 142 notion of limits 249
model based on random sampling of notions of criticality used in studies in
opinion 136 France and Germany 63
modeling: the outcome of the scenario Novaky, E.. 43
analysis 166; a physical system, such novelty 41
as the climate 185; of procedure 104, nuclear Armageddon 116
137; of a situation is an essential part nuclear and biological weapons 200
of foresight and systems 181; systems nuclear electricity generation 228
11 nuclear holocaust 209
model-making 28 NUSAP 12, 20, 21, 27, 34, 52, 137, 154,
models: as ‘food for thought’ 134; ‘models 164,173, 198, 244
are models – they are not reality’ 182;
not value-free 31 objective truth 42
models of the future: always fail at some objectives 82
point 33; conceptual and perceptual Ockham’s razor 166
31; disrupt conventional thought 32; oecumenopolis 248
possibility machines 33; synthetic 31 official sponsors 106
modern 48 omniscience 217
modern view – expert opinion is more omniscient policy maker 80
valuable 49 opinion 157
modernist 29 opinion formers 168
modernity 28, 40, 42, 43, 225,227, 232, opinion givers – calibrate 50
251;destroyed appearances 229 ordering of events – causation based on
Moravec, H. 29 belief and not logic 53
M’Pherson, P.K. 19, 29, 38, 45, 71, 192 outcome of scanning and foresight is
multifaceted choice 217 subjective opinion 155
multiple languages 98 outcomes 83
Murcot, Susan 175 over-confidence 154
myth busters 202 over the horizon scanning 59, 127
’over populated’ city or geographic region
narrow perception 163 216
narrowness 135; of participation 104, 137 ownership of intellectual property 97
Natural Step 186, 193 ozone hole – recovery 211
‘nature as a model’ 222
nature and purposes of sustainability 177 pacemaker and a precursor for building
Nedeva, M.: et al 52; analytical reflexivity 133
framework 82, 134, 139 panarchy 30, 141, 171, 193, 209, 251
need to understand information 198 panels 90
nested series of cycles 142 paradigm shift 14, 20, 177
Netherlands Foresight Committee 86, pattern recognition 23, 29
103, 134 patterns of beliefs 246
’networks’ of contacts 103 ’peer review’ 190
new metaphors 137 people of thought 50
new modes of production 230 people of present and future action 50

perception of foresight as a problem-
solving process 135
perception of social change 230
periods of quiescence interspersed among
others of intense energy 238
Perrow, C. 16
personal credentials 89
personal preferences and preconceptions
191
Peters, T.J. and Waterman, R.H. Jr 125,
168
Phillips, D.C. 14, 71,73, 74
philosophical fuzziness 191
philosophy of knowledge 20
philosophy of wisdom 20
photograph 85
planetry-wide living systems are
autopoietic 186
policy: is concerned with sensing
expectations – values and norms
59; policy in the knowledge of the
range of scenarios 55; nature of 57;
three essential criteria indicating how
criticality relates to policy 62
policy forming tool 133
policy hierarchy 59, 62
policy instruments have three
characteristics 61
policy making 57; mysterious nature of 57
policy makers: cognitive difficulty
that face all 58; model cannot be
predictive 73; taxonomy of problems
58
political 159
political issue-attention cycle limits its
effectiveness 242
political sphere 203
political world 184
pollution: the assimilative capacity of the
environment 186
Popper, Sir K. 19, 20, 38, 71, 74, 192
popular notion of sustainability 169
popular format 171
population 180; censuses 244; dynamics
142; structure 141; size and growth
rate 191
population growth: and food shortages
177; in relation to food supply 4
population growth rate 244
portrait 85
Posner, R.A. 200
Index  277
possible 139
post-industrial society 229
post-modern 40, 42, 48
post-modern view: all opinion is valuable
49
post-modernism – concident
demographic change 41
post-modernist 29
post-modernist thought 6, 199
post-modernity 29, 40, 42, 43, 229, 232,
251
post-modernity: artefacts of 41; delusory
nature of 42; expertise does not count
74; language and ideas of 42
post-normal science 190
potential 142; connectedness and
resilience 143
poverty and disease 203
