Technical Report
Addressing multi-beneficial and cross-sectoral
strategies for sustainability
Developing of essentials for integrated sustainability scenarios with
regard to goals and required measures, focussing on priority policy
fields such as agriculture, infrastructure/land use, and
industry/economy
May 2007
Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy
Christian Radtke
Stefan Bringezu
Table of Content
1
INTRODUCTION
3
2
POLICY/ACTIVITY FIELD AGRICULTURE
5
3
POLICY/ACTIVITY FIELD INDUSTRY/ECONOMY
11
4
POLICY/ACTIVITY FIELD INFRASTRUCTURE/LAND USE
16
5
ADDRESSING MULTI-BENEFICIAL AND CROSS-SECTORAL STRATEGIES FOR
SUSTAINABILITY
ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
6
CONCLUSIONS
22
2
1 Introduction
This report is part of work package 2 of the FORESCENE project1. The FORESCENE project aims
to develop an analytical framework for consistent environmental sustainability scenario building.
The project will identify different future scenarios and use backcasting techniques describing the
achievement of future targets.
In Work Package 1 FORESCENE reviewed and condensed past and ongoing work with regard to
the topics water, biodiversity/soil/landscape, resource use and waste in order to address the key
drivers of the problems, the relevant policy goals, and potential extreme scenarios for future
development.
In Work Package 2 FORESCENE has shifted the perspective from the problem-oriented topics
towards activity fields (sectors, policy fields) such as agriculture, infrastructure/land use, and
industry/economy. The aim is to define essential elements of sustainable development for these
activity fields in a positive manner, i.e. not only in the sense of avoiding and mitigating current
problems but also through answering what the desired future should look like and which
prerequisites are deemed essential for sustainability.
In order to do so, FORESCENE has organised a series of workshops to involve experts, DGs and
stakeholders, to integrate knowledge on cross-cutting drivers of various environmental problems
and priority policy fields, and to define essentials for integrated sustainability scenarios in terms of
goals and cross-cutting policy measures. Three workshops were organised by different partners of
the project in October 2006, focusing on the three issues of agriculture, infrastructure/land use, and
industry/economy2.
Key guiding questions for the workshop were:

What could a desired long-term vision of sustainability for the activity/policy field look like,
considering essentials of environmental, economic and social development?

Which essential elements of sustainability that are integral part of the vision can be defined
for the purpose of developing sustainability scenarios?

Which requirements and potential measures can be described that are deemed promising
to reach the defined sustainability scenario?

Which measures address activities or driving forces that show cross-sectoral impact and
hence are potentially of multi-beneficial effect without shifting problems?
Each of the workshops brought together 10 - 15 international experts in different fields relevant to
sustainable development in Europe. Each expert was asked prior to the workshop to provide an
input paper of around 10 pages and a presentation at the workshop for around 10 minutes,
highlighting the key points. Thereby, knowledge on existing scenarios relevant for the respective
activity field of and important related scenario elements could be collected and evaluated.
1
Further information on the project can be found on the FORESCENE web-site http://www.forescene.net
2
The Summary Reports of the Workshops are atteached as Annexes
3
In addition the participants where asked to join in to benchmarking exercises in two axis diagrams
in order to illustrate graphically, how the workshop participants would asses the sustainability
corridor, which have to be taken during scenario building.
In March 2007 FORESCENE organised it’s 2nd Integration Workshop in Brussels. At this workshop
the outcome of the three expert workshops was presented to the invited stakeholders at first. In a
following “mind mapping” session, it was the essential task of the participants to delineate those
strategies that are important for one of the selected policy/activity field, others that have a crosscutting effect for two sectors and as third category are deemed multi-beneficial for all three sectors.
It was the overall aim of Work-package 2 to define a limited number of overarching sustainability
goals and strategies for orientation required for policy makers and decision makers in industry,
which at the same time lead to manageable action for implementation in a "directionally safe"
manner. The results of the workshops serve as basis to development narratives of integrated
Sustainability Scenarios. Subsequently these be used to analyse the options for parameterization
and simulation/modelling, develop a Business-As-Usual (BAU) scenario, as well as alternative
scenarios, which proceed towards sustainability in the further course of the FORESCENE project.
The following sections 2 to 4 will give a synopsis of the sustainability goals and strategies outlined
at the three expert workshops. Section 5 will present the results of the mind mapping session
Integration Workshop. Section 6 will analyse the sustainable strategy elements with regard to there
potential cross-cutting and multi-beneficial effects and there possible impact on driving forces.
