Research and analysis

Net zero society: driver mapping and scenarios

Published 29 August 2024

Government Office for Science (GO-Science) 

The Net Zero Society Foresight project used scenarios to set out four alternative pathways to reaching the net-zero goal. The project then used modelling techniques to identify how emissions targets could be met through rollouts of technology and energy infrastructure, given the demands and technology availability in each scenario – and what the costs might be. The scenarios are being used to help stress-test policy options.

What was the challenge? 

The Government Office for Science’s Net Zero Society Report was commissioned as part of the government’s Net Zero Strategy in 2021. It aimed to answer the following questions: 

• What does evidence on past societal changes tell us about how future changes could unfold, and can we spot early signs of this happening? 

• Informed by this evidence, how might society plausibly change by 2050, and how could this affect our pathway to net zero? 

What was the approach? 

The project involved developing a set of plausible narrative scenarios to stretch thinking about how society might change by 2050, using a version of the 2x2 scenario matrix method outlined in the Futures Toolkit. These were then overlayed with energy-system modelling for each scenario, and tested in a series of workshops with members of the public. This case study focuses on the initial narrative scenario development, but more detail on the energy-system modelling and public dialogue can be found in the report.  

To identify the most important drivers of future societal change and produce a set of plausible future scenarios, the project team commissioned a provider via the Futures Procurement Framework (which holds details of pre-approved suppliers of futures work) to run a series of workshops. Workshops involved 35 stakeholder participants from different sectors, including government, business and academia. 

In the first workshop, participants mapped drivers of societal change according to importance and uncertainty. Participants were asked to consider the potential scale and duration of impact of the driver on UK greenhouse gas emissions and/or energy consumption between now and 2050. Participants were then asked to consider whether they could imagine different plausible outcomes, either because of a lack of evidence on the direction of outcome, or because of deep uncertainty inherent in complex systems over long timescales. Participants scored each driver in terms of importance and uncertainty from +4 to -4. Uncertainty and importance were not necessarily correlated. For example, increased use of renewable electricity will be important for net-zero targets, but it is low in uncertainty (trends and current policies indicate a relatively clear path).   

Driver mapping helped to identify critical uncertainties, drivers that are both highly important and highly uncertain. In break-out groups, participants explored axes of uncertainty, looking at divergent alternative outcomes for each critical uncertainty. Social cohesion and institutional trust (uncertainty 1 in Figure 1) and economic growth and technological process (uncertainty 2 in Figure 1) were selected and combined (as in Figure 1) to form the basis of scenario development.

The image above is a two-by-two matrix depicting two axes of uncertainty.

Figure 1: Axes of uncertainty

Ahead of scenario-development workshops, descriptions of how the two axes of uncertainty combined to give four high-level scenarios were produced. These descriptions aimed to provide enough detail for stakeholders to visualise what scenarios might look and feel like without constraining creativity.  

Participants then developed these four scenarios over three workshops. Each workshop had a different question of focus: 

1. What would a 2050 society look like in each scenario? How will people live, work, play and consume? 

2. What will these scenarios mean for the way we use energy and resources in key emissions sectors (the built environment, travel and transport, work and industry, and food and land use)? 

3. What are plausible timelines for these scenarios between now and 2050? What would have to happen for us to end up in this world? 

Following these workshops, the scenario narratives were drafted to describe what each 2050 society would look like and what the implications might be for how people in the UK live their lives. The narratives were also brought to life through rich-picture illustrations (Figure 2). Scenario names were selected from workshop suggestions to help succinctly summarise each scenario and make it easier to refer to them in subsequent workstreams.

Figure 2: Illustrations of the scenarios

The image above represents an artistic impression of the metropolitan society. Highlighted features are increased AI and VR, high speed trains, CCS, a shopfront reading ‘Elite electronics, low CO2 footprint’ selling VR, more plant-based meals, robotic pollination, and protestors.

The image above represents an artistic impression of the atomised society. Highlighted features are international holidays, robotic pollination, cryptocurrency, high levels of data use, VR and a newspaper article titled ‘Less active lives strain healthcare systems.’

The image above represents an artist’s impression of the slow-lane society. Highlighted features; self-sufficient living, long-haul train travel, protected nature zones and rewilding, localised governance and a newspaper article titled ‘Government struggles to balance the books.’

The image above represents an artist’s impression of the Self Preservation Society. Highlighted features are derelict buildings, international trade, factory farming, and two newspaper articles, one of which is titled ‘breaches, fraud, misinformation: can we trust big tech?’

Scenarios were also compared side-by-side on a range of key variables to ensure they were sufficiently different from one another and would be useful in exploring different policy issues. Work was undertaken to ensure the narratives and scenario names were relatively neutral and included a mix of positive and negative aspects. This was partly to enhance plausibility. It was also to ensure that all the scenarios create similar levels of interest. Ideology and individual preferences may make certain scenarios more appealing to some individuals, but no one scenario was intended to be ‘preferable’ or ‘better’ than any other. 

Key stakeholders inside and outside government were consulted on the drafts to ensure the outputs appropriately reflected the workshop participants’ views and tackled the issues the scenarios were expected to explore. 

Timing-wise, the process to appoint a provider started in November 2021, the providers were assessed in January 2022, the workshops took place in February/March 2022, and the provider delivered the narratives and rich-picture illustrations by end of April 2022. Facilitation and organisation of workshops required a substantial amount of the project team’s time. 

The scenario narratives provided a high-level description of each plausible future along with suggestions of what four different sectors could be like in 2050. Using these qualitative descriptions as a starting point, the Net Zero Society project team then worked with modellers to develop a set of evidence-based model inputs for each sector, varying by scenario. This enabled the team to identify how net zero and interim carbon budgets could be met through rollouts of technology and energy infrastructure, given the demands and technology available in each scenario – and what the costs might be.  

What was the impact? 

The scenario narratives and rich-picture illustrations produced are the cornerstone of the Net Zero Society Foresight Report. In particular, the rich-picture illustrations provided a clear visual style for the report that was well received by readers. The scenarios developed are being used to help policymakers stress-test policies against the possible futures scenarios set out – for example, to identify the options that are most resilient to different outcomes, or to help adapt policies so that they become more resilient. The scenario narratives and illustrations were also used in a public dialogue commissioned by GO-Science to better understand public views on the plausibility of the scenarios and the acceptability of societal changes highlighted in each case.  

Written in 2023.