circular – Insight Foresight Institute

Futures of Using Nature in Rural and Marine Europe in 2050: Scenarios and Policy Implications

The CEO of Insight Foresight Institute, Totti Könnölä, coordinated this project of the Foresight on Demand consortium. The project explored transformative scenarios for Europe’s rural and marine areas in 2050, examining their implications for current R&I policy across four critical dimensions: (i) Economy and technology, (ii) Demographics, lifestyles and values, (iii) Governance, and (iv) Environmental sustainability. The aim was to analyse how the Anthropocene’s accelerated social and technological changes—particularly the extensive use and misuse of Earth’s resources—might reshape Europe’s territorial development pathways, and to derive actionable policy insights for sustainable transition.

The project was one of eight Deep Dive Foresight Studies in the project ‘European R&I Foresight and Public Engagement for Horizon Europe’. The expert team identified factors of change and organised two scenarios and one policy implications workshops, also engaging experts from academia, business and public administration around Europe. The process was also supported by discussions in the Horizon Europe Foresight Network.

The foresight project developed four scenarios of Europe’s rural and marine futures by 2050:

Scenario A – European Civic Ecovillages: Local communities pursue self-sufficiency and cooperative economies, restoring ecosystems on land and sea but focusing mainly on regional crises.

Scenario B – Sustainable High-tech Europe: European businesses achieve global leadership in regenerative high-tech solutions, yet face barriers to scaling up and achieving systemic biodiversity gains.

Scenario C – United States of Europe: A centrally planned model balances intensive land and sea use with large conservation zones, creating positive impacts on biodiversity but limiting decentralization.

Scenario D – European Permacrisis: A fragmented, post-growth Europe struggles with political division, weak innovation, and ineffective biodiversity protection.

Policy implications included:

Tackling risks of fragmented land use that weaken ecosystems and reduce resilience.

Advancing integrated spatial planning of urban, rural, and marine areas, including extended user rights and new ownership models.

Balancing sustainability with affordability and food security in agriculture and aquaculture.

Developing both local and global solutions to climate and biodiversity crises, ensuring scalability and coherence.

The scenarios underlined that no single solution can fully resolve global climate and biodiversity challenges. Instead, Europe must foster balanced, multi-level approaches that combine innovation, governance, and inclusive societal engagement to ensure resilience and sustainability.

Additional information

Totti Könnölä, Martha Bakker, Francois Simard, David Shaw, Philine Warnke. “Futures of Using Nature in Rural and Marine Europe: Scenarios and Policy Implications ”. Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

Acess to full report

Futures of Using Nature in Rural and Marine Europe in 2050: Scenarios and Policy Implications

Futures of Green Skills and Jobs in Europe in 2050: Scenarios and Policy Implications

Insight Foresight Institute participated in the project “Futures of Green Skills and Jobs in Europe in 2050: Scenarios and Policy Implications”. The report examined the transformative impact of the green transition on the EU labour market, alongside digitalisation and automation, through a set of future scenarios for green technological leadership and socio-techncal transitions in Europe.

The work was part of the larger platform project named “European R&I Foresight and Public Engagement for Horizon Europe” for the European Commission, coordinated by Totti Könnölä, the CEO of Insight Foresight Institute. Four different scenarios were defined for the study:

Scenario A – Green technology-intensive Europe, struggling to fill all the green jobs. The European Union has advanced in a green transition across society and has gained global leadership in green technologies, resulting from aligned efforts.

Scenario B – Apocalypse soon, fighting skills mismatches in a degraded environment. After failed climate policy efforts, a sharp deterioration of the climate and the multiplication of extreme natural-related events, the environment is in a critical state in Europe and globally.

Scenario C – Feeling the pain, a workface left behind in a non-green world. This scenario represents increasing environmental pressures from man-made climate change that have not been effectively addressed over the past decades.

Scenario D – Green leapfrogging, old Europe surrounded by new green giants. In 2050, third countries and regions have leapfrogged leaving Europe behind. The world has seen geopolitical shifts, but also an improved environment.

Each of the four depicted futures stimulated further discussion on multiple implications for current R&I policy, and collectively gave rise to the following conclusions:

There will be no green transition without a strong, vocational education and training (VET) skills base.

The shared understanding of what green means is reconfigured over time.

The talent base for green skills must be expanded.

Green development paths are shaped by emerging technologies; emerging technologies should also be shaped by green skills.

Based on this work, INRS and other European experts were invited to participate in a foresight network focusing on green skills and jobs in Europe by 2050. The article “L’Avenir des Compétences et des Emplois Verts en Europe en 2050: Scénario et Implications Politiques; Conséquences pour la Prévention des Risques Professionnels’” presents a summary of the discussion.

Additional information

Mikkel Knudsen, Marjolein Caniëls, Peter Dickinson, Michel Hery, Heila Lotz-Sisitka and Totti Könnölä. “Futures of Green Skills and Jobs in Europe in 2050: Scenarios and Policy Implications”. Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

Acess to full reports

Futures of Green Skills and Jobs in Europe in 2050: Scenarios and Policy Implications

L’Avenir des Compétences et des Emplois Verts en Europe en 2050: Scénario et Implications Politiques; Conséquences pour la Prévention des Risques Professionnels

Basque Circular Summit 2025

During the days 2,3 and 4th of April, Insight Foresight Institute’s team attended the Basque Circular Summit 2025 in Bilbao. The event was organised by the Basque Government and Ihobe. Ihobe is a publicly owned company that works under the Basque Government’s Ministry of Industry, Energy Transition and Sustainability.

