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Purpose: The business world has become more turbulent than ever. Organisations must be proactive to meet the challenges of the increasingly disruptive, dynamic, and unpredictable world. One technique that has supported leaders and organisations under challenging circumstances is ‘backcasting’, which works by envisioning a desirable future state and then working backwards to attain it. The current study aims to extend an understanding of the backcasting practices and strategic approaches that can be used by leadership teams in different industries in order to survive in turbulent times and can be adapted within and beyond any pandemic.

Methodology: The research employs a desktop research method to review and compare the most commonly used strategies that leaders from different sectors can use for their respective organisations to thrive in the VUCA world.

Findings: There needs to be more research on the applicability and relevance of backcasting that the leaders of different sectors can employ. The study would provide insights that would bridge the existing research gap and come up with suitable strategies that can be employed for dealing with VUCA challenges in the Indian context.

Significance: The outcome of the study will be helpful to the leaders in designing and aligning ‘out of the box’ backcasting strategies to survive in the highly disruptive world.

Backcasting helps managers involve and align the organization throughout a strategy process. Its core idea is creating a logical path from a depicted future back to the present, to share, analyze and manage strategic challenges. Still its use in strategic management is under-researched. The purpose of this paper is to verify the relevance and validity of backcasting as a strategic management tool. It also analyzes and structures knowledge about backcasting and its practical application in strategic management.

This paper employs desktop research method to outline the benefits and limitations of backcasting for strategy formation under VUCA conditions.

Backcasting can help organizations overcome cognitive barriers and broaden the scope of options when analyzing future positions. The research provides insights regarding the potential and limitations of backcasting when addressing uncertainty and its drivers. For instance, it helps managers to assess and align visions; increase the understanding and clarity regarding complex dependencies; as well as improve strategic agility.

Backcasting is exceptionally useful for investigating possible futures and alternative paths to it. Backcasting is an interactive workshop-based method that challenges prevailing mindsets by assuming we are in the future, looking back towards today to find a feasible path when major transitions are necessary. With it, managers can deal with even the most uncertain decisions in a structured manner.

Backcasting for many reasons has a great potential as a tool for strategy development. It has been successfully applied in other fields but only to a limited extent in business. This paper formally examines its applicability in this context and demonstrates its relevance for dealing with VUCA challenges.

In Finland, new forest-based sector (FBS) businesses are seen as important for the transition to the circular bioeconomy. The purpose of this study is to explore the transition of Finnish FBS companies to new business models. The aim is to understand how FBS companies define their ideal future states and related business models for the year 2030.

This study uses thematic interviews with managers from various FBS firms and companies from interfacing sectors. In the interviews, the key idea of backcasting was pursued when respondents discussed the desirable future states of their business.

The effort to achieve growth of the business and the appearance of new products characterize the company-specific desirable future states. In these desirable futures, expanded businesses will be based on strong knowledge. Resource efficiency and collaboration create a strong basis for the desirable future state of the whole FBS to create a sustainable and innovative “Wood Valley.”

The key limitations are that the backcasting process has been conducted only through interviews and a participative approach with stakeholder dialogue is lacking in the process. This means that the desirable futures are created by the FBS companies only.

As a practical contribution, the study shows the future-oriented thinking and goals of FBS firms. As a theoretical contribution, it extends research on sustainable business models and discussions on the novel field of corporate foresight.

The purpose of this paper is to present an alternative approach to facilities and built asset management adaptation planning to climate change based on a hybrid backcasting/forecasting model. Backcasting envisions a future state and examines alternative “pathways of approach” by looking backwards from the future state to the present day. Each pathway is examined in turn to identify interventions required for that pathway to achieve the future state. Each pathway is reviewed using forecasting tools and the most appropriate is selected. This paper describes the application of this approach to the integration of climate change adaptation plans into facilities and built asset management.

The researchers worked with various stakeholders as part of a participatory research team to identify climate change adaptations that may be required to ensure the continued performance of a new educational building over its life cycle. The team identified 2020, 2040 and 2080 year end-goals and assessed alternative pathways of approach. The most appropriate pathways were integrated into the facilities and built asset management plan.

The paper outlines a conceptual framework for formulating long term facilities and built asset management strategies to address adaptation to climate change.

The conceptual framework is validated by a single research case study, and further examples are needed to ensure validity of the approach in different facilities management contexts.

This is the first paper to explore backcasting principles as part of facilities and built asset management planning.

The objective of this paper is to present an example on how futures studies methodologies, especially backcasting, can be used to assist public policy formulation. Backcasting is particularly interesting method in this context, since it allows the key characteristics concerning the state of the future to be fixed according to the goals policymakers have set to achieve.

The paper is a case study presenting the goals, progression and the results of the backcasting exercise of the Finnish Prime Minister's Office.

