Backcasting has become a widely applied approach to address sustainability challenges when transformative changes are required. However, dispersed and contextualized knowledge of backcasting methodologies and practices needs to be systematized, codified, and synthesized to support researchers, commissioners, practitioners, and stakeholders in backcasting projects. In this paper, we address these issues by (i) concisely reviewing the evolution and current body of literature on backcasting and how this relates to other major types of futures and scenario studies and (ii) developing a design framework for researchers and practitioners that systematically covers all methodological choices with regard to key guiding questions to develop a backcasting methodology for a particular backcasting project. The developed design framework is based on four parts, characterized by the interrogatives when, which, how, and what, creating a comprehensive framework for describing a backcasting study.

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In order to support transition to a circular economy, visions and strategies need to be developed for which participatory backcasting can be used. This paper reports on the effects of using serious games as a possible supporting (social) engagement and design tool for vision development in participatory backcasting and has been applied to circular business and industry parks. In order to test the effects on (social) engagement, a new framework was developed and used to evaluate engagement by measuring the game experience, perceived influence, and learning, as well as the social connections within these constructs. The effect of the vision design was measured using participant satisfaction and a vision analysis, identifying transformative elements and guiding goals and targets. The results show that a serious game is a suitable tool to support (social) engagement in participatory backcasting. As a design tool, it is suitable for the development of transformative elements, but the used game was not able to create guiding goals and targets.

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The circular economy (CE) is heralded as reducing material use and emissions while providing more jobs and growth. We explored this narrative in a series of expert workshops, basing ourselves on theories, methods and findings from science fields such as global environmental input-output analysis, business modelling, industrial organisation, innovation sciences and transition studies. Our findings indicate that this dominant narrative suffers from at least three inconvenient truths. First, CE can lead to loss of GDP. Each doubling of product lifetimes will halve the related industrial production, while the required design changes may cost little. Second, the same mechanism can create losses of production jobs. This may not be compensated by extra maintenance, repair or refurbishing activities. Finally, ‘Product-as-a-Service’ business models supported by platform technologies are crucial for a CE transition. But by transforming consumers from owners to users, they lose independence and do not share in any value enhancement of assets (e.g., houses). As shown by Uber and AirBNB, platforms tend to concentrate power and value with providers, dramatically affecting the distribution of wealth. The real win-win potential of circularity is that the same societal welfare may be achieved with less production and fewer working hours, resulting in more leisure time. But it is perfectly possible that powerful platform providers capture most added value and channel that to their elite owners, at the expense of the purchasing power of ordinary people working fewer hours. Similar undesirable distributional effects may occur at the global scale: the service economies in the Global North may benefit from the additional repair and refurbishment activities, while economies in the Global South that are more oriented towards primary production will see these activities shrink. It is essential that CE research comes to grips with such effects. Furthermore, governance approaches mitigating unfair distribution of power and value are hence essential for a successful circularity transition.@en

Geospatial analysis is useful for mapping the potential of renewables like solar PV. However, recent studies do not address PV’s bankable potential for which project financing can be secured. This paper proposes a framework that incorporates project finance into geospatial analyses to obtain the bankable potential of renewables. We demonstrate our framework for Indonesia, and compare the bankable potential with the socio-economic potential mostly used in literature. Using average inputs On average, the technical potential is 12,200 TWh/year and the socio-economic potential is 152.7 TWh/year if capped by 2030 demand (34% coverage). Considering PV’s financing risks, PV’s bankable potential is 16.0 TWh under current conditions if capped by 2030 demand (3.6% coverage). Both economic potentials are mainly in East Indonesia and absent on Java due to tariffs and land availability. For the bankable potential, the risk perception by banks and investors is another key influence. With a feed-in tariff of 11.5 US¢(2021)/kWh and temporary lift of import restrictions, the bankable potential is 23 TWh if capped by 2030 demand (5.2% coverage) and spreads to Java. For more widespread bankability, additional temporary measures are recommended until the PV’s costs have decreased further and trust by financial institutions has increased.@en

In the face of climate change, a major challenge is to inform and guide long-term climate change adaptation planning under deep uncertainty, while aiming at transformative change. Normative futures studies approaches, such as participatory backcasting, visioning and transition management, are increasingly applied, but their potential for climate change adaptation research and practice remains undervalued. This paper aims to advance the potential of backcasting in climate adaptation, by comparing various climate change adaptation studies that have used backcasting or visioning approaches. A framework has been further developed and applied to evaluate 10 cases in Africa, Europe and North America, using four dimensions: (i) inputs and settings; (ii) process and methods (iii) results, and (iv), impact. Our evaluation provides key insights into the use and further development of backcasting for climate adaptation. Key elements to add are advanced system modeling, robust elements, pathway switching and hybrid pathways, enhancing participation of marginal groups, and contributing to impact by facilitating the utilization of results and knowledge in practice and decision making.@en