The BSC 2025 has been the largest event on circular economy in southern Europe this year. Overall, it addressed the challenges that the Basque Country has to face in the Circularity area. For that matter, many opportunities and projects were discussed and analysed. Furthermore, although the summit has a clear Basque perspective, the broader view that Spain and Europe have on circular economy was shown. In line with that, many experts were invited to participate in the summit, Janez Potocnik, Mónica Chao or Ioanis Retsoulis among many others.

The summit had three main areas of focus:

Forum: it covered a vast area of the Circular Economy. The forum was based on a variety of conferences given by research experts, companies and public administration figures. Given the number of subjects covered, there were parallel sessions, which facilitated participants to choose the conferences they were interested on.
Expo: as the name indicates it was an exposition that reunited the recent developments in the area of circular economy that Basque companies have done. The second day of the summit, the best innovations were given an award as a recognition for their contribution to CE.
Village: the village was held as the meeting point of the event. It was composed by stands of businesses and entities from the Basque Country. 20 stands were showing achievements in the field of sustainability along with future strategies. The village allowed participants to interact with each other and share common ideas on the subject.

Thanks to the forum, IFI’s team was able to attend to twelve sessions that covered the following themes: textile industry, the New Industrial Pact, critical raw materials, future CE challenges in Europe, Digital Product Passport, circular cities, sustainable finances, waste management in Europe, the role of consumers in CE, metrics for the environmental evaluation, clean technologies and eco-innovations for material’s efficiency.

Even though the event was organised by the Basque Government, every conference had the perspectives of institutions or enterprises from Euskadi, Spain and Europe. This factor was key to align the different initiatives and works towards a cooperative transition. Additionally, the number of participants and spectators surpassed the 1,300 which demonstrated the commitment of the people both from inside and outside the sector of the Circular Economy.

Summing up the Basque Circular Summit 2025 has shown the commitment of the Basque Country’s both private and public sectors with sustainable practices. It reaffirms that the path to follow in the next decades is going to be based on circular approaches, aligning with Europe’s long-term objectives. The Circular Economy is a challenge but above all, an opportunity to boost competitiveness in the Basque Country and in Europe.

Geopolitical & industrial decarbonisation scenarios to identify R&I opportunities for the EU

As part of ‘the Eye of Europe’ Horizon Europe Project, Insight Foresight Institute organised an in-person stakeholder workshop on ‘Geopolitical & industrial decarbonisation scenarios to identify R&I opportunities for the EU’ on 10-11 April 2025 in Madrid, Spain. The event consisted of debating around a primary issue on the EU’s agenda: how to navigate geopolitical issues to keep decarbonising the continent towards sustainable and competitive sectors.

The workshop gathered more than 30 experts specialised in different areas related to circular economy, decarbonisation, sustainability, innovation, geopolitics etc. The objective was to use foresight methods (scenarios and roadmaps) in order to plan different strategies to navigate industrial decarbonisation. For that matter, three different small groups were created:

Energy Security and Supply moderated by Attila Havas.
Critical Raw Materials moderated by Totti Könnölä.
Manufacturing in Hard-to-Abate Sectors moderated by Karl-Heinz Leitner.

Participants attended this two-day workshop which started with introductory presentations by experts from public institutions such as the European Commission or the Spanish Ministry of Industry. Once participants were put into context, the common scenario work began in the mentioned small groups. The second day, the debate was focused on roadmpaping for R&I needs and emerging areas. The findings and conclusions were gathered in the final plenary and will soon be published on a report.

The dynamic teamwork carried out by participants with such different backgrounds allowed to gather diverse outcomes from the exercise. The decarbonisation process of the European industry has already begun, and it is crucial to consider every factor in order to apply the adequate strategies. From the Insight Foresight Institute’s team we would like to thank all the participants that attended those two days to debate about the future of the decarbonisation process in Europe.

Towards smart circular economy; the role of digitalisation

The Digital Development and Society Forum of the Spain Digital Foundation supported by the Insight Foresight Institute (IFI) has prepared a dossier in Spanish entitled “Towards the Intelligent Circular Economy; the role of digitization” tries to contribute ideas proposing to take advantage of the potential of digitization to change the model of the current linear economy towards the new system of Circular Economy.

As indicated in the document, its objective is to explain the connection between digitization and the Circular Economy as well as to suggest actions that can accelerate the implementation of this new economic model. The series of specific objectives can be summarized:

Define the role of digitization on the road to the Circular Economy
Identify digital application areas to promote the Circular Economy
Suggest actions to digitize the economy towards circular models.

The dossier specifies some of the challenges to be faced in the search for this particular type of economy and identifies a series of barriers that must be taken into account, classified into three main groups:

Organizational and cultural (eg lack of talent or rejection of open innovation)
Legal and tax (eg confidentiality protection, tariff logic)
Technological (eg interoperability difficulties)

As an example of the capabilities of digitization to accelerate the transition to a Circular Economy, the main axes included in the Spanish Circular Economy Strategy are detailed; Spain Circular 2030 presenting three hypothetical cases applicable to some of them, specifically in the productive sectors of transport (urban eMobility), agri-food and tourism.

After the conclusions highlighting the fundamental role of digitization, the dossier ends by proposing lines of action to promote its role in the Circular Economy.

The Spain Digital Foundation publishes this dossier in support and collaboration towards the full implementation of the new Circular Economy system. This proposal acquires special importance at present as evidenced by the approval by the Council of Ministers of Spain, on June 2, 2020, of the aforementioned Spanish Circular Economy Strategy EEEC; Spain Circular 2030.

Download free the report (in Spanish):

Hacia la economía circular inteligente; el papel de la digitalización