Backcasting — a framework for strategic planning

TLDR: Backcasting is a planning methodology that is particularly helpful when problems at hand are complex and when present trends are part of the problems When applied in planning towards sustainability, backcasting can increase the likelihood of handling the ecologically complex issues in a systematic and coordinated way, and also to foresee certain changes, even from a self-beneficial point of view, of the market and increase the chances of a relatively strong economic performance as discussed by the authors.

Abstract: Backcasting is a planning methodology that is particularly helpful when problems at hand are complex and when present trends are part of the problems When applied in planning towards sustainability, backcasting can increase the likelihood of handling the ecologically complex issues in a systematic and coordinated way, and also to foresee certain changes, even from a self-beneficial point of view, of the market and increase the chances of a relatively strong economic performance To that end, backcasting should be performed from a set of non-overlapping principles that are general enough to be helpful in the coordination of different sectors of society and in business, as well as to cover relevant aspects of sustainability Such principles are helpful when developing reliable non-overlapping indicators for monitoring of the development when coordinating various measures from different sectors of the society or within individual firms with each other, and when handling trade-offs in a relevant way Further