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The project

The Complexity Appropriate Participatory Techniques Utilised for Reimagining Energy policy Design (CAPTURED) project used participatory methods to engage policymakers, planners, and analysts from the public, private, and third sectors in the UK, who were experts in domains such as the green economy, green finance, net zero, and sustainability, to envision alternative UK green economy futures leading up to 2050. The work helped uncover narratives of green economy futures by minimally and maximally extrapolating relevant current signals and trends – emerging and more established indications of change – and mapping them along Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, and Political (STEEP) dimensions.

Methods

The project combined desk-based research, an online survey, and two in-person participatory workshops. The first workshop focused on horizon scanning, where participants used seed documents (knowledge uncovered from desk-based research) to critically reflect on developments to identify signals and trends relevant to the green economy. Trends are patterns of change already underway and widely recognised – see, for example, the

Signals, on the other hand, are early indications of change that are not yet well established but may evolve into trends. In the second workshop on scenario planning and backcasting, through structured, facilitated deliberation activities, participants developed and mapped a range of future green economy scenarios, including preferable (desirable future states), probable (likely futures based on current trends), plausible (reasonable extrapolations of futures based on current trends), and possible (broader imagined futures )scenarios described along Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, and Political (STEEP) dimensions – see figure below

Figure : CAPTURED illustration of a Futures Cone, drawing on other Futures Cone illustrations (, and )

Results

The two main visions for a desired Green Economy 2050 were a multi-value society that balances nature and wellbeing and a happily sufficient society – the former emphasised balancing different values and ambitions, and the latter emphasised that trade-offs will be inevitable. Equitable carbon pricing, limiting climate-related misinformation, global peace, and long-term governance strategies were common enablers in both visions. Alternative visions include 'the fall before the rise', 'out of this world', 'on the road to nowhere', and 'techno-optimistic dystopia'. Watch this space forthe CAPTURED team’s upcoming report on potential trajectories for the UK’s green economy transition, which will unpack a broad range of interlinked social, technological, economic, environmental, and political factors shaping this transition.