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Autonomous vehicles (AVs) can potentially bring about major changes in cities. Anticipatory planning approaches may provide valuable opportunities for fostering desirable transitions and pre-empting undesirable impacts. This research employs a combination of two methods to define the key policies to support a transition to the desirable driverless urban futures: the backcasting approach and the participatory Q-method. The combination of these techniques aims to identify different viewpoints about policies with the purpose of determining more effective and more acceptable options. The article analyses viewpoints from 20 citizens and 10 experts. The results point to the existence of two main viewpoints about the most and least desirable policies. The first viewpoint centres around increasing pedestrian mobility and promoting a more compact city. The second viewpoint centres around expanding transit-oriented development (TOD) and new networks of green spaces. Meanwhile, support for regulation-oriented policies to discourage the use of private motorised vehicles was relatively low. This research not only sheds light on the different viewpoints on the policies to achieve more desirable urban visions, it also illustrates the tensions and disagreements that may arise in the process of policy-making. • Autonomous vehicles (AVs) can bring about major changes in cities. • A combination of backcasting and Q-method is employed to define key policy measures. • Two main viewpoints about most and least desirable policy measures were detected. • Pedestrian mobility, compact cities, TOD and green spaces focus the main viewpoints. • Support for regulation-oriented policies on privately owned vehicles was fairly low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to stakeholders, many European farming systems are close to critical thresholds regarding the challenges they face (e.g., droughts, price declines), functions they deliver (e.g., economic viability, biodiversity and habitat) and attributes required for resilience (e.g., social self-organization). To accelerate a transition process towards sustainable and resilient agriculture, this study aimed to identify actor-supported alternative systems across 10 European farming systems, and to identify associated future strategies that contribute to strengthening resilience attributes, using a backcasting approach. This paper synthesizes 1) the participatory identification of desired alternative systems and their expected performance on sustainability and resilience, 2) the participatory identification of strategies to realize those alternative systems, 3) the contribution of identified past and future strategies to 22 resilience attributes, and 4) the compatibility of the status quo and alternative systems with different future scenarios, the Eur-Agri-SSPs. Many identified alternative systems emphasized technology, diversification and organic and/or nature friendly farming, while in some farming systems also a focus on intensification, specialization, better product valorization, collaboration, or creating an attractive countryside could increase sustainability and resilience. Low economic viability limited farming system actors to pay attention to environmental and social functions. Further, most alternative systems were adaptations rather than transformations. Many stakeholders had difficulty to envisage systems without the main products (e.g., starch potato in NL-Arable, sheep in ES-Sheep and hazelnut in IT-Hazelnut), but in few cases transformative systems were designed (e.g. local organic farming in PL-Horticulture and RO-Mixed). Sustainability and resilience can be enhanced when alternative systems and strategies are combined, thereby improving multiple functions and attributes at once. In particular, production and legislation need to be coupled to local and natural capital. Identified alternative systems seem only compatible with Eur-Agri-SSP1 'agriculture on sustainable paths'. This requires policies at EU-level that stimulate macro-level social, institutional, economic, and technological developments that strengthen this scenario. We conclude that to get stakeholders along, incremental adaptation rather than radical transformation should be sought. The identification of alternative systems is only a start for the transition process. Their analysis, along with the strategies identified, need to trigger the involvement of farmers and other 'enabling actors' inside and outside the farming systems to make a change, and where needed, systems can evolve into more transformative systems. [Display omitted] • Backcasting was used to identify alternative European farming systems supported by stakeholders. • Low economic viability limited farming system actors to improve sustainability and resilience. • Desired alternative systems are diverse but only compatible with the 'sustainable paths' scenario. • To strengthen resilience, production and legislation need to be coupled to local and natural capital. • To get stakeholders along, incremental adaptation rather than radical transformation should be sought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to structure the workshop framework 'empowering local stakeholders to create a "place strategy"', a spatial planning and management strategy for enhancing place function in a district. This strategy primarily focuses on the team-up phase for stakeholders with human and financial resources, whose mission is to bridge a backcasting vision to the next step involving others and users of the streets. Referring to the 'link and place' theory, originally developed in England and adapted to fit the alternative plans suggested by municipal officials at the community level, the paper establishes a toolkit and sessions for the conduct of a community-led workshop in Japan. The prototype workshop was implemented for the place strategy of Omotesando, a mixed land-use district with a famous shopping avenue in Tokyo. The validity of the workshop was examined based on opinion changes and the feedback of participants at each session. The results show that the prototype can draw the participant's consciousness on both the link and place functions, including a perspective on effective bus service. The policy option guides affected the participants' choice of flexible tactics by illustrating the relationship of link and place, which is not necessarily a trade-off. