Webinar May 2021

26 stakeholders and experts who had previously participated in the Multi-Stakeholder Workshop and questionnaire as well as members of the SHAPE advisory board joined us in a 90 minutes webinar at the end of May.

In the webinar, the SHAPE consortium gave an update on the work done in SHAPE since the October 2020 Multi-Stakeholder Workshop, which was centred around the narrative development for the Sustainable Development Pathways (SDPs). Since then, the SHAPE consortium has developed a conceptual framework that aligns the SDPs more clearly with the high-level priorities of the 2030 Agenda, and the SDP scenarios have been further developed by taking into account the stakeholders’ and experts’ input and feedback. For more information, take a look at the agenda and the short report below.

Agenda

Welcome & project overview (Sarah Cornell, SRC)

Part I – What has changed in the dimensions and scenario combinations?

1.1   SDP framework (Elmar Kriegler, PIK)
1.2   Core changes in the dimensions (Researchers of SHAPE consortium)                                

  • Human Wellbeing: Health & Education, Urbanisation, Mobility
  • Societal Organisation: Architecture of Global Governance, Societal Organisation
  • Economy & Technology: Economic paradigm, Inequality, Growth & Finance, Work & Technology futures
  • Nature
  • Resource provision: Water, Land & Food, Energy, Sustainable Production & Consumption

1.3   Core changes in the scenario combinations (Bjoern Soergel, PIK)

Questions and answers

Part II – In-depth dialogues in breakout groups* on:

2.1 Rationale for changes in the dimensions
2.2 Introduction about the quantification phase

Breakout groups according to clusters in 1.2

Part III - Outlook

3.1 Evaluation (Merle Remy, IASS)
3.2 Next steps (Ana Paula Aguiar, SRC)
3.3 Closing remarks (Falk Schmidt, IASS)

 *Diverging from the original agenda, the breakout groups were skipped in favour of the ongoing Q&A discussion on part I. Nevertheless, an introduction about the quantification phase was presented.

 

Report

27 May 2021 – Following the Multi-Stakeholder Workshop in October, stakeholders and experts were invited to join a webinar where the SHAPE consortium informed about the status of the project and the SDP narrative and scenario development.

The webinar focused on presenting a newly developed conceptual SDP framework and explaining the core changes made to the SDP dimensions and scenario narratives since the October workshop. Webinar participants had the opportunity to comment and to raise their questions.   

The SHAPE process of building the new SDP scenario narratives is inspired by the approach  described in the recent scientific publication Co-designing global target-seeking scenarios, led by consortium members. The process started from the definition of branching options in selected key dimensions. The branching options can then be combined and recombined in multiple ways as building blocks for the new scenarios. The initial proposal of the dimensions and branching options was discussed and modified through a co-design process during 2020 (see report).

Following the results of this first phase of stakeholder involvement, the consortium revised the dimensions and branching options. The consortium has also been developing a conceptual framework to contextualize the new SDP scenario narratives, and show how they align with the 2030 Agenda’s “5 Ps”. The framework explains how the dimensions and SDP narratives are built on interacting aspects of human wellbeing, nature, societal organisation, and economy and technology. 

Based on the revised dimensions and branching options, five scenario narrative combinations are now quantified into models. During the webinar on May 27th, the main changes made in the dimensions and scenario narrative combinations were presented and discussed. Brief examples of how the SDP narratives are intended to be “translated” into the models (i.e. the narrative quantification) were also given. 

The next step of SHAPE’s stakeholder engagement will be a second multi-stakeholder workshop towards the end of 2021, in which we will present scenario quantification results, in particular showing how alternative SDPs lead to achieving selected SDG targets. We will also discuss necessary societal transformations in each scenario with SHAPE’s stakeholders, linking them to specific actions and policies on the timeframe of the 2030 Agenda, and exploring what the scenarios mean for different sectors and regions. We hope the new SDPs can contribute both to short term actions and policies, and also foster wider discussion in society about necessary transformative changes.