Powell, Enoch: political view of
forecasters 81
precaution cannot be separated from risk
191
Precautionary Principle 189; meaningless
199
Precision: not characteristic of foresight
12
predator-prey interaction 211;
relationships 216
preference shifts 20
present and history are both poorly
understood 156
present time is a single point of known
attributes 156
prevent daydreaming 14
prices 198
Principle is baseless 189
principles of set theory 152
prioritisation: appointed group deemed to
be expert carries out 67; carried out
by the study working group 69; least
satisfactory part of any institutional
Foresight 71; methods 65; poses acute
dilemmas 66; takes place at situation
level 68; where it should take place 67
priority setting 111
probability: three interpretations 48
probability domain of an entire lottery
156
problem of boundary setting 32
problem solving 219
problems: well structured 18
278  Index

product liability 124 regulate their outcome 246

production as a ’metabolic’ process 222 regulation 136, 193, 198
programme managers – mastery of all relationship between art and invention
processes 85 227
programme schedules 91 relativism 42
prophets 1, 40 releasing its potential to reshape life on
propositions:complexity of multiple 49; Earth 202
their interdependencies and opinions relevance 37, 89, 117, 136, 150, 153,
49 164, 201
prostitution 246 relevance tree method 65
protagonists 191 relevance tree study 64
protocols 188, 238. 242 relevant 235
Ptolemy 4, 40 Renaissance 226
public and animal health 237 reorganisation 142
public health 246 replacement rate 244
Pythagorean 3 representation 22
reproach or punitive action 207
qualitative way 157 reproductive capability of human beings
quantitative theory-building 155 210
quantitative information 165 research elements 82
question of levels of expertise 66 resources 82, 159
questions about definitions 169 retrospect 230
rhetoric concerning sustainability 203
radical change: hazardous it can be to ridiculed or ignored 167
successful continuity 119 risky ‘can do’ mentality 118
raising awareness 110 robust 235
rapid transportation 41 robustness 37, 89, 117, 136, 153, 164,
rapid return of much harsher climatic 201
conditions 178 role of sponsor 85
rate of change is effectively zero 164 role that cosmic rays play in cloud
rate component of criticality 233 formation 234
rate controlling factor 240, 241, 242 roots of world modelling 184
rate of growth 244
real foresight 7, 14, 95, 139; polity ‘safe when it fails’ 180
unprepared for what is foreseen 132; ‘safe-fail’ 18, 39, 188, 202, 209, 220
shocks 131 salience 173, 174
reality judgements 26 sanctify the entire textual scenarios: air
realm of foot-slogging 233 of veracity 203
reasonable 235 sanctity 246
reasonableness 37, 89, 117, 136, 150, ‘sand pile’ model of comples behaviour
153, 164, 201 199
rebirth of urban life 226 Saritas, O. 11, 37, 39, 45, 137
reception and interpretation of signals of satellite observations 233
low probability 23 satisficing 19, 20
rediscovery 203 Savage, L.J 48, 52; Savage’s theory 49
reductionism 13 scanning 136, 153
reductionist phenomenon 136 scanning process is of critical importance
reductionist way 207 154
reflexive appropriation of knowledge 232 scenario analysis 165
reflexivity 21, 82 scenario planning 6, 148; context and
region of indifference 157 content 13; institutional Foresight as

practiced cannot deliver 132; process
of 160
scenarios: are mental models 151;
are thought experiments 150; are
synthetic 151; cannot represent one
part of a situation independently 151;
influence is intended to persist 149;
opportunity to include and embrace
uncertainty 150; represent models
of the future 151; said to be ‘logical
sequences of events’ 52; as samples of
the probabilistic outcome space 54;
skeleton of a play 148; suspension of
existing mental models 151; theatre,
television plays and docudramas 149
‘scenarios for 2030’ 224
sceptic 234
Schartinger, D and Webber, M. 133, 136
Schilling, G. 179
Schrödinger, E. 171
Schwartz, P. 148
Science: advances through doubt 190;
