‘‘A significant feature of this era is the strange combination of more than ever long term challenges like climate change with the need for leaders to react in the very short-term conditions of a crisis''.More than ever,
Decision-makers need a global vision of the future that addresses financial structures, climate change, poverty, etc''.
Keywords Future-oriented technology analysis, FTA, Grand challenges, Forward looking activities T oday's grand challenges from climate change to unemployment go beyond current national policies.
possibly affecting the natural environment and the socioeconomic fabric of a given territory. In addition, the study confirms that foresight offers interesting opportunities for urban planners,
He is a Board member of The swiss Academic Association for Environmental Research and Ecology (SAGUF Swiss Expert for the International Energy Agency (IEA) Demand-Side Management (DSM) Task XXIV on Behaviour Change,
such as climate change, the emission of pollutants and noises, accidents, congestion; or of the consumption of nonrenewable resources (like oil.
and the environmental effects are undervalued. In part, at least, these unintended effects and theses controversies are rooted in the complex nature of the transport system.
or an extension to pure CBA in cases where important effects cannot be monetised MCA allows decision makers to include a full range of social, environmental, technical, economic,
scenario building and strategic environmental assessment. The term‘‘scenario''subsumes a broad range of tools and methodological approaches.
The other examples are environmental impact assessment (EIA) and strategic environmental assessment (SEA. Both instruments are related to the assessment of the environmental consequences of an activity.
SEA and EIA use combinations of different tools rather than only one tool. Scenario processes and modelling approaches quite often play an important role.
''Environmental Impact assessment Review, Vol. 25 No. 6, pp. 650-66. Renn, O. 2008), Risk governance. Coping with Uncertainty in a Complex World, Earthscan, London.
Evaluating Models for Environmental Discourse, Risk governance and Society, Vol. 10, Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht. Risk Commission (2003), Ad hoc Commission on‘‘Revision of Risk analysis Procedures and Structures as well as of Standard Setting in the field of Environmental Health in the Federal republic of germany'',Final Report, Salzgitter Federal Radiological
Protection Agency, Berlin. Runde, J. 1998),‘Clarifying Frank Knight's discussion of the meaning of risk and uncertainty'',Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol. 22, pp. 539-46.
Therivel, R. 2004), Strategic Environmental Assessment in Action, Earthscan, London. TSU Oxford et al. 2010), OPTIC Deliverable 1:
http://optic. toi. no van Asselt, M. B. A. and Rotmans, J. 2002),‘Uncertainty in integrated assessment modelling'',Climate change, Vol. 54, pp. 75
and even the weather (the system environment): The implication is that foresight techniques must be able to embrace emergence
as organisational systems (people) adapt to the new environmental parameters (policies) the system can change radically, Ridgeway et al.
self-organizing elements capable of responding to others and to their environment. The entire system can be seen as a network of relationships and interactions,
even in a single element, produces reactions and changes in associated elements and the environment.
The lesson is often that the environment/time/space/area in which one works and lives in determines how one thinks (the mental model or frame),
the current (and historic) general policy making environment is likely to be the one in which implications for the application of complexity-based foresight in policy making will take place, at least for a while.
whereby a policy is more able to work as its environment changes while many of the policy interventions will fail
and undertaking cost-benefit analysis. 2. Create an enabling environment for variation by facilitating conditions that enable societies to create alternative approaches to achieve a common objective
and enable an environment for variation to occur 1. Comparative analysis of the costs of implementation
Keywords Delphi method, Environmental politics, Government policy, Scenario planning, Sustainable development, Strategic planning, Forecasting Paper type Case study Introduction Since the 1990s each new Finnish government has prepared a comprehensive foresight report
or adapt to climate change. Among the things investigated were prerequisites for the global limitation of climate change,
cost-effectiveness of climate policy and mainstreaming of the climate perspective among the general population.
The reduction of at least 80 per cent is at the lower end of the range (80-95 per cent) estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC, 2007) for industrialised countries in accordance with the two-degree target.
The assumptions can be understood as best guesses of the operational environment of the coming decades
B Finns'values towards measures for environmental conservation will change to a favourable direction and preparedness to take action to restrict emissions will increase.