Section 7 draws the conclusions.
4
2 Policy/Activity Field Agriculture
The first expert workshop focused on the “Development of core elements of integrated
sustainability scenarios for agriculture”. The invited experts were asked to envision their ideas
about desired long-term goals of sustainable agriculture in the EU for the time period till 2050.
Goals
Event though the workshop the workshop did not result in strongly coherent set of goals for long
term future of agriculture, there where several core elements that allow to outline a vision of a
desired future of agriculture. These elements draw the picture of an increasingly diversified
agriculture, which is shaped by an increasing regionalisation or localisation. At the same time it is
challenged to improve its competitiveness and it’s social and environmental sustainability. In any
case this agriculture will be distinguished by it’s multifunctional character, namely by a strong
integration of other activities carried out in the same territory
INTESIFICATION
During the workshop the invited experts were asked to benchmark in a two axis diagram their
opinions about some topics of crucial importance for the future of agricultural sector. In the first
diagram (Fig. 1), that could be called “Source of production”, the strategic options are represented
by domestic production versus import, and the production method adopted by European farms:
intensification versus extensification. Most of the participants matched in a rather balanced position
between both domestic production and imports on the one hand, and between intensification an
extensification on the other hand. A small group of experts saw the future in an increased
intensified agriculture, while some other experts were in favour of an increased domestic and
extensified production.
DOMESTIC
D
E
A
R
T
LUCSUS
EISA
Roy
ZALF
IMPORT
INRA
PRODUCTION
INEA
TUSCANY
REGION
LUCSUS
DEART
EXTENSIFICATION
UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA
ALL - api
Fig. 1: Source of production
The second Diagram (Fig. 2) can be called “Patterns of agricultural production”. This diagram is
focused on domestic production and gives a more distinct view on the relationship between
5
INRA
EISA
between & in regions
intensification and extensification of the production methods. The strategic options are production
intensity versus extensification on one axis, and the level of diversity of crops, production methods
and characteristic landscape between and in regions on the other. The result is a strong preference
for a scenario characterized by a high level of differentiation among the agricultures and a
desirable slight trend to an increased extensification.
INEA
DIVERSITY
DEART
ZALF
LUCSUS
TUSCANY
REGION
INTENSIFICATION
EXTENSIFICATION
F
BA
within & between regions
O
NA
HOMOGENEITY
UN
TY
SI
ER
IV
O
EL
RC
Fig. 2: Patterns of agricultural production
Diagram 3, shows the results of the third exercise “Regulatory status”. The experts defined the
future of European agricultural policy according to the preferable policy level of the agriculture
regulation and to the need of public subsidies under sustainability conditions. The expert’s position
is clearly in favour of a growing regional autonomy, reflecting the specific regional and territorial
characteristics. Yet, with regard to subsidies in general a need for further subventions was seen by
all participants (especially with regard to the expansion of agricultural activities, e.g. energy crop
and non-food production, provision of environmental and social services), even though the desired
trend shows towards a reduction of subsidies.
6
SUBSIDIES
HIGH
UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA
TUSCANY
REGION
D
E
A
R
T
LOCAL REGIONAL
EU
AUTONOMY
LUCSUS
REGULATION
INEA
INRA
DEART
api
ZALF
LOW
roy
CE DG
AGRI
SUBSIDIES
EISA
Fig. 3: Regulatory status
The following figure abstracts the four headwords of a prospect for a winning strategy, at least a
desirable one, toward a not only environmental, but also economic and social sustainable
development of agriculture.
Fig. 4: Key SD Goals for the activity/policy field „Agriculture“
There was an overarching agreement of the participants that multifunctionality will be a key
element of a future agriculture. The role given to this agriculture will go beyond meeting needs of
food production and increasingly the production of renewable energies. The field of activities that
will be part of agriculture will include a broad variety of Non-Commoditiy Outputs (NCO)3. Amongst
others these will include the enhancement of rural livelihoods, the preservation of traditional sociocultural identity and stimulation of rural cultural activities. Other functions will be to preserve the
cultural landscape, biodiversity, soil fertility and the hydrological equilibrium. Last but not least the
NCOs will provide jobs in agriculture itself, as well as by fostering rural tourism, food processing
3
terms NCOs, externalities and non market products are considered as synonymous, for a more detailed
discussion of the meanings (Multifunctionality towards an analytical framework., OCSE, 2001)
7
and recreation in rural areas, even though with regard to jobs the assessment of the participants
was not to optimistic.
