The meat of the future and other trends in environmental and sustainability policy: a strategic forecast

Strategic forecasts are becoming increasingly important in order to respond politically to future impacts on the environment and sustainability. This includes the identification and in-depth analysis of major economic, social, technological and political change. The forecast aims to improve the strategic planning and decision-making capacities of the Federal Environment Agency and the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety through early detection.

This was the goal of this new project, which applied a standardised approach to the systematic identification and evaluation of future trends (horizon scanning). The project also created an in-depth trend analysis on ‘the meat of the future’. This analysis focuses on artificially produced (in vitro) meat, insect-based meat and ‘plant-based meat’ made from soya, for example.

adelphi provided support for the horizon scanning process and trend analysis. Specific tasks included: improving the scanning fields that serve the thematic focus and search process; the selection of sources for identifying change; conducting an expert survey to detect topics important for the future; and implementing a Delphi survey to assess the changes. adelphi determined positive and negative environmental impacts for the trend analysis of the ‘meat of the future’ and helped develop options for environmental policy.