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability responses must accelerate to avoid major risks to cities. Climate change impact on cities, likely to be significant if global sustainability initiatives are not quickened, is a paramount example of the risk. World wide meetings of city planning practitioners and researchers agree that an urgent agenda is to work together to empower cities and their governments with funds, tools and mentoring to make the responses needed. In the spirit of this urgent agenda, this paper introduces some practical methods for assessing sustainability associated with transport and urban form in our cities. A concept of strategic scans of future scenarios, which underpins the backcasting approach, has been introduced at the 12 th World Conference on Transport Research (WCTR) in 2010 and has broken urban and transport planning trend. These strategic scans are based on a sustainability framework, the elements of which provide evidence based drivers of sustainability. The framework culminates in metric visualisations for each of the three pillars of sustainability. The paper details some of the operational aspects of these metrics in the form of environmental sustainability-accessibility space, putting into practice measures of environmental stewardship, social equity, economic efficiency, and the relationship among them. The paper concludes with a call of developing a typology of sustainability performance using the strategic scan methodology to extend the principles of the methodology into a useful tool for city governments and contribute to assembling a daTablease of city forms, transport structures, and their sustainability performances.

Much attention is being paid to sustainable development goals (SDGs), among which the focus of this paper is on sustainable consumption and production (SCP) in Southeast Asia. The key challenge here is to minimize resource and energy consumption while ensuring an appropriate level of quality of life (QOL). The research question is how visions of SCP in this region in 2050 look like and how the pathways to these visions from the present should be connected. To answer this question, we take a backcasting scenario design approach to gain insight into SCP visions using expert workshops. Generated ideas are represented in the form of logic trees to clarify the cause-effect chain between goals to achieve the vision and possible actions to be taken. Based on the results, the desirable linkage between consumers and producers is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industries have set ambitious targets for 2030 related to green building: Tripling the market share of wood construction, doubling the value added of the woodworking industries and reducing the environmental impact of construction by 30%. The objective of the study is to identify measures for meeting these targets, taking the case of wood-frame multi-story construction in Finland. The study introduces a combination of consensus and dissensus based Delphi techniques within the framework of target-orientated backcasting. The results point to two alternative pathways: i) gradual increase of competition and the resulting increased credibility among the construction professionals, and ii) moving downstream in the construction value chain and introducing more direct policy support measures. The realization of the targets was considered more likely by following the latter pathway, yet it was considered unattractive by industry stakeholders. Thus, the industries need to either revisit their targets for 2030, or reconsider the strategies for pursuing them. Moreover, instead of traditional norms, the public sector may have to pursue novel measures for promoting business opportunities in green building. The combinatory approach allowed both exploring tensions among the experts' and stakeholders’ opinions and critically evaluating the possibility of achieving the targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Future scenarios are often used to address long-term challenges characterised by uncertainty and complexity, as they can help explore different alternative future pathways. Scenarios can therefore be a useful tool to support policy and guide action towards sustainability. But what sustainability aspects are put forward in scenarios and how are they assessed? This paper aims to explore how to assess future scenarios, categorised according to Börjeson et al. (Futures 38:723-739, 2006) i.e. predictive, explorative and normative scenarios. By conducting a literature review and a document analysis, we map tools and methods that are currently used to assess environmental and social sustainability aspects in scenarios. We also draw on experiences from methods for impact assessments of Swedish municipal comprehensive plans, which can be considered as future scenarios. We identify whether some sustainability aspects are less recurrent than others in the reviewed assessments or even left out. We find that there is no single tool that can be used to assess