The improved competitiveness addresses the production methods (e.g. green high-tech farming,
economy of scale of farm size) and high quality of food production (safe food) with a focus on
securing regional food supply (and eventually stimulating regional food processing). Diversification
will lead to an expansion of agricultural activities to renewable energy crop production, non food
production and agrotourism. Overall it is an agriculture that will be more intensive, with an growing
importance of large-scale farming, or increasingly organic and extensive, depending on the specific
territorial characteristics, in particular with regard to tourism, al together combined with high level of
regional and local autonomy.
Sustainability scenario elements
The main pillars of long-term sustainability elements in the agricultural sector are the “Integration
with industrial and tourist activities”, the extension of “Green high-tech agriculture” and “Large
scale farms”. Further components of the envisioned scenarios include the expansion of agricultural
activities towards “Renewable energy crop production” and “Environmental services”, followed by
the “Non-food production” and “Provision of social services”. Beyond that, both “Extensive” and
“Organic agriculture” are considered as desirable solutions, whereas “small scale farming” and
“marginal areas agriculture” as well as traditional products (e.g. meat, cereals, milk) are assessed
to be of decreasing importance in a realistic scenario. The envisioned sustainable agriculture will
not just aim to increase its productivity, but instead seek to minimize the external inputs and
guarantee quality and food safety, by setting goals through a productive re-organization and the
adoption of high level of technological innovation (including lifelong learning of farmers).
To strive for the desired future a variety of strategic elements for a sustainability scenario were
defined by the experts. In a ranking three aspects were seen as of greatest importance: “water
management”, “quality of food production” and the enhancement of “rural livelihoods”, followed by
“Agricultural land use diversification”, “Safe food production” (which could be understood as part of
high quality food production) and “Regional food supply/consumption”. Further elements to be
considered in a scenario would be “Animal welfare”, “Biotechnology”, “Agrobiodiversity” 4,
“hydrological equilibrium” (which can be collated to water management), “Development and
maintenance of rural infrastructure” and “Local Community Food System”5. In contrast with this
4
Agrobiodiversity "is a fundamental feature of farming systems around the world. It encompasses many types of
biological resources tied to agriculture, including: genetic resources - the essential living materials of plants and animals;






edible plants and crops, including traditional varieties, cultivars, hybrids, and other genetic material developed
by breeders; and
livestock (small and large, lineal breeds or thoroughbreds) and freshwater fish;
soil organisms vital to soil fertility, structure, quality, and soil health;
naturally occurring insects, bacteria, and fungi that control insect pests and diseases of domesticated plants and
animals;
agroecosystem components and types (polycultural/monocultural, small/large scale, rainfed/irrigated, etc.)
indispensable for nutrient cycling, stability, and productivity; and
'wild' resources (species and elements) of natural habitats and landscapes that can provide services (for
example, pest control and ecosystem stability) to agriculture.
5
A community food system, also known as a local food system, "is a collaborative effort to integrate agricultural
production with food distribution to enhance the economic, environmental, and social well-being of a particular place (i.e.
a neighborhood, city, county or region)." [Gail Feenstra and Dave Campbell, "Steps for Developing a Sustainable
8
increasing social role of agriculture, the expectations in terms of jobs, production and Agricultural
Used Area (AUA) were not optimistically appraised. It was presumed that the only alternative
appears to be the development of high quality products and services (farm tourism, etc.), which are
vertically and horizontally integrated in the market and capable of maintaining prices with a high
level of value added. Hence, multifunctionality of agriculture was agreed to be a core element of
sustainability scenarios. In addition there is a perspective for the role given to the energetic use of
biomass (for fuel, heat and electricity) in the reconversion of several sowable lands the agricultural
This was assessed as being an important option to preserve the present levels of agricultural GDP
at least in terms of value.
With regard to measures and instruments the experts looked at the future of European agricultural
policy according to the level (scale) of regulation and to the need of public subsidies. As desirable
for the future, the experts position was clear in favour of an increasing regional autonomy and a –
slight - subsidies reduction. Yet subsidies still are regarded as important even on the long run, for
instance in terms of specific payments for the production of positive externalities, for the
improvement of less advantaged areas, socially interesting productions and farm investments.