reason and democracy 199; role
embodied in law 43
scope 82
scoping studies 109
search for ‘integrity’ in science 190
Second Law of Thermodynamics 20
secure supply of electricity 170
security of fuel supply 170
seers 1
selective listening 2
self-assessment of expertise 95
self-evaluation of expertise criteria 50
self-organisation 186, 238
serial endosymbiosis theory 171
serious discontinuity 154
Shackle, G.L.S. 33
Sheldrake: presence of the past 17
Shell International: scenario planning
activity 121
shift of socio-political-economic power
toward the Pacific Rim 246
shift toward problem-oriented
programmes 108
shifts in the distribution of skills –
eastward rearrangements 117
short-issue attention span 241
signals emerging from the natural world
241
Simmonds, W.H.C. 157
Index  279
Simon: bounded rationality 19, 33, 142
simple content analysis 175
simplifications have enabled public
debate 182
simplistic headlines 204
single issue 182
situation: appreciation of 47; boundaries
20, 129, 193; perception of boundaries
19; uncertainly defined boundaries 54
situations: apparent lack of structure 18;
cannot be ‘solved’ 197; dynamic 19;
elements and their interrelatedness
18; neither solvable nor well
structured 18; notions of 39; occur in
cascades 19, 152
six levels of cognitive difficulty 173
size of the human population and the
natural world 244
skunk works 28, 130
small cluster of factors 225
Smith, W.G.B. 222
Smuts, J.C. 15
’snowball’ sampling 52
social audits and social accounting 194
social behaviour 193
social coherence 170
social change: ’destruction’ of the existing
basis of social life 228
social forecasting 5
social intelligence 126, 128
social life and organisation –
international consequences 42
social well-being 135
Society for General Systems Research 15
socio-technical-political chess board:
beginning to be rearranged 231
soft gap analysis 24, 26
solar activity 179
solar insolation 215
soothsayers 40
sovereign states 207
space weather forecasts 234
speculation into conjecture – transition
in thinking 201
sperm quality 246
sponsorship 82
SRI International 128
staggering complexity 174
standardization: ability to abandon 41
Stanovich, K. and West, F. 48
stark description of the situation 172
280  Index
starvation of skills as demographic
change bites 117
’state of the world’ 181
statement of objectives 85
static photograph of a set of ideas 224
statistic is meaningless operationally 182
steady state economics 170, 193
STEEPV 34, 39, 49, 158, 162, 228, 237,
238
Steering Group 92
Sterling, A. and Meyer, S. 191
stewardship:interface between human
activity and everything 188
storytelling mode 165
strategic models 166
’strategy for Planet Earth’ 211
strong behavioural component 164
strong sunspot activity 169
subjective opinion 48, 137, 201, 251
subjective probability 48
subjective opinion and probability:
misunderstood 155
substantive knowledge 46, 47, 141
substitutes will always be found or
created 198
successful continuity 136; of humankind
192; of life on the Earth 179
surface and atmospheric effects 193
surge in scientific activity 227
sustainability 144, 205; is complex 171;
and development cannot coexist
188; equates to environmentalism
199;interpretations 187; and the
knowledge society have become
political issues 172; of life 184 is
reserved for the underlying philosophy
178
sustainability and sustainable
development: relationship between
189; base 210
sustainable development 144,
177; is regarded as its practical
implementation 178; is a subset of
sustainability 188
sustenance 216
swarm 216
Swedish Partnership for Global
Responsibility 195
symbiogenesis 17, 20
symbiosis 17, 20
sympoiesis 186
sympoietic system – boundaryless 212
systemic thinking 5, 17, 136,
systemic foresight 39, 45
systemic thought 139; extravagant claims
14
systems 248
systems dynamics 30, 152, 185; approach
to modelling complex systems 177
systems modelling 21; using systems
dynamics 185
systems movement 15
systems thinking and foresight: converge
in the propositions 49
Tavern, R. 199
taxes 198
Taylor, G.R. 149
technical knowledge 227
