Creating sustainable futures/CSF103/Backcasting/Overview

Decision-makers often talk about forecasting. They use information from the past to predict what will happen in the future - it’s like driving forwards in your car using only your rear-view mirror to see ahead.

From a sustainability perspective, we know there are past and current practices that do not fit with the reality of our ecological and biological setting. Perpetuating those practices will not help solve our challenge. Backcasting, on the other hand, assumes that the future is ours to create. By deciding what future we really want, we can design our plans and actions to create that future, rather than a future situation that is determined by what has happened in the past.