Further rural development would need financing for e.g. social cohesion, quality of life in rural
areas, integration with non-agricultural activities, technical assistance and lifelong learning.
An overview of the potential scenario elements is given in the figure below. The figure includes
three plausible pathways towards a sustainable future of agriculture.
The first scenario puts its focus on “competitiveness”, being spatially concentrated on the
productive agricultural sites. The main implementation options for this scenario would be:


Investments, new technologies (e.g. precision farming);
Vertical and horizontal integration with other activities.
The second scenario pathway addresses the “rural viability”, which concentrates on areas with high
level of social relevance. Main implementation options:
 Strong linkage to rural development measures: LEADER, others (e.g. INTERREG);
 Regional networking, farmers involvement in participatory processes;
 Quality of life in rural areas.
The third alternative pathway addresses the topic “environment” and is applicable on low
productive sites but with high environmental values. Here the main implementation options are:
 Protected areas;
 Implementation of Cross-Compliance;
 Natura 2000;
 Water Framework Directive WFD, Nitrate Directive;

Groupement Agricole d'Exploitation en Commun GAEC (Article L323-1 du Code rural de
France)6.
Community Food System," Pacific Northwest Sustainable Agriculture: Farming for Profit & Stewardship (Winter 1996-97)
8(4): pp.1,6]
Groupement Agricole d’Exploitation en Commun (GAEC) are an arrangement whereby between two and
ten individuals work together in a context approaching that of family workers, albeit under statutory
conditions. Everyone has an equal stake in the management of the association. The aim is to maximise
economies of scale across the association. Some GAECs can decide to share the proceeds of the economic
activity. Currently the number of GAECs count to roughly 41.500 farmers’ economic interest groupings.
6
9
Fig. 5: Potential scenario elements for the activity field „Agriculture“
The future of agriculture will be in a combination of these scenarios: Diverse agricultures with
specific characterizations and social roles will coexist according to the predominance in each
economic, social, environmental context of their specific functions: productive, social (employment,
cultural heritage, etc.), environmental (landscape, hydro geological protection, etc.).
10
3 Policy/Activity Field Industry/Economy
The second expert workshop focused on the “Development of core elements of integrated
sustainability scenarios for industry/economy”. The scope of the workshop was quite broadly
defined, and made it difficult to cover the wide range of issues and sectoral developments (energy,
transport, construction, environmental technologies, consumption, etc.) under overall headlines for
sustainability goals and strategy elements, as annotated by several invited experts. On the other
hand, it was the explicit target of the workshop to identify possible solutions, which avoid shifting of
environmental problems between different groups of actors in society (e.g. different sectors) or
between countries. From this perspective, the comprehensive design of the workshop was justified.
Goals
One of the main result of the workshop was that the invited experts reached general agreement on
the necessity to set ambitious goals, which send clear long-term signals to actors in different
industrial sectors (in particular, through a cost shift from labour to natural resources) and to develop
new resource-extensive life-styles to reach aspiring reduction targets on the macro level. It was
emphasised by some experts that it would not be the first step to define quantitative targets, but
that it is the challenge to reach a broad societal recognition that these targets are needed at all. In
so far it was mentioned that the envisioned long-term goals should be formulated in a positive
(„sexy“) manner and should reach far beyond “business as usual”.
There was a broad consensus that maximising individuals' happiness/well-being would be such an
overarching goal that goes beyond concrete environmental, economic, cultural and social targets of
sustainable development. To the valuation of the experts in the following two axis diagrams, the
future societal concept would strive to increase quality of life/happiness/wellbeing and emphasising
a growth of social capital rather than economic capital. In this context he experts emphasised the
need to scrutinise GDP whether it can serve as an appropriate indicator in the future or whether
other indicators such as the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) would be the better
measurement.
Fig. 6: ###
11
To the opinion of some of the experts the sustainable societal development should seek for greater
flexibility of individual time allocation going along with an increasing weight of the informal sector.
Fig. 7: ###
With regard to resource use (and in effect, waste generation) a radical reduction of impact per
consumption unit should be reached in the European Union. In the discussed relationship between
primary resource consumption and an increase or decrease of GDP, the nearly complete
agreement was achieved that a reduction of primary resource use is needed. But the experts'
views widely disagreed on whether this should go along with increasing or reduced GDP.
