Strategic foresight for the environment

Background

To help navigate uncertainty and rapid and unprecedented changes in the environment, while effectively delivering on its mandate, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is looking to put in place an institutionalized approach to strategic foresight and horizon scanning with the view to developing an anticipatory and future-oriented culture.

This mirrors the growing interest and demand for foresight that is also reinforced by the United Nations reform agenda and the Secretary-General’s report on ‘Our Common Agenda’, which calls for all UN agencies, as well as all UN Member States, to engage in foresight practices more deeply and apply the derived insights to address global systemic risks and support strategic planning.

UNEP and ISC are engaging widely across sectors, scientific disciplines, and knowledge systems to identify key drivers of change, potential signals of change and emerging issues that will impact the achievement of global environmental goals. The foresight and horizon scanning process will include the preparation of a megatrends and foresight report to be published in 2024.

Activities and impact

• December 2022: the ISC and UNEP signed a Memorandum of Understanding to cooperate on advancing the use of science in environmental policy and decision-making.
• February 2023: UNEP and the ISC launched a call for nominations of individual experts to establish an independent Expert Panel to guide and oversee critical work on environmental horizon scanning and strategic foresight.
• April 2023: the ISC and UNEP established the Foresight Expert Panel (see full list below).
• June 2023:UNEP and the ISC launched a global survey to identify disruptions, emerging issues and signals of change that could impact planetary health in the years to come. Over 1,000 emerging changes were identified during this process.
• September 2023: UNEP and the ISC held the first sense-making workshop of the Foresight Expert Panel to review the work done thus far.
• Throughout the end of 2023, UNEP held a series of regional workshops with the ISC’s support to provide the necessary contextualization to validate and adjust the initial identification of emerging signals of change and provide information on regionally specific issues, risks, and opportunities.
• March 2024: UNEP and the ISC held the second sense-making workshop of the Foresight Expert Panel to review the regional inputs and progress made thus far.
• May 2024: UNEP and the ISC launched their second global survey to assess the likelihood, severity and timeframe for potential impacts associated with each signal identified throughout the first survey and regional workshops.
• Next step: UNEP and ISC are currently working towards the release of the global foresight report at the High-level Political Forum 2024.