Analysis fo the philosophical foundation of foresight and its implication for prospective LCA

Conference poster, 2024

In recent years, the subfield of prospective life cycle assessment(LCA)has emerged and continues to develop. Various reviews have been published, an academic network has been established, and the term 'prospective LCA'appearsincreasinglyin scientific publications. As a result, it is expected that prospective LCA will become a critical tool to support decision-makingprocesses. Yet, thediscipline’sphilosophicalfoundations have not yet beenclearly established, neitherhasits boundaries to other future-related academic disciplines, potentially leading to unclear scope definitions. While acknowledgingthat overly rigid frameworks should be avoided during the initial stages of a new discipline, this work aims to contribute to the clarification of fundamental assumptions within and behind prospective LCA. To this end, fundamental texts on theoriesof foresight and future studies are analysed and compared to state-of-the-art scientific articles on prospective LCAandscenarioanalysis.A preliminary examination reveals Gaston Berger’s distinction between studying the near future, which demands immediate action with minimal room for error, and the far future, where a greater tolerance for risk exists as adjustments to undesired outcomes remain feasible. Forecasting, relevant to the near future and foresight, applicable to the far future, require distinct methods that can be used in tandem. Thestudy explores how thedistinction between forecasting and foresight can aid prospective LCA in delineating decisioncontexts and shedslight on the ongoing debates aboutuncertainty in the field. The subsequent phase of this research aims to bridge the gap between foresight and forecasting in practical application, namely, how to contextualize the outcomes of prospective LCAfor the distant future within present-day decision-making.Furthermore, the role of less predictive and more explorative approaches to investigating the (farther) future are analysed, such as backcasting and cornerstone scenarios.The tensionsbetween the assurance of forecasts and the humbleness of explorative approaches will be further analysed.