technology assessment 30, 194
technology forecasting 5, 11
tectonic plates 179, 248
telenomy 35
terminator gene 135
territory of the future 33, 34, 53, 71, 141,
168, 248
’theoretical’ basis to scenario planning
155
theories-in-use 21
theory of epicycles 40
theory of prioritisation 66
theory for scenario planning 155
Therivel, R. et al 188
thermonuclear: attack 225; holocaust
202; war 149, 169
Thom, R 28
thought experiments 129; ideas in
conceptual and perceptual space 155
three ‘R’s 37
tight feed-around loop 155
time dependent 241
Toffler, A. 41, 116
tool for impact assessment 133
Torino scale 234
total fertility rate 141, 208, 231, 244
total disbelief 157
touchstone of sustainability is
stewardship 188
Toynbee, A. 1
traffic light analysis 65
‘tragedy of the commons’ 207
transformation 142; of information 21

transhumanist aim of everlasting youthful
life 219
transience 41
transition to sustainable development
186
trans-science 19, 58, 172, 191,197
triangular interrelatedness 174
trust 43
truth 43
‘truth tellers’ 202
tsunamis 248
turbulent flow 238
Twain, Mark 2
‘two speed’ territory of the future 233
two-way communication 188
type of intervention 83
uncertain science of life on the planet
197
uncertainties and caveats remain 182
uncertainty 19; anathema in industry
120; and risk and indecision 120
uncertainty principle 15
underlying metaphor of panarchy 163
underlying strata 235
understand the present 140
unedited real-time televised images 230
unfamiliar situation creating uncertainty
158
United Nations Environment Programme
196
United Nations Global Compact 194,
195
unknowable territory of the future 235
unravelling of the expert’s substantive
knowledge 50
unstructured and complex 212
unsustainable philosophy of economic
‘growthmania’ 205
untenable assumptions 172
unwelcome intrusions into the political
and media worlds 204
Upham, P. 171
VALSTM1 137, 139
valuations 27
value full 164
value shifts 246
values 23, 26
values/norms: intensely time dependent
242; patterns 246
Index  281
van der Heijden, K 153, 154, 165
variables 164
vaulting ambition 249, 251
venturing: greatest paradox corporations
face 123 maintain their internal
vitality 123; and public risk of
failure 123; representation of either
individual or collective foresight 123
Verhulst equation 142
verification 182
verisimilitude granting validity 183
very high energy cosmic rays 234
Vesalius’ book on anatomy 227
Vickers, Sir G. 14, 23, 24, 26, 27, 72, 73,
136, 166, 232
virtual and ’cardboard’ world 42
virtual territory of the future 233
viruses 171, 237
‘... vision without discipline....’ 14, 32
visions of the future 13
visualise a physical map of the ’territory’
of the future 156
vitalism 17
Voinov, A.A. and Smith, C. 172, 192
von Clauswitz, C 2
von Bertalanffy, L 5, 15, 72
Wallace, Robert 4, 177, 180
Ward, B. and Dubos, R. 211
‘watch’ or intelligence function 122
water availability 183
water supply 180
Watson, A. and Lovelock, J.E. 185
ways of living 219
‘we are in control’ 180
wealth [equated] with sustainability and
conservation 199
Weinberg, A.M 19; contention about
trans-science 74
‘what is important’ 27
what will bring population growth to an
end 3
Whitehead, A. N. 5, 11, 43, 156, 163
whole mode of thought and appreciation
226
‘whose opinion’ 48
‘whose values do they represent’ 164
wide consultation 110
widen the base of people 104
wider communication 41
‘wild card’ – guessing game 12
282  Index
wildernesses 199
Wilson, J. 18, 27
Wilson, E.O. and Baird, F.B. Jr 211, 220
winged seeds of sycamore trees 243
Wittgensteinian trap 29, 139, 243, 252
Wittgenstein‘s dictum 28
‘woolly’ notions of sustainable
development 199
world models: address complicated set
of issues 182; climate models 182;
comparative usefulness 182; cannot
be reduced to a single convenient
statistic 182; sustainability in its
context of human society 185, 186
World modelling 3
‘world problematique’ 205
World 3 and its variants – notions of
sustainability and economics 185
World Economic Forum 125, 194
World Trade Organisation 125
world‘s first printing press 226
Yom Kippur 6, 116