scenarios. Some quantitative tools based on databases may be more suitable for assessing scenarios within a shorter time horizon, whereas qualitative assessment methods might better fit the purpose of long-term transformative scenarios. We also find that assessment frameworks may be useful to guide the assessment, as to what its intended purpose is and which sustainability aspects to include. Finally we discuss whether further assessment tools are needed in order to include a wider array of potential environmental or social consequences of the content of scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of resilience is a crucial part in crafting visions of desirable futures designed to withstand the widest variety of external shocks to the system. Backcasting scenarios are widely used to envision desirable futures with a discontinuous change from the present in mind. However, less effort has been devoted to developing theoretical frameworks and methods for building backcasting scenarios with a particular focus on resilience, although resilience has been explored in related sustainability fields. This paper proposes a method that helps design backcasting scenarios for resilient futures. A characteristic of the method is to delineate “collapse” futures, based upon which resilient futures are described to avoid the various collapsed states. In the process of designing backcasting scenarios, fault tree analysis (FTA) is used to support the generation of various risk factors and countermeasures to improve resilience. In order to test the effectiveness of the proposed method, we provide a case study to describe resilient energy systems for a Japanese community to 2030. Four expert workshops involving researchers from different disciplines were organized to generate diversified ideas on resilient energy systems. The results show that three scenarios of collapsed energy systems were described, in which policy options to be taken toward achieving resilient energy systems were derived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Planning Support Systems (PSSs) have advanced the process of scenario planning by anticipating potential future outcomes to specific scenario stimulus or investment choices. The models used in these PSSs have typically been restricted to forward-looking exercises, limiting the depth and breadth of understanding of particular problem sets. In this paper we argue that PSS-based scenario planning processes and outcomes might be improved by including multi-directional temporal analysis. This includes alternative timeline navigation methods such as backcasting, recasting, and pastcasting, along with traditional (forward looking) forecasting. These methods can greatly improve the general understanding of modeled results by providing an ability to more deeply inspect the potential consequences of proposed scenarios. We demonstrate these benefits using an application of University of Illinois' Land-use Evolution and impact Assessment Model (LEAM) in McHenry County, IL. In this study, multi-directional techniques were used to analyze the results of LEAM simulation scenarios in terms of actual county spatial and population distributions. Possible issues of variable co-linearity and error attribution were addressed along with a method for improving explanatory power through parameter shrinkage. Based on analysis, we discuss how the ability to navigate through timelines can augment scenario planning processes and help guide strategic sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the scenarios, visions and strategies that resulted from a three day foresight workshop for Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM) in Melaka, Malaysia. The workshop used the 'six pillars' approach to foresight. The methods used included: The futures triangle, emerging issues analysis, the futures wheel, the Sarkar game and macrohistory, causal layered analysis, the integrated scenario method, visioning and backcasting. The workshop concluded with three alternatives: UTeM Everywhere, UTeM - Industry Integrated and UTeM SOHO. These visions were complementary in the preparation of the UTeM Strategic Plan 2012-2020. The workshop has led to new and executable strategies as the university forges ahead towards 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2008 crisis highlighted how fragile the labour markets of the European Union's member states were, while it also directed attention to the eventual further deepening of integration as a potential solution. Nevertheless, employment and labour market policy competences are still on the national level with relatively low EU intervention. In a recent study, we explored the role of the EU in facilitating potential policy solutions with regards to labour market resilience until 2030. The study focused on labour market experts' opinion, coming from different European countries; and took form of an online Policy Delphi Survey combined with backcasting to predict the importance and feasibility of policies concerning future challenges. The most important policies considered to be best suited to deal with the main challenges of the labour market in the EU until 2030 are education, investment in human and social capital and improvement of social policies and protection, including migration policy. The research revealed a systematic gap between the importance and feasibility of relevant solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest in food systems sustainability is growing, but progress toward them is slow. This research focuses on three interrelated challenges that hinder progress. First, prevailing visions lack a concrete definition of sustainability. Second, global level conceptions fail to guide responses at the