The backcasting methodology, as applied in the exercise presented in this paper, is a useful tool in public policy formulation. It is important to note, however, that in the way the exercise was carried out in this case, it is only possible to view future development through qualitative arguments. The key element for successful application of the method is the choice of expert group that produces the information.

Even though backcasting seems to be very well suited for discussing and designing alternative ways of achieving predetermined policy goals, experiences of using this methodology in the policy context are quite rare in the scientific literature. This paper addresses this deficiency and presents experiences of one such case. These experiences should be of interest to those involved in long‐range strategy planning.

This paper aims to explore the use of backcasting approach in dealing with the indeterminate future performance of the emerging renewable energy sector, based on the case of China. Through backcasting analysis of the emerging sector under uncertainties and concerns of the stakeholders, it acknowledges a range of hurdles ingrained in the current energy system and issues related to technology management within the Chinese context.

This is a conceptual paper with integration of relevant contemporary knowledge.

This study points out the challenges in plausible developments for the renewable energy sector harnessing such approach. Particularly, the pursuit of end‐points under a multitude of optima can be associated with goal‐seeking embedded in backcasting for sustainable developments, whereas economic and technological constraints inherent to the processes of technological innovation in the cultural environment are recognized. Formulating an integrative framework, this study suggests the relevance of the approach of backcasting to augment dynamic policy analysis and planning for plausible developments in time, and to consequently optimize resource allocation in the renewal of necessary technological infrastructure.

This paper structurally reveals critical issues in the development of an emerging technology sector of growing importance and the pertinent implications to policy making in China for sustainable development given the underlying quantitative and qualitative constraints.

The purpose of this study is to understand what a sustainable future would look like and the nature of the changes needed to achieve it. Continued reliance on economic growth to meet the demands of a growing population is unsustainable and comes at an unacceptable social and environmental cost. Given these increasing demands, radical changes to present practices of production and consumption are needed to enable a sustainable future.

To address this the projective technique of backcasting was used in a pilot study to explore student visions of a sustainable future. An integrative framework comprising housing, clothing, travel, leisure and food provided the structure for six focus group discussions.

Thematic analysis identified three key characteristics of a sustainable consumption future, namely, efficiency, sharing and community and three critical elements, namely, the role of government, education and technology, necessary for its achievement.

Demonstrating the usefulness of backcasting will encourage its application in a wider range of consumption contexts with a broader range of participants. The vision of a sustainable future provides a blueprint that identifies its nature, and the basis upon which decisions to achieve it can be made.

The research introduces the technique of backcasting and demonstrates its usefulness when dealing with complex problems, where there is a need for radical change and when the status quo is not sustainable. Unexpectedly, results suggest a commitment to prosocial values, collaborative experience, collective action and the importance of community. Research and social implications demonstrating the usefulness of backcasting will encourage its application in a wider range of consumption contexts with a broader range of participants. The vision of a sustainable future provides a blueprint that identifies its nature, and the basis upon which decisions to achieve it can be made.

The chapter aims to reflectively discuss a participatory research project concerning the future of higher education in Hungary. This project can be understood as an ongoing methodological experiment which attempts to engage teachers and students, in order to reveal how key stakeholders think about the future of higher education. In line with this, this methodologically oriented chapter shows how different participatory methodologies can be combined in a so-called backcasting framework. This approach starts by describing the present situation, then moves beyond the present conditions so as to identify the cornerstones of an ideal future state. On the one hand, the chapter gives a detailed introduction to how our participatory research process was set up and what particular methodologies we used during this process. On the other hand, it critically reflects on the methodological and ethical challenges involved.

This paper aims to explore the evolutionary dynamics of innovation ecosystems in the food industry by adopting both open innovation and convergence approaches to derive practical policy implications to develop impactful innovation ecosystems to promote food production sustainably.

Starting from the cutting-edge case of Foodvalley in the Netherlands, the study adopts a backcasting approach to reach a future vision of food ecosystems from a sustainable food production perspective. The authors set the backcasting analysis in four steps: (1) description of the present and trends analysis, (2) selection of trustworthy criteria and goals, (3) development of future images and (4) analysis of how to reach the images.

The trends analysis has identified three existing innovation fields – protein shift, circular agrifood and food and health – and two strategic directions – convergence and localness decrease. The study reports how a long-term commitment may lead the valley toward a best future scenario.

The study suggests that policymakers and stakeholders can promote innovation strategies in sustainable food production ecosystems by encouraging collaboration between different sectors, reducing regulatory barriers, attracting innovative actors, and investing in education and training programs. To achieve measurable environmental and social impact outcomes, policies should promote entrepreneurship and create an enabling environment that encourages innovation and risk-taking.

The originality of this paper concerns the backcasting perspective applied to the analysis of the food ecosystem. This approach facilitates the identification of a path direction for successfully managing open innovation and industry convergence toward a desirable future of sustainable food production.