Engaging futures: Scenario visualisation for sustainable urban food sharing

Abstract

Future scenarios have become a familiar element of addressing complex problems such as unsustainable food systems, helping to identify alternative policies and practices around food. However, scenarios’ development and deployment in decision making processes tends to elevate and engage specific voices, quantitative data and models, and focuses on techno-scientific innovations and commercial-speculative design interventions. To ensure a just transition to more sustainable food systems it is necessary to bring diverse voices into the development of future scenarios and to consider the efficacy of alternative forms of future scenarios for expanding engagement. This paper presents an approach for more inclusionary approaches, focused on an exploratory case study of urban food sharing using the Three Horizon approach. It makes three central contributions. First, generating empirically-grounded scenarios which centre overlooked marginalised actors. Second, developing novel artistic visualisations of possible futures which incorporate emotional-affective dimensions, and third using these visualisations to engage actors and facilitate dialogue on urban food sustainability transitions. The results of scenario testing with municipal policy shapers in a location where food policy is embryonic are presented and discussed. The paper finds co-developing and visualising scenarios provides an accessible means of engagement and platforming traditionally marginalised voices and perspectives within futuring activities.