local level. Third, these deficiencies may lead to conflicting initiatives for addressing sustainable food systems at the community level that slow collective progress. The purpose of this article is to (1) describe the development of a framework for assessing food system sustainability which accommodates local-level measurement in the context of broader national and global scale measures; and (2) to propose a process that supports community determinacy over localized progress toward sustainable food systems. Using a modified Delphi Inquiry process, we engaged a diverse, global panel of experts in describing "success" with respect to sustainable food systems, today's reality, and identifying key indicators for tracking progress towards success. They were asked to consider scale during the process in order to explore locally relevant themes. Data were analyzed using the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD) to facilitate a comprehensive and systematic exploration of key themes and indicators. Key results include a framework of indicator themes that are anchored in a concrete definition of sustainability, stable at national and global scales while remaining flexible at the local scale to accommodate contextual needs. We also propose a process for facilitating community-level planning for food system sustainability that utilizes this indicator framework. The proposed process is based on insights from the research results, as well as from previous research and experience applying the FSSD at a community level; it bears promise for future work to support communities to determine their own pathways, while contributing to a more coordinated whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizations displaying best practices for attaining proactive sustainability targets at local level are of major importance as role models in the transition toward a sustainable transport system. This study summarizes results and conclusions from 20 municipalities in Sweden that have implemented the so called CERO analysis in order to adapt to future emission targets for travel. The overall aim of the study is to identify factors explaining why some municipalities are more successful than others in a benchmarking comparison. The results indicate that commuting by car is by far the most dominant source of emissions, constituting on average 76% of total annual travel emissions (including both commuting and business travel). In order to reduce these emissions, travel planning programs within organizations must address both commuting conditions and business travel conditions to reduce car dependence for work travel, e.g., employees using private cars for business trips most likely also use their own cars for commuting. To identify potential success factors as regards emissions-efficient travel, three comparative statistical analyses were conducted: grouping municipalities with low emissions in relation to the total average; analysis of car commuters' willingness to change travel mode; and before-and-after analyses of municipalities implementing specific action plans. The results revealed that municipalities conducting follow-up studies 2 years after implementing travel planning programs all lowered their total CO2emissions, by on average 10% during a 2-year period. Overall, these municipalities achieved redistribution to alternative travel modes but also reduced total travel mileage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Food waste in hospitals is of major concern for two reasons: one, healthcare needs to move toward preventative and demand led models for sustainability and two, food system sustainability needs to seek preventative measures such as diet adaptation and waste prevention. The impact of breast-milk substitute use on health services are well established in literature in terms of healthcare implications, cost and resourcing, however as a food demand and waste management issue little has been published to date. This paper presents the use of a desk based backcasting method to analyse food waste prevention, mitigation and management options within the Irish Maternity Service. Best practice in healthcare provision and waste management regulations are used to frame solutions. Strategic problem orientation revealed that 61% of the volume of ready to use breast-milk substitutes purchased by maternity services remains unconsumed and ends up as waste. Thirteen viable strategies to prevent and manage this waste were identified. Significant opportunities exist to prevent waste and also decrease food demand leading to both positive health and environmental outcomes. Backcasting methods display great promise in delivering food waste management strategies in healthcare settings, especially where evidenced best practice policies exist to inform solution forming processes. In terms of food waste prevention and management, difficulties arise in distinguishing between demand reduction, waste prevention and waste reduction measures under the current Waste Management Hierarchy definitions. Ultimately demand reduction at source requires prioritisation, a strategy which is complimentary to health policy on infant feeding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assuming communities in a city may formally express their aspirations for the future sustainability of their city, which technological innovations for changing the city's infrastructure and metabolism might they introduce today, as a first step towards realizing their distant aspirations? What is more, recognizing the diversity of aspirations that may never be reconciled into a consensus, might some innovations and policy interventions be nevertheless more privileged than others, in being non-foreclosing? How might we