Research and analysis

Future of energy: Three Horizons, Futures Wheels

Published 29 August 2024

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) 

This case study describes how application of futures tools informed a foresight report on energy, with a health and safety focus – providing an additional decision-making resource at a time of uncertainty about UK’s future energy mix. 

What was the challenge? 

In 2016/17 the HSE Foresight Centre produced a set of energy-themed outputs for its annual publication. The team needed to produce a topic guide to inform the writing of its annual report which could be used as a thought starter across the organisation and beyond. The report had to be produced to a deadline and meet the organisation’s publication quality approvals. The ultimate owner was the Chief Scientific Adviser who shared the report as an annex to his annual science report to the HSE board. 

The chosen theme that year for the foresight report was energy. As none of the foresight team members were energy experts, they needed direction from a small group of in-house subject matter experts to help choose and describe a set of pertinent trends for the publication.  

What was the approach? 

1. The team designed and facilitated a half-day workshop using the three horizons and futures wheels methods to gather views and forward-looking intelligence relating to energy challenges and opportunities. The team had learned about using these approaches at an external learning and development seminar and decided that a collaborative three horizons activity would help narrow down a long list of energy technologies to a manageable and varied selection for the report.  

2. Thought starter prompts cards: ahead of the workshop, the team derived a series of thought starter prompt cards by extracting key topics from a forward-looking energy committee paper and other horizon scanning sources. The participants did not have time available to do any pre-reading, so needed to be able to dive straight into the topics at the workshop. 

3. Three horizons exercise: six experts were asked to work together to position the topic cards across the three horizons on a large poster placed on the wall. Experts were given the option to add any additional trends that they thought had been missed. They were encouraged to go by gut feel and reach decisions by consensus. 

4. Futures wheels exercise: the relevant timeframe for the report was Horizon 2 (four to seven years). Trend cards from Horizon 2 were taken from the three horizons poster and each one placed in the centre of an individual futures wheel. The experts then worked in pairs to draw out future consequences, fanning outward from the trend at the centre of the wheel. The participants reviewed, commented on, and added to each other’s futures wheels. 

5. Report writing: the futures wheels then served as an information repository and topic guide. The foresight team referred to them to structure and write a short article about each Horizon 2 trend.   

What was the impact? 

This work allowed a small foresight team to produce and publish an informative future energy report that provided an accessible forward look at a set of technically complex topics with a health and safety focus. It was well received by the management board and could be used as a thought starter across the organisation and beyond. The report provided an additional decision-making resource at a time of uncertainty about the UK net zero direction and the future energy mix. 

Since then, the combined 3 Horizons and Futures Wheels has been integrated into introductory foresight workshops, to help colleagues discuss the changing future world of work, have the right conversations and learn by doing. 

Written in 2023, updated 2024.  

©Crown Copyright. This publication and the work it describes was funded by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Its contents, including any opinions and/or conclusions expressed, are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect HSE policy.