B Climate change will alter the conditions in Finland by 2050: the need for heating energy will diminish
and restraining climate change: the variety of opinions in society as well as the best possible knowledge of what is technologically feasible, economically affordable and socially acceptable.
as they deal with deeply habitual behaviour and complex connections between social, political, environmental and economic factors.
Since the aim of this first questionnaire was to form a view on how the expert group envisions the operational environment in the future,
regarding to climate change mitigation as well as a variety of futures visions of sustainable Finland. This material was used as building blocks for the next phase of the exercise,
As for the public's approval for the actions needed to prevent the unwanted effects of climate change
and a genuine will of most members of society to work for the environment, obedience of the law, good technological know-how, abundant resources of biofuels and the infrastructure from forest to industry already in place (as a heritage from paper and pulp industry),
Further refinement in the changes in the operational environment that affect the possibilities to reach the emission goals of 2050 would have been needed to make the foundation for attaching numerical information more solid.
Wasteful behaviour in both the private consumers and industry (especially retail) is considered undesirable Environmental values and understanding of nature's processes highly valued.
the most important value Relation towards environment Nature as the most important asset. Preemptive nature conservation Nature as a source of admiration and recreation Nature as a partner Cleaning up the mess made as much as possible Relation towards technology New technology as a lever
industrial ecology Search for innovations to boost economic growth and improve the state of the environment VOL. 14 NO. 4 2012 jforesight jpage 311 numbers can also easily be considered as neutral
and to have a high information value, without too much deliberation given on how one arrived at these numbers.
IPCC (2007), IPCC AR4 WGIII, Climate change 2007: Mitigation of Climate change, WGIII Contribution to the IPCC AR4, Cambridge university Press, Cambridge and New york, NY, chapter 13, Box 13.7, p. 776, available at:
www. ipcc. ch/publications and data/publications ipcc fourth assessment report wg3 report mitigation of climate change. htm (accessed 20 december 2011. Jungk, R. 1987), Futures Workshops:
Her expertise is concerned with futures research, sustainable development, technology foresight, energy and environment, and the future of communities.
His main research interests are in environment, energy and security issues. VOL. 14 NO. 4 2012 jforesight jpage 315 To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail:
An integral part of the Nanoned programme (3%of the budget) is the assessment of social, political, economical and environmental/health issues.
therefore to shield wires from the environment. Semiconducting materials conduct less well than metals, but better than insulators.
but there is virtually no environmental or toxicological data on them. Q As well as the ETC group 22, page 72 who propose that:
and launch a transparent global process for evaluating the socioeconnomic health and environmental implications of the technology.
the environment, or society's well-being 30.3.2.2. Technological field None of the expected possible applications have come to a successful commercialisation yet.
there is an open discussion on the possible toxic effects of nanoparticles (incl. nanotubes) on the environment and inside the human body.
Human Choice and Climate change, vol. 2, Batelle Press, Columbus, 1998, pp. 327 399.8 M. C. Roco, Nanoparticles and nanotechnology research, Journal of Nanoparticle Research
A Technical, Political and Institutional Map of Emerging technologies, Greenpeace Environmental Trust, London, 2003, July 14 Royal Society, Royal Academy of Engineering, Nanoscience and nanotechnologies:
Findings Major findings are obtained on the feasibility of a systematic approach that provides anticipatory intelligence about future disruptive events that may affect the natural environment and the socioeconomic fabric of a given territory.
economic, environmental and political problems in a territory. Second, foresight cannot impose consensus when there are deep disagreements between territorial stakeholders.
Since the Brundtland Commission defined sustainable development as‘‘the ability to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs''(World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987),
This axis included all critical uncertainties regarding the abundance or scarcity of technological, economic, human, institutional, and natural resources.
The successive emergence of new technological innovations seems to conjure up environmental threats and tends to relax a society
economic achievements have been at the expense of high environmental costs, social inequities and territorial imbalances. Scenario C:
In this context, the planning value chain is integrated partially by the need to incorporate environmental planning into every step of the development process.
Public management should be able to internalise environmental costs through sophisticated environmental evaluation tools. Functional implications of Scenario B (2025.
