Transformative change is essential to secure a liveable future for people and nature. Co-creating transformative biodiversity-centric pathways can help inspire action, but doing so effectively requires two major advances to capture the complexity and plurality of change. First, nexus approaches highlight the foundational role of biodiversity in supporting desirable outcomes by leveraging synergies and addressing trade-offs between multiple sectors and priorities. Second, transdisciplinary approaches weave together the diverse disciplines, perspectives and stakes implicated in change, offering an enriched understanding to inform actionable outcomes.
In this presentation, we share insights from the BIONEXT project, which co-created and evaluated Nature Futures visions and pathways for Europe using a nexus approach. Our approach combined participant engagement through co-creation workshops with mixed methods approaches spanning qualitative social science methods and integrated modelling. We focus on methodological innovation and reflexive learning, illustrating how specific research choices shaped both process and outcomes. These include: (1) how we used the Nature Futures Framework and nexus approaches to underpin vision and pathway co-creation; (2) how we combined qualitative and quantitative methods – through expert and stakeholder judgments alongside integrated modelling – to evaluate the extent to which pathways achieve the visions ; and (3) how iterative engagement enabled researchers and participants to enrich and elevate the ambition of the pathways, yielding more transformative insights.
Through these reflections, we identify key tensions in using transdisciplinary futures approaches for biodiversity centric scenarios: between inspiring radicality and transformative potential while maintaining feasibility and actionability; between offering an enriched picture through knowledge integration while maintaining the integrity of diverse stakeholder and disciplinary perspectives; and between embracing complexity via the nexus approach while synthesising coherent, policy-relevant outputs.
We demonstrate how adopting a transdisciplinary nexus approach within futures processes offered novel and potentially transformative insights, while also surfacing new challenges that demand reflexivity, humility and an openness to adapt and learn. We hope our presentation inspires further methodological innovation that embraces complexity and plurality of transformative change, ultimately informing more ambitious and inclusive biodiversity action.
How to cite: Lazurko, A., de Pater, M., Hebinck, A., Diaz-General, E., Harmackova, Z., and Harrison, P.: Co-creation and evaluation of transformative biodiversity-centric pathways for Europe: Opportunities and tensions in combining qualitative and quantitative data using a nexus approach, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-289, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-289, 2026.
Global food systems remain one of the dominant anthropogenic drivers of biodiversity loss through land-use change, habitat conversion, pollution, and resource use. Despite their substantial mitigation potential, demand-side interventions in the food system remain comparatively underexplored relative to supply-side approaches. This is due to the lack of accounting approaches that capture: (1) the cross-system processes, especially indirect linkages between dietary and consumption behaviour, food supply, land use, and finally biodiversity, but also (2) the uncertainties inherent in human behaviour.
Hence, we use FeliX, a global-scale, highly coupled Integrated Assessment Model with strong demand representation, to develop an integrative modelling framework that captures the dynamic feedbacks linking a range of food system behavioural levers to species biodiversity and relevant sustainability objectives. We consider multiple behavioural levers such as dietary change, food waste reduction, and adoption of alternative proteins in our analysis. We also construct an experimental design that systematically explores drivers and uncertainties in behavioural change, including adoption rates of different diets, distribution and dietary compositions, to investigate a variety of plausible biodiversity futures.
We intend to (1) identify key demand-side scenarios in mitigating species loss (projected by Mean Species Abundance), and to understand the underlying mechanisms through which behaviours drive ecological outcomes; and consequently (2) evaluate how these biodiversity-focused scenarios interact with broader sustainability objectives, such as climate mitigation, nutritional adequacy, water and fertiliser use, to identify robust strategies relevant to the broader Agriculture, Food and Land Use (AFOLU) nexus.
The analysis is expected to highlight behavioural pathways that offer potential for mitigating species biodiversity loss, while providing model-based insights into possible leverage points. In addition, the trade-offs and co-benefits identified can also offer insights into the conditions under which biodiversity goals can be achieved without undermining other sustainability objectives.
This research contributes to biodiversity futures by understanding the potential role of food demand in influencing species loss and implications for broader goals. Methodologically, it demonstrates an integrated modelling framework that emphasises human behaviour, values and culture, and can be adapted to explore a wider range of biodiversity goals and support integrative policy strategies.
How to cite: Tan, R. Y. W., Ye, Q., and Eker, S.: Food behaviour changes to mitigate species biodiversity losses, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-446, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-446, 2026.
RainMakers: Agents of Ecological Citizenship presents a methodological and imaginative framework for co‑creating biodiversity‑centric scenarios that foreground ecological citizenship, contribution systems, and more‑than‑human agency. Responding to calls for inspirational methods that “open up” novel futures, the presentation introduces RainMakers as civic‑ecological mediators who design conditions—roles, rhythms, boundaries, and infrastructures—under which communities can co‑imagine, test, and inhabit biodiversity‑positive futures.
Methodologically, RainMakers introduces a continuity‑oriented scenario grammar that values long‑term ecological metabolics (soil, watersheds, cultural stewardship) as the core narrative arc, rather than short‑term impact metrics. The RainMakers position blends design for sustainability, Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge, BioKultural Design, and commons governance into a biomythical practice that treats scenarios as lived experiments in metabolic governance rather than abstract storylines. It employs concepts such as bioKreatures (e.g., Rivers, Money, Technology), oracles (e.g., prophecy, scientific research, planetary boundaries) and interobjective value to personify ecological and infrastructural actors, making them legible participants in scenario co‑creation and enabling communities to negotiate with, not just model, their influence on biodiversity. This imaginative personification complements quantitative and narrative approaches by expanding who counts as a scenario “stakeholder” and how their contributions are tracked.