Fig. 8: ###
One of the overall goals is to development of new resource-extensive production and consumption
patterns. This includes targets for an increase in resource productivity and a progressive
substitution of non-renewable resources by renewable alternatives, considering the availability and
12
regeneration capacity of renewable resources. It also includes greater European self-sufficiency,
with regard to the net trade balance on tangibles, including raw materials, mass commodities and
final products and at the same time a growing proportion of service industries in the overall
economic activities .
Fig. 9: ###
It was generally agreed that related to the topic of industry/economy, a shift production and
consumption patterns are of key goal towards a radical reduction of impact per consumption unit. In
the discussion there was a general consensus among the experts that the future economic
development should be consumption/demand driven and solidarity-related.
Fig. 10: ##
13
In order to develop effective action plans7, priority areas should be addressed, because around
70% of total environmental impacts can be attributed to three sectors of transport, housing and
food (which are, vice versa, key elements of the production und consumption system). The three
sectors are linked to the energy sector and thus – based on the current energy structure - with
global warming. Here the sustainability goal is not to overshoot global warming by more than 2°C
(mean annual temperature) by the year 2050, requiring a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions
by industrialised countries of up to 80%.
With regard the transformation towards a more sustainable European economy it was seen as a
key issue to address target areas of investment such as public infrastructures that replace the need
for private goods, investments in ecosystem restoration, and investment in improving resource
efficiency and developing alternative resources that are more abundant or renewable and/or whose
use is less threatening to the environment and human health
In the course of the argumentation it became clear that more emphasis should be put on further
increasing the share of renewable energies considering the whole product or service life-cycle
(some experts even envisaged at least to 50% renewables in 2050, having also implications on the
agricultural sector). Furthermore an absolute reduction for water use (water losses in
manufacturing processes of less than 0.5% per year, irrespective of the water source), a clear goal
of zero emissions of toxic substances all by 2050. Furthermore, targets should be set for the
proportion of European land set aside to protect biodiversity (with possible trade-offs with the
agricultural sector/land use)
A forth sustainability goals should be the creation of a new transport culture based on proximity,
slowness and sufficiency. Numerous research studies indicate that speeding up traffic increases
natural resource consumption in the form of energy consumption and/or infrastructure material
inputs. Thus, decisions by consumers and planners to prefer lower speed transport modes would
save resources.
The following figure abstracts the four headwords of the overarching goals in the field of
industry/economy
Fig. 11: ###
7
such as National Action Plans for Sustainable Consumption (see UNEP 2005. Advancing Sustainable
Consumption in Asia – A Guidance Manual. Paris, UNEP: 73)
14
Sustainability scenario elements
There are several shifts that would be required to deliver progress towards a more sustainable
economy. These transitions should be covered in sustainability scenarios for this thematic field:
Fig. 12: ###
With regard to measures and instruments the experts commonly agreed that instruments to
internalise external costs would be most effective to reach the envisaged sustainability goals.
Among these instruments, an ecological tax reform (ETR) is regarded as effective to promote ecoinnovation and energy/resource efficiency, by shifting taxes from labour to energy and natural
resources, and thereby being economically and in terms of employment beneficial at the same
time. With regard to transport taxation and subsidies are seen as feasible measures, as they do not
only influence the individual choice of transport modes, but also can influence complete transport
systems. The aim of these measures should be to reduce transport volume in total (esp. of freight
transport), as this is relevant for the level of resource consumption (e.g. the need of transport
infrastructure). Economic instruments such as taxes and emission trading were further regarded as
useful tools to enhance the development of environmental technologies. Beyond that, standard
policy instruments, such as technological and emission standards should be further developed in
that direction.
Another effective instrument was seen in a sustainable public procurement. Public authorities, as
one of the major players in investment and consumption should make a strong commitment
towards the EU Sustainable Development Strategy. Beyond the existing EU Emission Trade
System the implementation of a system of individual tradable resource or pollution permits tied to
consumption was reflected as a key measure with high potential for transformation towards
sustainability.
15
4 Policy/Activity Field Infrastructure/Land Use
The third expert workshop focused on the “Development of core elements of integrated
sustainability scenarios for infrastructure and land use”.
Goals
In the course of the workshop the invited experts agreed that the transition process in the field of
infrastructure and land use would need an overarching sustainability goal that is applicable for the
different topics, such as urban sprawl, transport infrastructure, resource and waste management in
the built environment (including water management) and sustainable construction. This priority goal
could be formulated as:
 to create and maintain greater biodiversity within our agro- and urban ecosystems, and
 to preserve the surrounding (and enclave) natural and semi-natural ecosystems as sources
of ecosystem services for they are indispensable in the maintenance of manmade
ecosystems.