This scenario generates strong environmental and social impacts due to a model based on strong economic growth and intense consumption (see Figure 5). Public policies related to urban development are implemented not effectively because of social and economic pressures.
when economic and environmental crises are recurrent, resources are scarce and social attitudes are very favourable towards the implementation of strict SD models (see Figure 6). Due to difficulties in enacting
A strong government, backed by a wide spectrum of the electorate, is formed to implement effective policies against the economic and environmental crisis. Regional
and public bodies to internalise their environmental costs. 4. 3 Step 3: determining parametric implications Once functional implications have been determined, a set of parametric indicators related to standard sustainability issues (Kates et al.
The study area reflects a fragile environment whose ecosystem could be disturbed irreversibly by the increasing impact of human pressure.
The predominant philosophy of the‘‘green paradigm''scenario will be to thrive in economic and social terms with lower consumption of energy, water and natural resources.
Environment Selective collection of solid waste%39 High 68 Low 37 Middle 51 Simple mathematical algorithm Modal split Public transport/total trips(%annual) 31
Increase of per capita gross domestic product (GDP) or other measures of aggregate income, typically reported as the annual rate of change in real GDP Environment Selective collection of solid waste.
Area of primary-production land needed to support the resource use of the dwellers on urban land VOL. 14 NO. 4 2012 jforesight jpage 327 difficult to decouple the increasing environmental impact.
The protection of the natural environment will be confined virtually to areas declared as having natural importance,
Suggested strategies for Scenario A. The green paradigm scenario offers a favourable context to successfully tackle the major challenges such as fighting climate change
Figure 8 Spatial implications of Scenario A (2025) VOL. 14 NO. 4 2012 jforesight jpage 329 B Build a new economic model that is environment-friendly
because it feels confident that new technologies will solve most environmental threats. In this context, there is a need for strict policies
or minimize the generation of heavy environmental impact: B Satisfy social needs in a context where individualism
B Channel the growing demand for mobility by people and goods through the construction of new environment-friendly transport infrastructure.
B Set up an educational system aligned with new social and environmental values. B Establish mandatory measures to diminish energy consumption
A dynamic and sometimes turbulent environment puts enormous pressure on rational planning systems, which in many cases have been designed to simulate highly stable and predictable functional systems.
and practice'',Environment, Vol. 47 No. 3, pp. 8-21. Meadows, D. 1998), Indicators and Information systems for Sustainable development, The Sustainability Institute, Balaton Group, Montpelier, VT.
United nations (1992),‘Agenda 21 Report'',United nations Conference on Environment and Development, 3-14 june, Ri'o de Janeiro. van der Heijden, K. 1996), Scenarios:
World Commission on Environment and Development (1987), Our Common Future, Oxford university Press, Oxford. World Summit for Social development (1995), Declaration and Programme of Action, World Summit for Social development, Copenhagen.
and changing nature of demographical structures, cultural practices, environmental affairs and social services.''''Furthermore, the number of studies focused on the connection between FTA and the field of social sciences and humanities has increased substantially (Barre'and Keenan, 2008.
for example, the increase of population or the scarcity of natural resources; the legal trends dealt with the possible shift from a predominantly national to a predominantly international legal environment,
or the potential shift from a predominantly public legal regime to a mixed public-private regime or even predominantly private regime.
provide ideal types of the alternative futures of the global legal environment. They are the analytical coordinates that together make up a compass,
which can be used to analyze the direction in which the global legal environment is moving. It also allows us to predict which triggers
and events will push the global legal environment in which direction. Furthermore, the scenarios can be used‘‘to assess how existing strategies perform in different global legal environments.