discover this? These questions are addressed through a computational case study of London. The city's metabolism is modeled as the set of interacting, cross-sectoral (water, food, energy, waste) flows of carbon (C), nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), water, and energy. Given various degrees of target improvements in an accompanying set of metabolic performance metrics, and given four candidate technological innovations in the water sector, an inverse (or “backcasting”) analysis is implemented in order to identify the key technological, policy, social, and climate-related features determining whether the community's aspirations — through the surrogates of the metabolic performance metrics — are attainable (or not), under substantial uncertainty. From this, the paper proceeds to examine which businesses are currently marketing some of the so-identified key technological innovations. It closes with a brief review of the related status of the economic justifications and social changes that may either promote or stifle the opportunities for London to move towards a higher niveau of sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports on a comparative study of three different cases on vision and strategy development for climate change adaptation planning in (i) The South African Breede-Overberg Catchment, (ii) The Mississippi Estuary-New Orleans region and (iii) The Dutch Rhine-Meuse Estuary. The objective of the paper is twofold: to develop a better understanding of such processes and to further develop the Backcasting-Adaptive Management (BCAM) methodology. A framework for case evaluation is developed using six dimensions: (i) inputs and resources, (ii) future vision, (iii) stakeholder engagement, (iv) methodological aspects, (v) pathway development and (vi) impact. Major conclusions based on a cross-case comparison and testing propositions are (i) participatory vision development is a strong tool for climate change adaptation planning in different governance contexts and shows considerable diversity in its application in these contexts; (ii) a single, shared future vision is not a prerequisite for vision and pathway development and endorsement; (iii) broad stakeholder engagement enriches strategy development, but the involvement of marginal groups requires additional efforts and capacity building; (iv) multiple pathways and robust elements are useful but require novel expertise; and (v) more institutional embeddedness and support for participatory processes lead to better implementation of the outcomes of these processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to give a comprehensive and cohesive description of the most recent version of the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD), and also to describe and discuss the overall method for developing the FSSD, elaborate on the general rational for and general benefits of a framework of this type, and validate benefits of the FSSD through examples of its application. The purpose is also to point to pertinent future work. In preparation of this paper, we have reviewed previous publications and other documents related to the FSSD and reflected on the 25-year learning process between scientists and practitioners. We conclude that the FSSD has proven to aid organizations in thoroughly understanding and putting themselves in context of the global sustainability challenge, and to move themselves strategically towards sustainability, i.e., to stepwise reduce their negative impacts on ecological and social systems at large while strengthening the own organization through capturing of innovation opportunities, including new business models, exploration of new markets and winning of new market shares, and through reduced risks and operation costs. Specifically, we conclude that the FSSD aids more effective management of system boundaries and trade-offs, makes it possible to model and assess sustainable potentials for various materials and practices before investments are made, and offers the possibility for more effective collaboration across disciplines and sectors, regions, value-chains and stakeholder groups. We also conclude that the FSSD makes it possible to prevent damages, even from yet unknown problems, and not the least, to guide selection, development and combination of supplementary methods, tools, and other forms of support, which makes it possible to increase their utility for strategic sustainable development. Finally, we have shown that the FSSD is useful for structuring transdisciplinary academic education and research. Several examples of ongoing FSSD related research, as well as ideas for future work, are given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education has a strong influence in shaping the mental models of many of society's professionals and leaders and is a critical leverage point in creating a sustainable society. The American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) was launched in 2006 as a collective effort by higher education institutions to pursue climate neutrality in campus operations and integrate climate and sustainability into their education, research, and community engagement activities. While there had been significant growth in higher education sustainability initiatives over the preceding decade, the ACUPCC helped shift these from a collection of distinct programs to a strategic imperative for colleges and universities. The initiative promotes cross-disciplinary education, research, and practice needed for society to achieve sustainability. The ACUPCC network provides leadership-by-example for the rest of society to move towards sustainability. It aligns closely with the five-level Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD), in