loop-de-loop or lah-de-dah: which future?

loop scenario

Speaking of scenarios, WBCSD brought its Young Managers Team to Geneva last week to play with future scenarios regarding alternative business responses to climate change.

The objective, says WBCSD, is to engage high-potential young professionals in a long-term campaign to move sustainable development to the center of business thinking.

Says WBCSD, “The business leaders of tomorrow will need new skills and competencies to cope with increasingly urgent social and environmental challenges, and they have an enormous stake in the future and are necessary in building a long-term business perspective.”

The underlying notion in these scenarios is that consumer attitudes and business regulation are most uncertain and important in determining the role that business can play in shifting consumption patterns toward or away from sustainability.

Right. So, wot scenarios did they imagine?

One I particularly liked is called ‘LOOP’, in which conscientious consumers and an international regulatory framework provide the starting point from which to build different possible futures.

In the LOOP scenario:

“Natural resource shortages and resource wars have driven countries into resource and trade protectionism. Many adopt strong regulations including measures to direct consumer choices toward sustainable consumption. A new generation of consumers seeks “cradle to cradle” product management and nature-imitating product design. They turn away from conspicuous consumption and seek value outside of the market through spending more time with friends and family and pursuing spiritual and personal development goals of ‘being not having’. These conscientious consumers curb their own consumption and police the behavior of business through their scrutiny. Businesses respond by developing nature-imitating closed circles to minimize waste. Economic growth is slower, but so is environmental damage. In mature economies people have come to accept this. However people in countries whose poor governance has kept them outside of the loop of growth and stabilization are still unserved by global markets and technological developments.”

Here is how the LOOP scenario is summarized:

The scenarios highlight challenges that businesses face in their day-to-day operations, and begin to identify the strategies for long-term success that they pursue in these different futures.

Each story represents a different ‘gamble’ by society as to where to focus our energies and hopes to shift the world onto a path of sustainable consumption.

Here are some of the questions the YMT grappled with:

Of course, says WBCSD, “you don’t need scenarios to tell you that successful businesses will be those that evolve to meet the demands of consumers, within the boundaries of the legal frameworks and environmental limits they face.”

Says WBCSD, “The scenarios do not converge toward a common consensus on the role of business, but highlight the importance of constant engagement, negotiation and responsiveness to changing social demands.”

Published by Ken on May 1st, 2007 tagged Systems Thinking

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