They can be used to decide on preparatory measures and they provide intellectual roadmaps to answer the‘what
and to measure the socioeconomic-environmental footprint of human actions, i e. to create a greater awareness of the possible implications of human-decision making''(Helbing, 2011).
scenario planning can be associated with modelling analysis to allow legislators to test different legal options and regulatory solutions within simulated environments.
and simulation techniques aimed at uncovering future societal, economic and environmental trends. Through the use of modelling instruments, legislators would
and tested in safe and experimental environments. Modelling is, in this sense, a powerful instrument and an important source of information that should be used to improve legislative making processes.
the people and the environment that their laws address and apply to. Important advantages derived from applying FTA to Law can also be found in the field of law enforcement,
but not yet deployed Ambient Intelligence (Ami) environment. See Wright et al. 2008). ) 12. The FIDIS project (Future of Identity in the Information society) aimed to shape the requirements for the future management of identity in the European Information society (EIS)
Strategic intelligence for an Innovative economy, Springer, Berlin. de Smedt, P. 2010),‘The use of impact assessment tools to support sustainable policy objectives in Europe'',Ecology and Society, Vol. 15 No. 4
and technology (including biotechnology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, genetics and genomics, digital environments, ambient intelligence), data protection and privacy law, intellectual property, philosophy of law and legal theory.
or about the health and environmental hazards that actually can arise from nanomaterials, the general methodology can be adapted from procedures that are used broadly in the assessment of conventional materials technologies.
/Technological forecasting & Social Change 72 (2005) 1112 1121 1116 The term droadmapt is used widely, starting from graphical representations of technology development paths and their application environments up to detailed and ambitious
and environmental consequences or the threat to stimulate new understandings of dnaturalt and dartificialt or even dbeing humant are arising.
3 Other examples are immersive decision theatres (offering a virtual environment facility to visualise output of predictive and scenario-based models with the aim to support decision-making (Edsall and Larson
He saw innovation policies as horizontal policies that cover the whole innovation system by shaping a favourable innovation environment.
These invade both the qualitative and quantitative pieces of information that are joined to create outcomes for policy and management in all the STEEPV themes (Social, Technological, Economic, Ecology, Politics and Values and Norms.
and increasing turbulence in their external environment in order to explore how decision makeer select and use foresight practices and techniques for handling environmental uncertainty.
He expands the understanding of environmental uncertainty by defining the concept of‘boundary uncertainty, 'which regards the identity of the components of the business (micro) environment.
Vecchiato distinguishes between‘continuous'and‘discontinuous'drivers of change and explores their implications for strategic foresight. How do businesses develop successful continuity
and become economically wealthy while simultaneously following their vision of the tenets of sustainable development? Cagnin and Loveridge focus on innovation networks by suggesting a dynamic framework of continual learniin that enables a business to develop a capacity to anticipate
Decision-making in a virtual environment: Effectiveness of a semi-immersive Decision Theater in understanding and assessing human environment interactions. http://www. cartogis. org/docs/proceedings/2006/edsall larson. pdf (accessed 6 august 2012).
Hames, R. 2011a. Grand societal challenges beyond civilization metamorphosis as intentional evolution, keynote speech. Fourth international Seville conference on future-oriented technology analysis, May 12 13, Seville.
In practice, the upward movement of most mountaineers does not occur in an inert external environment. The environment is rarely a static result of sedimentation,
and sometimes mountains feel like anthills under construction. As many authors (Haldane 1931; Whitehead 1978; Maturana andvarela 1980;
Nishida 2012) have emphasissed the environment subject distinction fails to account for the mutual co-determination
and co-evolution of living beings and their environments. Yet, the movement towards future occurs in a context that can often be taken to be static in relation to the time scale of present action.
Real organisations live in environments where the environment and the focal firm co-evolve and mutually define each other
and a somewhat positivistic view that the environment provides the invariants and qualities that provide the basic building blocks of perception.
Technological discontinuities and organizational environments. Administrative Science Quarterly 31, no. 3: 439 65. van Asselt, M. B. A,
These invade both the qualitative and quantitative information co-joined to create outcomes for policy and management in all the STEEPV (Social, Technological, Economic, Ecology, Politics andvalues and Norms) themes.
and more broadly artefacts, can blend together across the entire STEEPV (Social, Technological, Economic, Ecology,
Its purpose now is to set technology in the context of socioeconomic matters, ecology, politics and human values/norms of the STEEPV set.
and requires more interaction with the environment. In detail the axiomatic perspective represents the theorem proof world of research.
In a recent UK newspaper article, George Monibot, a well-known environmental campaigner, claims that‘The unpalatable truth is that the anti-nuclear lobby has misled us all'over the effects of nuclear radiation on the human body measured by the number of deaths
After all, the conscious and deliberate production of expectations in foresight occurs in an environment where promises
as variations within a selection environment may or may not survive. The market is a distinct selection environment, next to institutional (regulations), cultural or political selection environments.