Commuting
for labour
increases
Under this general frame the experts outlined several sectoral sustainability goals on the issues
dealt with at the workshop. One of the key goals outlined is an ambitious reduction of urban sprawl.
It was commonly agreed that the mitigation of the negative consequences of urban sprawl, such as
the disturbance of water balance due to sealing of surface, an increase of transport implicating
higher energy consumption and air pollution, social segregation between suburbs and inner cities
and further more, can only be achieved by a drastic reduction of the current rate of land
consumption. To the assessment of the experts in the two axis diagram, there was a clear trend
towards urbanely more concentrated homes with an slight trend in favour of an increase of the
travel for leisure rather than for commuting to work.
Urbanly
concentrated homes
Travel for
leisure
increases
Rurally
dispersed homes
Fig. 13
This inevitably concludes in the need to address multifunctional optimisation of land use. On the
one hand sustainable development for land use in post-industrialised land should use the regional
potentials, e.g. for food, energy and tourism. On the other hand envisioned future will gradually be
16
oriented towards brownfield development include the creation of new jobs, protection of valuable
green fields and habitats, catalyst role in the regeneration of surrounding areas.
Life-cycle resource
consumption per m2
Increase
One of the great future challenges was seen in resource management regarding the built
environment. Among the most important issues will be to change the composition and volume
resource use in the built environment. It was agreed that to achieve decoupling of resource use
and GDP in absolute terms is an overarching goal, going hand in hand with the shift from nonrenewable sources to renewable ones. With focus on the topic sustainable construction, it was
envisioned that construction industry should become capable of delivering its services to costumers
with zero negative impacts on the environment, society and the economy. In the following diagram
the experts clearly indicated a decrease in lifecycle resource consumption, while it was not distinct
whether this would be accompanied by a reduction of per capita dwelling and working space.
Decrease
Increase
2
Decrease
m /capita dwelling
and working space
Fig. 14:
With regard to the transport sector an important goal would be to curb the overall volume of
transport, including the requirements for the transport infrastructure. which requires an integrated
approach to local and regional planning, e.g., the increased multifunctional use of urban land to aim
at more proximity for everyday activities, like commuting to/from work, school, shopping, sport and
entertainment.
The following figure abstracts the four headwords of the overarching goals in the field of
infrastructure/land use
Fig. 15: ###
17
Sustainability scenario elements
The invited experts proposed a broad variety of potential sustainability scenario elements covering
the scope of the workshop. As an abridgement the following should be mentioned:
Fig. 16
With regard to measures and instruments the proposed tools can distinguish in three modes of
intervention:

Measures of regulation or ban, such as restricting the development of land and thereby
reducing the availability of greenfield land, measures to changing the temporal characteristics
of transport (e.g. limiting traffic in certain periods or corridors) and regulations to decrease
pollution generated by vehicles, and the energy and material consumption of buildings,

Measures of persuasion/management/planning, such as raising the awareness of politicians for
the negative effects of sprawl, improving the quality of the inner city environment and meeting
the demand for housing in the inner city, measures aiming to change the spatial characteristics
for transport and towards the social integration of transport, national planning regulations, and
the Code for Sustainable Homes and public sector sustainable procurement practices,

Measures of modification of incentives, such as abolishment of economic incentives for
suburban development and mitigating the competition between municipalities by restraining the
desire of local authorities to grow; economic instruments influencing the modes of transport,
e.g., personal vs. public transport, freight transport on roads vs. rails and waterways, which
requires substantial modernisation of these alternative systems, and providing attractive
alternative to private car and truck transport by sophisticated, integrated, fast, safe and
comfortable future transport systems.
18
5 2nd Integration Workshop
In March 2007 FORESCENE organised its 2nd Integration Workshop in Brussels. At this workshop
the outcome of the three expert workshops was presented to the invited stakeholders at first. The
presentations will be made from the targeted view of each of the selected the priority policy fields
agriculture, infrastructure/land use, and industry/economy, outlining the desired long-term visions
or goal of sustainability, the essential Sustainability Scenarios Elements (SSEs) or strategies to
achieve the envisaged goals and the required measures and instruments, which can be considered
promising to reach the defined sustainability strategies.