Mobile apps are ubiquitous, affecting our everyday practices because “there is always an app for that”. In this vein, there have been a significant number of apps devised to support people’s lifestyles to make them more sustainable. This study aims to draw an overview of gamified mobile apps for sustainable consumption. Following a systematic process, this study analyzes 67 gamified apps’ sustainability approaches and gamification concepts. It was found that (1) sustainable consumption is generally presented as the efficient use of resources to impact the environment positively, rarely addressing societal impacts or economic gains from shifting consumption practices. Other findings include (2) a lack of diversity in gamification characteristics, given the prevalence of direct communication with the user, the absence of virtual identities, and most apps targeting behavior change without attitude change. A potentially problematic design choice is (3) the presence, in some cases, of external rewards that are often contradictory to the message of sustainable consumption as they lead to more consumption. Nonetheless, based on most apps embedding sustainable consumption activities in the gamification concept and having a large number of users, it is possible to conclude that gamification has the potential to motivate shifts in their users’ lifestyles.@en

The current focus of offshore wind industry and academia lies on regions with strong winds, neglecting areas with mild resources. Photovoltaics' cost reductions have shown that even mild resources can be harnessed economically, especially where electricity prices are high. Here, we study the technical and economic potential of offshore wind power in Indonesia as an example of mild-resource areas, using bias-corrected ERA5 data, turbine-specific power curves, and a detailed cost model. We show that low-wind-speed turbines could produce up to 6,816 TWh/year, which is 25 times Indonesia's electricity generation in 2018 and 3 times the projected 2050 generation, and up to 166 PWh/year globally. Although not yet competitive against current offshore turbines, low-wind turbines could become a crucial piece of the global climate mitigation effort in regions with vast marine areas and high electricity prices. As low-wind-speed turbines are not yet on the market, we recommend prioritizing their development.

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Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) produces electricity using the temperature difference between warm surface and cold deep-sea water. OTEC systems in literature only limitedly consider seasonal seawater temperature
variations and thus might not be adequately sized for off-design conditions. This potentially leads to techno-economically sub-optimal design choices. This paper sheds light on which design approach yields the most economically feasible OTEC system considering off-design conditions with 19 years of seawater temperature data in 3-h time steps. We find that systems sized for worst-case thermal resources yield the highest and steadiest electricity production. If seawater temperature variations are moderate, these systems also perform best economically in terms of Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE). We demonstrate our model for a 136 MWgross plant in Ende, Indonesia, with an LCOE of 15.12 US¢(2021)/kWh against a local electricity tariff of 15.77 US¢(2021)/kWh. The model is validated for different cost assumptions, system sizes, and temperature profiles to be useful globally. We give recommendations to curb costs and to move large-scale OTEC closer to today’s state of the art,
e.g. by using multiple smaller seawater pipes instead of few large pipes. The model is useful to prove OTEC’s global economic feasibility and to promote the technology’s commercialisation.@en

Transitioning to low carbon energy involves policies, institutions, and actors across different scales of governance. Indonesia's aspiration for a transition to low carbon energy is occurring in the dynamics of the re-scaling of environmental governance through decentralization processes. This article examines the interplays of actors at the national and provincial levels in negotiating energy futures as the energy planning processes unfold on the ground and identifies context specific factors that shape the outcomes. Further, it investigates how the regulatory framework and institutional arrangements for energy transition planning could not only generate obstacles for renewable energy transition but also open opportunities for actions. It is based on interviews with stakeholders at national and subnational levels, combined with the analysis of policy documents, studies, and relevant reports. The findings reveal emerging spaces for local actions amid constraining regulatory and institutional fields through the process of regional energy plan development. However, the ability of sub-national actors to seize these spaces is influenced by several factors, most notably political leadership, civil society engagement, political economic structure and power relations. These in-depth insights from Indonesia have wider implications for understanding the multi-scalar dynamics of energy transitions and provide useful policy recommendations for engaging subnational actors in the transition process.@en

Onshore wind potentials are commonly mapped with site selection criteria that either fully include or exclude land for wind farms. However, current research rarely addresses the variability of these criteria, possibly resulting in overly conservative or optimistic potentials. This paper proposes a method to account for the variability of site selection criteria in resource assessments. We distinguish between static and flexible, non-binary criteria and assess onshore wind's technical and economic potential with bias-corrected ERA5 data, 28 turbine power curves, and a turbine-specific cost model. For Indonesia, we show that our flexible mapping approach improves the transparency of resource potential assessments and could contribute to more informed and useful recommendations. These recommendations could address the (1) calibration of site exclusion thresholds, (2) dilemmas of preferring one land type over others, (3) location-specific challenges of wind farm deployment, and (4) more direct support schemes for affected stakeholders and wind farm operators.. We report a technical potential of 207–1,994 TWh/year in Indonesia, which could cover more than 50% of 2030 electricity demand on all islands. LCOEs range between 5.8 and 24.5 US¢(2021)/kWh with an economic potential of 16 TWh/year, which improves to 31–212 TWh/year with a carbon tax of 100 US$(2021)/tCO2e.@en