New technologies need protection to survive (in a company or a governmental programme), as they evolve by trial and error;
In Human choice and climate change, ed. S. Rayner and E. L. Malone, 327 99. Columbus:
matching environmental uncertainty Riccardo Vecchiato a a Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy Published online:
matching environmental uncertainty, Technology analysis & Strategic management, 24:8, 783-796, DOI: 10.1080/09537325.2012.715487 To link to this article:
matching environmental uncertainty Riccardo Vecchiato*Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy This paper explores how strategic decision-makers select
and use foresight practices and techniqque for handling environmental uncertainty. Our research is based on a multiple-case study of corporate organisations that recently faced major changes in their external environment and increasing turbulence.
We expand our understanding of environmental uncertainty by defining the concept of‘boundary uncertainty, 'which regards the identity of the components of the businees (micro) environment.
We distinguish between‘continuous'and‘discontinuous'drivers of change and find that they entail different requirements for the design and implementation of strategic foresight actions.
Keywords: environmental uncertainty; strategic foresight; planning; learning; strategic management Introduction The strategic management literature (Hofer and Schendel 1978;
Miles and Snow 1978; Teece 2007) and the organisation theory literature (Dill 1958; Thompson 1967) have emphasised long the role of the environment as a major source of uncertainty for strategic decision-makers in charge of coping with emerging opportunities and threats.
A broad range of heuristic approaches to coping with uncertainty have been developed in corporrat organisations: today, the term‘strategic foresight'is used widely to designate the activities
The main goal of strategic foresight is to select promptly drivers of change in the company's outside environment (environmental scanning:
how do managers design their strategic foresight approach in different environments and thus under different conditions of uncertainty?
In order to explore the relationships between environmental uncertainty, foresight, and strategic decision-making, we performed a multiple-case study of corporate organisations.
and refined their approaches to handling environmental uncertainty. We start examining the historical evolution and the main drivers of change in each industry of our sample firms since the early 1990s.
and the ways these actions fitted its environment. We thus expand our understanding of environmental uncertainty by defining the concept of‘boundary uncertainty'
which regards the core identity of the components of the business (micro) environment. We then distinguish between‘continuous'and‘discontinuous'drivers of change
and shed light on their implications for foresight and strategic decision-making. Environmental uncertainty and strategic foresight Conceptualisation of environmental uncertainty Early conceptualisations of uncertainty go back to pioneering management scholars such as Knight (1921) and March and Simon (1958),
who argued that the business environment of the firm is inherently unstable and this instability creates uncertainty for rationally bounded managers who are not able to fully collect, process,
‘environmental uncertainty'arises when managers lack accurate information Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:03 03 december 2014 Strategic foresight 785 about organisations, activities,
and events in their external environment; namely, when they are not confident that they can predict what the major changes are
and refers to the inability to understand how the components of the environment might change (e g. in the case of the automotive industry, the driver of change of ecological concern by public policy-makers in Europe:
Concerning the classification of the different components of the external environment that bring about uncertainty, Dill (1958) makes the distinction between‘general'and‘task'environments.
The latter one is made up of elements and sectors with which the firm has direct contact and that directly affect business strategy, day-to-day operations,
According to the organisation theory, the task environment has been defined initially to include the sectors of competitors, suppliers, customers, and regulatory bodies.
The strategic management theory expands the concept of task environment by defining the broader concept of business micro environment
The general environment refers, instead, to the sectors that affect the firm indirectly; these are the political, economic, ecological, societal,
and technological (PEEST) landscapes that surrooun the business micro environment and today are referred commonly to as the business macro environment (Fahey and Randall 1998).
Strategic foresight: practices and techniques The challenge of coping with increasing uncertainty encouraged new analytical approaches to decision-making and long-range planning:
but in preparing to deal with the future by means of a learning process that helps the organisation to remain matched to its changing environment (van der Heijden et al. 2002;
what conditions of environmental uncertainty a given practice or technique is more appropriate and effective than others.