that (1) the system it aims to influence is global society over a long period of time; (2) success is defined by what is scientifically necessary in line with the sustainability principles of the FSSD; (3) a backcasting approach is employed as institutions set a compelling vision of success by establishing a target date for climate neutrality, and evaluate their current reality in relation to that vision by completing greenhouse gas inventories and assessing education, research, and community engagement activities; (4) institutions take action and publicly report on their progress; and (5) a variety of tools are employed to support those actions. The ACUPCC has had a significant impact to date in terms of greening campus operations, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and expanding educational offerings on climate and sustainability. Despite its lack of specific goals and metrics in comprehensive curriculum reform, research, community engagement, endowment investing, and campus resilience, it provides a necessary foundation for new initiatives supporting continuous improvements in these areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable transport analyses are traditionally carried out from two fundamentally different perspectives: a) Internal travel analysis at an organisational level, often as part of corporate environmental audits to develop internal travel policies and company travel plans. b) Macro analysis of the transport system at large, in order to assess traffic flows in relation to alternative infrastructure measures and policy actions at regional level. From a holistic global perspective, both these subsystems should share common visions and long-term targets for sustainability. This would require derivation of processes and tools by which subsystems at different scales could be interlinked and informed by global principles for sustainability. A key component of such work would be to synthesise approaches (a) and (b) in order to facilitate mutual understanding between private and public actors, and between public transport authorities governing the supply of transport services. At present there is rarely mutual understanding between these parties, which risks creating watertight bulkheads between users and providers in the transport system. This case study examined a local travel planning network in the largest business district of Sweden, Kista Science City (KSC), where (as in most larger urban business districts in the world) travel demand is likely to exceed the capacity of the transport system in the coming decade. To counteract this development, some major companies were invited to join the decision process in a joint venture with public authorities. In the project, a backcasting-orientated travel planning model was applied and refined for future monitoring of the process in a regional context. Key findings were: • Identification of motives for companies to engage in company travel planning. • Demonstration of a need for construction of tangible target scenarios pinpointing the utility and benefits of target fulfilment from both a company and an employee perspective. • The first follow-up results of Climate and Economic Research in Organisations (CERO) processes implemented in companies, which showed that emissions reduction targets were met (and even exceeded). • Construction of a regional target scenario, consistent with the company-specific target scenarios, in order to obtain constructive and target-orientated stakeholder dialogue. • Final selection of a regional action plan designed to meet the regional target scenario for KSC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increasing need for the manufacturing industry to achieve environmental sustainability. Scenario design is a promising approach to delineating multiple visions of sustainable manufacturing industries (SMIs). This paper aims to discuss advantages and challenges of a scenario design approach for achieving SMIs. To this end, we review existing scenarios and methods associated with SMIs. Using a backcasting scenario design method, we carry out a case study of Japan's SMI to 2050 in order to examine the potential of scenario design. The results reveal that computer-aided scenario design is helpful for clarifying the logical structure and rationales of the scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sweden faces a number of environmental challenges. Municipalities can play an important role in managing these challenges. Using interviews with 13 municipalities in the county of Östergötland, the manner via which environmental visions and strategies were developed and implemented, and the challenges were explored. Differences were found in the effective development and implementation of both environmental visions and strategies due to a range of factors including the range and level of involvement of different stakeholders, variation in what constituted an environmental strategy, and the time horizons employed for the visions. Suggestions for how best to overcome the barriers are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new set of objectives for sustainable development are now in place, known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and countries need to develop concrete policy roadmaps to achieve them. This is particularly challenging in the agricultural sector given the heterogeneity of local conditions, the diffuse nature of its environmental impacts, and the important interactions with various aspects of sustainable development – from education and poverty alleviation, to human health and the environment. And yet it is precisely because of these interactions that vibrant, resilient and sustainable national agricultural sectors