In a following “mind mapping” session, the participants were asked to denominate a set of
sustainability strategies or scenario elements that to their opinion have the potential to reach the
envisaged long-term sustainability goals. In a second step the participants were asked to delineate
those strategies that to their opinion are effective
 for one of the selected policy/activity field,
 have a cross-cutting effect for two sectors,
 are deemed multi-beneficial for all three sectors.
To make the three categories more comprehensible the following examples may be given. Out of
the range of strategy elements, such as organic farming or diversity of cropping patterns will be of
specific importance for the agriculture sector but are not likely to be directly tangent to the other
sectors. The same would count for a strategy to decrease the rate of land consumption for creating
additional artificial, human-made environments in the case of the sector infrastructure/land use.
Some of the elaborated strategies can be assessed to have cross-cutting effects on two sectors., In
the case of the agriculture sector the experts were predominantly in favour of a higher regional
diversification of production oriented towards local and regional marketability. This strategy is
overlapping the target of shifting towards greater local and regional self-sufficiency, which was
named for the industry/economy sector. Another example is associated to the sustainability goal of
absolute decoupling of resource use and GDP. Here for both the sectors industry/economy and
infrastructure/land use, a drastically increase of resource productivity was assessed by the experts
as a key strategy.
Those strategies that are assessed to be multi-beneficial for all three sectors are in the third
category, and will be subject of high attention in the further course of the FORESCENE project. For
instance the strategy of a progressive substitution of non-renewable resources by renewable
alternatives was seen as strategic approach of high importance for both of the sectors
industry/economy and infrastructure/land use. In addition the agricultural experts regarded an
increase of biomass production for energetic and for non-food use as very important in order to
preserve the present levels of agricultural GDP at least in terms of value and hence can be
understood as a multi-beneficial strategy.
At the same time, it also was a task of the workshop to assess possible trade-offs of these
strategies. Looking at the above example of a multi-beneficial approach, that this biomass strategy
might be conflicting with other goals, e.g. to maintain or even amplify biodiversity within our agroand urban ecosystems.
The following presents the results of the ‘mind mapping’ session organised for the 2nd Integration
workshop. The participants to the workshop were asked to name the (in their opinion) most
important strategies or scenario elements that have potential to reach the envisaged sustainability
19
goals. According to the rules, each and every proposition has been added to the mind map,
(almost) without initiating a discussion with the other participants or the moderators. The
participants were then given a limited number of stickers to mark the most relevant strategies
according the assessed category. Each participant received 15 stickers, 5 stickers for each
category. The figure below shows the result of the mind mapping, sorted by the total score of
stickers and subsequently according the categories, the multi-beneficial first.
Fig. 17: ###
20
6 Addressing multi-beneficial and cross-sectoral strategies for
sustainability
Aggregation of goals
Aggregation of strategies/scenario elements (merging resp. removing redundant elements)
a) multibeneficial
b) cross-cutting
c) for one sector
high
1 A-F 2 A-F 3 A-f Key SD Strategies (3 Activity Fields)
4
7
Define a well-being paradigm
x
x
x
x
6
Better decision making
3
4
Improved land use planning
1
4
Improving human resources, education & training
x
4
Invest in innovation and research
x
3
3
Increase of material, energy & water efficiency
x
1
3
Improved information systems
3
Internalisation of externalities
1
2
Promotion of high quality products
1
2
Public Procurement
x
1
More sustainable production
x
x
1
Broad societal debate on per capita resource use and distribution
x
x
1
1
x
x
x
Orientation/shift towards service economy
6
2
Consistant biomass strategy
5
2
Fostering producer responsibility & liability
4
2
Reduction of paid work per capita
x
x
x
2
1
Ceating new markets
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
1 A-F 2 A-F 3 A-f Key SD Strategies (1 Activity Field)
1
3
1
2
Institutions
x
x
1
4
x
x
7
7
Natural Sytem
Conditions
x
1 A-F 2 A-F 3 A-f Key SD Strategies (2 Activity Fields)
1
8
3
Introduction of limitations to absolute resource use
2
Demographic
Factors
links
Consumtion
Patterns
loops
Production
Patterns
Specification
low
weak
Economic
development
Analysis of the specification and effects on driving forces of the selected scenario elements
x
Localisation of markets
Debt relief
x
Market incentives
x
21
x
7 Conclusions
22