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is a promising renewable energy technology that is the most economical at large scale. But contemporary literature does not address how OTEC could reach such scale with current technology, and what the techno-economic impact of location-dependent factors and technological learning are. This paper tackles these issues by simulating OTEC's upscaling with a model that implements OTEC to meet local electricity demand and extrapolates to the global relevance of OTEC. The model uses a learning rate for investment costs and cost of finance. This study shows that up to 45 GW of OTEC capacity can be installed in Indonesia with national demand coverage of 22% in 2050. Even with small cost reduction rates, OTEC could be profitable and cost-competitive against other power generation technologies with an aggregated Net Present Value (NPV) of up to US$ 23 billion. OTEC's upscaling could be funded via state budget reallocation or international financial institutions, e.g. via the feed-in tariff suggested in the paper. However, large-scale OTEC is only feasible in regions with high electricity demand and until that size is reached, upscaling must be coordinated globally, e.g. with the proposed upscaling strategy. To contribute to the global energy transition, OTEC needs to grow by 28% per year, a rate similar to wind power and solar PV. This paper provides good reasons to fight for the attention of global decision makers and future research could focus on refining the concepts of this study.@en

The current COVID-19 pandemic has affected societies across the world while its economic impact has cut deeper than any recession since the Second World War. Climate change is potentially an even more disruptive and complex global challenge. Climate change could cause social and economic damage far larger than that caused by COVID-19. The current pandemic has highlighted the extent to which societies need to prepare for disruptive global environmental crises. Although the dynamics of combating COVID-19 and climate change are different, the priorities for action are the same: behavioral change, international cooperation to manage shared challenges, and technology's role in advancing solutions. For a sustainable recovery from the COVID-19 crisis to be durable and resilient, a return to ‘business as usual’ and the subsequent often environmentally destructive economic activities must be avoided as they have significantly contributed to climate change. To avoid this, we draw lessons from the experiences of the waves of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond to advance sustainable development.

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Indonesia has an increasing electricity demand that is mostly met with fossil fuels. Although Indonesia plans to ramp up Renewable Energy Technologies (RET), implementation has been slow. This is unfortunate, as the RET potential in Indonesia might be higher than currently assumed given the archipelago’s size. However, there is no literature overview of RET potentials in Indonesia and to what extent they can meet current and future electricity demand coverage. This paper reviews contemporary literature on the potential of nine RET in Indonesia and analyses their impact in terms of area and demand coverage. The study concludes that Indonesia hosts massive amounts of renewable energy resources on both land and sea. The potentials in the academic and industrial literature tend to be considerably larger than the ones from the Indonesian Energy Ministry on which current energy policies are based. Moreover, these potentials could enable a 100% renewables electricity system and meet future demand with limited impact on land availability. Nonetheless, the review showed that the research topic is still under-researched with three detected knowledge gaps, namely the lack of (i) economic RET potentials, (ii) research on the integrated spatial potential mapping of several RET and (iii) empirical data on natural resources. Lastly, this study provides research and policy recommendations to promote RET in Indonesia.@en

Two electrolysis technologies fed with renewable energy sources are promising for the production of CO₂-free hydrogen and enabling the transition to a hydrogen society: Alkaline Electrolyte (AE) and Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM). However, limited information exists on the potential environmental impacts of these promising sustainable innovations when operating on a large-scale. To fill this gap, the performance of AE and PEM systems is compared, using ex-ante Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), technology analysis and exploratory scenarios for which a refined methodology has been developed to study the effects of implementing large-scale sustainable hydrogen production systems. Ex-ante LCA allows modelling the environmental impacts of hydrogen production, exploratory scenario analysis allows modelling possible upscaling effects at potential future states of hydrogen production and use in vehicles in the Netherlands in 2050. A bridging tool for mapping the technological field has been created enabling the combination of quantitative LCAs with qualitative scenarios. This tool also enables diversity for exploring multiple sets of visions. The main results from the paper show, with an exception for the “ozone depletion” impact category, (1) that large-scale AE and PEM systems have similar environmental impacts with variations lower than 7% in all impact categories, (2) that the contribution of the electrolyser is limited to 10% of all impact categories results, and (3) that the origin of the electricity is the largest contributor to the environmental impact contributing to more than 90% in all impact categories, even when renewable energy sources are used. It is concluded that the methodology was applied successfully and provides a solid basis for an ex-ante assessment framework that can be applied to emerging technological systems.