are key to the SDGs’ success. This paper presents a practical backcasting approach and methodological toolkit – developed by the Agricultural Transformation Pathways (ATP) initiative under the auspices of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) – for countries to develop policy roadmaps towards 2030 using local tools and expertise that could help transform national agricultural sectors in a way that is consistent with the SDGs. This approach is illustrated using the Uruguayan beef sector as a case study, where productivity and environmental targets were developed in tandem with a wide range of stakeholders in order to maximize productivity, while minimizing a suite of environmental impacts – from carbon footprint and biodiversity, to nitrogen losses. This marks the beginning of a new approach to achieving the SDGs in the agricultural sector: participatory target setting and pathway development across a number of areas crucial to sustainable development – all under a harmonized framework provided by the ATP initiative. We hope the methodological approach and results of the Uruguay case study will become a touchstone for future work in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, low carbon scenarios have a propensity to focus either upon qualitative, social trend based approaches to developing futures or upon purely technological, engineering based views of an energy ‘system’ within specified emissions constraints. It is now recognised that transition scenarios attempting to examine pathways towards low carbon futures must not only address the social aspects of the system but also, due to their interdependency, the technological aspects. Notwithstanding the limitations of quantitative analysis, its inclusion must be regarded as being an essential component to the study of transition pathways towards a low carbon society, given that the metrics used to indicate the status of the system are quantitative. The objective of this study is to expound a ‘systems’ approach for an integrated quantitative and qualitative analysis of low carbon transition pathways. This is achieved through an interdisciplinary conflation of the Life Cycle Assessment and the Socio-Technical Scenario tools, a strategy that acknowledges the interconnectedness of the societal and the technical aspects of sustainability. An explicit adoption of a backcasting perspective further strengthens the approach with regard to emissions target fulfilment. The integrated methodology, as advanced in this study, synthesises these two tools in a way that helps overcome the limitations of each while also adding synergies that provide additional analytical capacity. The principal benefit of adopting this interdisciplinary ‘systems’ approach to the study of low carbon transitions is to improve the resolution of transition policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

General backcasting as a decision support and planning method starts from desired future states and simulates developments backwards until reaching the present state. Development pathways that reveal steps to be taken to reach a certain future state, and milestones that serve as interim goals, are created during the process. Backcasting has hitherto only been applied in workshops or as a theoretical framework and no spatially explicit backcasting model has previously been established. This paper presents the development of a spatially explicit backcasting model. The proposed model first creates a future scenario utilizing an agent-based model and then simulates backwards. It is implemented using the programming language Python. The model has been applied to a case study for sustainable land-use planning in Salzburg, Austria. The results of the model run show a successful backcasting of land-use classes from a future state back to the present, in 10 year time steps. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Manufacturing industry is required to transform itself into sustainable form. For this task, drawing images of sustainable manufacturing through developing a “scenario” is a hopeful means. When developing a scenario, the developers draw several future visions and transition paths qualitatively and quantitatively. However, scenario development is difficult and exhaustive task. In order to tackle this problem, referring the ideas of design engineering, we propose a framework of “scenario design” and develop a computational support method for scenario design. Based on this, we proposed a computable scenario model and a scenario design process. The proposed model includes sub models expressing intermediate states between the motivation for developing scenario and a documented scenario. We proposed a scenario design process includes four steps in which the scenario is designed in stepwise manner. In the first step, the designers clarify the objective, backgrounds, and outline of the scenario as a whole. In the second step, the designers determine the scenario structure, the number and outlines of sub scenarios. In the third step, the designers elaborate the details of the scenario qualitatively and quantitatively. At last in the fourth step, the result of the scenario design is documented for outreach activities. We implemented a backcasting scenario design support method proposed in a previous study on the design model and the design process. We developed a backcasting scenario design support system. As a case study, we designed Sustainable Manufacturing Scenario with the proposed method and the support system, in which economically and environmentally sustainable futures of Japanese manufacturing industry is envisioned. Through the case study, the effectiveness of the proposed design method and the support system is verified.