Extant research streams of environmental uncertainty and strategic foresight are aligned not seamlessly. The following issue in particular remains largely unexplored:
how do managers design their strategic foresight approach in different environments and thus under different conditions of uncertainty?
We aim at expanding our understanding of environmental uncertainty by exploring the different kinds of drivers of change
and refined their approaches to handling environmental uncertainty. Table 1. Overview of case studies. Firm Business Foresight activities started Philips Consumer electronics Early 1990s BASF Chemicals Mid-1990s Daimler Automotive Late 1970s Siemens Consumer Products,
Cross-case analysis and theory triangulation with different bodies of literatuur on environmental uncertainty, foresight,
Matching strategic foresight with environmental uncertainty: empirical evidence In this section, we illustrate the main findings of our research.
and automotive) where the main drivers of change stemmed from the macro environment; on the other hand, Philips and Siemens operated in fastpaace industries (consumer electronics and information and communication technology (ICT))
Foresight in mature industries Environmental uncertainty and foresight approach The chemical and automotive industries throughout the last decade were typically mature and global industries where trajectories of technologies
The boundaries between the micro and macro environments were blurred in these industries; the huge number of drivers of change in the PEEST landscapes, their strong mutual influences,
and stricter environmental rules, while, at the same time, the rapid development of ICT tools made the market far more transparent and increased the pressure to optimise commodity production.
and integrating analyses of future changes in the macro environment into market and product issues. Foresight activities address major trends and forces in the political, economic, infrastructural, social,
as macro trends in the global environment are translated down into priorities for action in specific innovation fields.
in the performance products and construction sectors, macro trends of increasing pressure on cost-saving, environmental concerrns and growing urbanisation have led the firm to boost product development in the thermal insulation,
Foresight in fast-paced industries Environmental uncertainty and foresight approach The consumer electronics and ICT industries
which means an‘intelligent home environment'that utilises a wide range of interconnected and embedded digital devices to make the environment sensitive, adaptive,
and responsive to the presence of people. By following this vision, Philips has built its core technological competencies around displays, connectivity,
which major companies of different industries coped with increasing environmental uncertaiinty More generally, our findings offer the broad outline of a conceptual framework regarding how decision-makers match strategic foresight with environmental uncertainty.
All the firms of our sample were able to detect promptly the key drivers of change in their business.
this regards the impact of drivers of change on the identity of the main activities of the value chain and the main components of the business (micro) environment, that is, rivals, suppliers, customers, substitute products,
and the consumer electronics and ICT businesses, on the other hand, are suited well to illustrate what types of uncertainty a firm may face in its external environment
The key drivers of change for example, rise of new rivals from emerging countries and financial crisis had relevant consequeence on the evolution of the main components of the business (micro) environment and thus on the organisation.
drivers of change in the consumer electronics business of Philips (or the broader ICT business in the case of Siemens) affected the identity of the main components of the micro environment itself and thus brought about‘boundary'uncertainty.
and enhance the traditioona identity of the main components of the business micro environment, leading to incremental developments in the value chain, products, and services.
and stem from the macro environment (PEEST landscapes which surrounds the industry. 7 The second category is‘discontinuous'drivers of change that bring about boundary uncertainty, by leading to completely new kinds of products, players,
which help managers to figure out the (new) identity of the main components of the business micro environment and the new activities (and products and services) of the value chain.
However, much additional research must be done for improving and expanding this conceptual framework through the study of environmental uncertaiint and foresight activities in other industries and firms.‘
and Phd graduates. 3. Roadmaps consist of representations of interconnected nodes of major changes and events in some selected fields of the external environment, such as science, technology, and markets.
Environment as an influence on managerial autonomy. Administrative Science Quarterly 2, no. 4: 409 43.
Characteristics of organizational environments and perceived environmental uncertainty. Administraativ Science Quarterly 17, no. 3: 313 27.
Strategic planning in a turbulent environment: Evidence from the oil majors. Strategic management Journal 24, no. 6: 491 517.
Organization and environment. Boston, MA: Harvard university Press. March, J. G, . and H. A. Simon. 1958.
Three types of perceived uncertainty about the environment: State, effect, and response uncertainty. Academy of Management Review 12, no. 1: 133 43.
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