Category: foresight

How to make the energy transition happen?

Back this week from an interesting project to help an company plan the energy transition of one of its (energy-intensive) sites.  A couple of observations: The legal certainty created by the Dutch Carbon Tax provides something very tangible to build off. Unlike the Emissions Trading System, it provides a very clear indication of the price […]

foresight, implementation

More direct highspeed train travel in Europe

(About to be) stucked in Airports these days? We need more highspeed nonstop train connecting major cities now! Is my personal opinion and wish of many of us here at 4Sing. We are committed to lower our CO2 footprint – which is largely caused by travel. Hence, in the last months we all happily shifted more […]

foresight

Food Populism and Politics, dead end?

In the last decades a number of political movements have won rural voters with promises to defend local farmers against global capitalism, commonly known as “Food Populism and Politics”. This has been easy enough, as farmers perceive agricultural policy to be an existential issue, whereas the (much more numerous) consumers of food products have, until […]

events, foresight, implementation, journeys, knowledge, strategy, vision

How to be a catalyst?

When I first (officially) started working on multi-stakeholder foresight work 30 years ago, the community was not so big. Fast forward to today, and the numbers engaged has rocketed – and correspondingly it has become harder to know everybody else. It was therefore a great pleasure to see how the Nomads Foundation and I were […]

events, foresight, multi-stakeholder

Growing awareness of Foresight, OECD, Paris

The Annual Meeting of the OECD Government Foresight Community (GFC) in Paris, 7-8 October, was again a high point for those following the future of governance and strategic foresight. Thanks to Strategic Foresight Counsellor Duncan Cass-Beggs and his excellent team, the Community is growing, with great presentations by Futurists, governments using foresight, researchers and practitioners […]

events, foresight

Atelier de construction de scénarios prospectifs, Paris

De nouveau à Paris, en l’occurrence afin donner une perspective supplémentaire aux participants lors de la formation « Atelier de construction de scénarios prospectifs » de Futuribles. Merci à François de Jouvenel, Cécile Désaunay, et Corinne Roëls pour l’invitation. Comme toujours, beaucoup de personnes à rencontrer (merci à Marie-Hélène Caillol, Joshua Polchar, et Jean-Robert Bornand […]

foresight, tools

From one subject to another in the Netherlands and Germany

One of the perks of being a methods-based (rather than content expert) foresight and strategy consultant is the variety of sectors you get to work on. Last week it was detergents and agriculture, this week it has so far been renewable energy and (High-school) education, and tomorrow it is about printing!

foresight

ESPAS Annual Conference: Global Trends to 2030: The Making of a New Geopolitical Order?

Thanks to Daniele Réchard and her team for organising an excellent day as part of the ESPAS ‘Global Trends to 2030: The Making of a New Geopolitical Order?’ event, and good to see so many friends there, inter alia Angela Wilkinson, Aaron Maniam, Jeanette Kwek, Norbert Reez, Jaana Tapanainen, Kristel Vanderelst, Thomas Lehr, Alun Rhydderch, […]

events, foresight

What future? Foresight and theatre

Thanks to Andres Veiel and Jutta Doberstein for the chance to have co-moderated a fascinating couple of sessions on “Welche Zukunft”at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. Turning the usual process on its head, we gathered headlines of future news from 250 participants who sacrificed their Saturday to look at how the future may change – […]

events, foresight