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Considering how wicked problems, such as overconsumption, climate change, or the management of the COVID-19 pandemic rely on multiple stakeholder groups’ deliberation, this study investigates gamification's potential in participatory backcasting processes to support the emergence and growth of social innovations towards sustainability. Gameful methodologies have progressively been introduced into strategic planning processes, futures research, and transition studies, offering a powerful input to participatory backcasting processes. As gamification is a novel and impactful way to motivate and engage participants to take action during and after the participatory process, this study develops a framework for practitioners to gamify backcasting processes. Developed through state-of-the-art review of extant corpus as well as two cases of gamified participatory backcasting, the framework elucidates how participatory backcasting processes that include gamification elements designed to address engagement do have an impact on the participants, particularly in terms of the process being a positive, co-creative experience, and offer a good foundation for posterior actions.

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Deze bundel essays brengt, eindelijk, systematisch in beeld wat de waarde en het potentieel is van wat vaak de ‘beweging van onderop’ wordt genoemd: initiatieven vanuit burgers en betrokken, ondernemende, mensen die vanuit hun eigen leefomgeving de wereld proberen te veranderen. Op veel plekken, zo laten de auteurs zien, zijn er de afgelopen jaren sociale initiatieven ontstaan die de weg (willen) wijzen naar een circulaire en duurzame toekomst. Deze initiatieven zijn altijd lokaal geworteld maar ook mondiaal verbonden: translokaal. ‘Bottom up’ of ‘van onderop’ doet ze dan ook tekort: ze komen van alle kanten. Hoogstens zeggen zulke benamingen iets over het perspectief van degene die erbuiten staat: de beleidsmaker (of onderzoeker) die ermee wordt geconfronteerd. Ja, het zijn vaak ondernemende burgers die uit eigen beweging aan de slag gaan, maar tegelijk brengen ze vaak professionele expertise en netwerk mee. @en

The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to widely change how consumers evaluate market offerings. In this research, we identified consumers’ emotions on the adoption of use-oriented Product-Service-Systems (PSS) and the effect of COVID-19 on such emotions using pre- and amid-COVID-19 samples. The results indicate that positive emotions are generally more associated with the process of adopting use-oriented PSS. However, the negative effect of COVID-19 on emotions influencing the decision to use the PSS is significant. We found that during the pandemic, consumers moved from the positive side of emotions to the more negative one. The emotions with the highest frequencies in pre-COVID-19 data collection (sympathy, joy, and peacefulness) suffered a significant descent effect due to the pandemic. Also, negative emotions such as fear, shame, and guilt, which were already present in the pre-COVID-19 phase, showed an increase in manifestations in the amid-COVID-19 sample. COVID-19 has increased self-interest in people, and emotions that predict altruism and concern for society were affected. We also found that previous use experience as well as gender and education do not significantly moderate the effect of COVID-19 on consumption emotions, although these demographic variables have been confirmed in other studies as important moderators in pro-environmental consumption. Finally, the results demonstrated that younger people (between 18 and 24 years old) tend to be more impacted by pandemic. Theoretically, our study contributes (1) by using an emotions scale specifically developed for consumption situations, allowing to assess a greater amount of emotions, (2) by analysing basic emotions, in addition to the self-conscious ones, that interfere in the adoption of use-oriented PSS, and (3) by confirming that an external traumatic event alters consumption-related emotions.

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Indonesia strives for a renewable energy share of 23% by 2025. One option to contribute to this goal is Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC). Despite a global theoretical potential of up to 30 TW, its economically deployable share remains unknown. This paper proposes a novel methodology, which enables to determine OTEC's economic potential for any regional scope considering technical, economic and natural variables. The methodology was tested for 100 MW_e OTEC in Indonesia on a provincial and national level. Against a regionally variable electricity tariff of 6.67–18.14 US$ct.(2018)/kWh, the national economic potential is 0–2 GW_e with a Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) as low as 15.6 US$ct.(2018)/kWh. With an annual electricity production of 0–16 TWh, OTEC could provide up to 6% of Indonesia's electricity demand in 2018. The capacity factor, capital expenses and discount rate are the most sensitive variables of the LCOE on average. A nationally uniform feed-in tariff of 18 US$ct.(2018)/kWh or more could increase the economic potential significantly. The proposed methodology can be a helpful quick-scan tool for determining economically interesting OTEC sites for follow-up in-depth feasibility studies. Limitations are discussed and future research, amongst others upscaling scenarios with cost reducing effects like technological learning, is recommended.

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