The framework outlines practical techniques: RainMaker‑led “rainmaking embassies” that convene local stewards, policymakers, and technologists; contribution‑mapping that visualizes cumulative care work for habitats or bioregions; and narrative design exercises that prototype institutions and civic technologies around continuity and ecological legibility. These methods help participants move beyond dystopian or technocratic defaults, generating biodiversity‑centric scenarios where ecological citizenship is structurally supported.
For transdisciplinary researchers, practitioners, and communities, RainMakers offers both conceptual tools and facilitation practices to co‑create scenarios that integrate scientific models, local and Indigenous knowledge, and imaginative storytelling. In doing so, it advances methodological innovation by making scenario work itself a site of ecological citizenship, where the act of co‑creating futures becomes part of building the metabolic conditions that those futures require.
How to cite: Flores, W., Adler, J., Boyd Davis, S., and Phillips, R.: RainMaking as Meta-crisis Diplomacy, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-1012, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-1012, 2026.
Landscapes in the global south are undergoing rapid change due to factors such as agricultural expansion and broader remote influences. These changes often lead to biodiversity loss and increased uncertainty, especially in highly biodiverse and food-insecure regions. Addressing these challenges requires transdisciplinary foresight approaches to systematically explore potential landscape changes and co-design sustainable pathways for biodiversity conservation. This means moving beyond exploring scenarios to identifying a desirable future and co-designing pathways to achieve it. However, most existing work focuses on developing scenarios and linking them to visioning and co-designing transformative pathways for biodiversity conservation, particularly in sub-Saharan African landscapes is misisng. This study addresses this gap by integrating scenario development, visioning, and backcasting in the biodiversity-rich coffee landscapes of Jimma zone, southwest Ethiopia. It aims to identify plausible future trajectories, examine stakeholder visions, and co-design transformative strategies to guide the landscape toward a biodiversity-supported future. To achieve these, a transdisciplinary foresight approach integrating participatory scenario planning, visioning, and backcasting, with the Three Horizons framework, was used. Three rounds of participatory workshops were held with over 200 stakeholders, including local communities and government representatives. Together, stakeholders explored system dynamics and uncertainties, developed plausible landscape futures for 2050, articulated shared visions, and identified pathways for a biodiversity-supported future. Four plausible scenarios were identified for the study landscape. Three scenarios emphasized increasing agricultural production efficiency through intensification, specialization, and market integration, resulting in limited support for biodiversity conservation. In contrast, one scenario integrated biodiversity conservation into agricultural land using the biosphere model and an agroecological, biodiversity-supporting system. Stakeholders envisioned that the future of their landscape should reflect the biosphere reserve scenario. However, preferences differed regarding pathways, especially in farming techniques: higher-level stakeholders prioritized intensification, while local actors favored diversified agroecological pathways to support biodiversity. The subsequent stakeholders' deliberation and co-design process enabled reconciling these differences by co-developing 10 landscape principles that guide future outcomes. Our approach demonstrates that a place-based, transdisciplinary foresight that integrates scenario planning with visioning and backcasting, using different methods, can reconcile competing landscape priorities, promote shared vision, and map coherent pathways toward a future landscape that supports biodiversity conservation.
How to cite: Jiren, T. S.: From Scenarios toward Transformation: A Transdisciplinary Foresight Approach for Biodiversity Futures in Coffee-Dominated Landscapes in Ethiopia, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-754, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-754, 2026.
“Operational thinkers,” in the context of this method, are action-driven, predictability-seeking personalities. I am one of them — not by nature, but by training. My background in law and ten years of experience in the financial sector taught me to value rigor, accuracy, and predictability. Many of the professionals I interact with have similar profiles: they are lawyers, policymakers, economists, and finance experts demonstrating the same operational thinker mindset.
Due to their professions, operational thinkers play decisive roles in shaping public decisions. Yet, in the context of future-scenario building, they tend to struggle when asked to develop visions that diverge from current dominant systems. Indeed, their emphasis on feasibility and risk prevention can limit openness to transformative ideas, resulting in slower, more pessimistic, or highly constrained scenarios.
Reducing the presence of operational thinkers in transformative scenario-building processes may seem tempting to increase creativity. However, excluding them would strongly undermine the likelihood of institutional uptake of the scenarios developed. Because operational thinkers are often among the key actors who ultimately validate, implement, or block societal transitions, their participation is critical from the outset.
This method aims to support operational thinkers in designing desirable futures for people and nature. The approach combines steps that temporarily bypass analytical barriers with elements that maintain legitimacy and a sense of security for participants. Early steps aim to reduce resistance by providing explanation on all steps, explore personal cognitive barriers to imagination (and revalue it), and deconstruct assumptions of what is “impossible” using examples of economic, legal and societal revolutions. The central steps unlock imagination through meditation or hypnosis in natural settings, creative exercises inspired by the Surrealist artistic movement (breaking the barrier between reality and imagination), and perspective-shifting practices based on acting and embodying natural elements. Once imagination is freed, scenario creation is guided to avoid incremental thinking. Finally, feasibility and pragmatic constraints are gradually reintroduced to ensure bold ideas become credible and actionable proposals.
This method supports both richer scenario content and the evolution of strategic thinking among key societal actors, increasing the probability of uptake for ambitious, biodiversity-positive futures.
How to cite: Baadj, S.: Freeing-Up the Imagination of “Operational Thinkers”, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-833, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-833, 2026.
Transformative change is increasingly understood as plural, emergent and relational, yet many futuring approaches remain dominated by structured, linear, and causal modes of thinking. Such ‘systems-analytical’ approaches often assume high levels of manageability and coherence in societal change, generating useful strategies and conditions for transformation but overlooking more embodied, emotional, relational and creative ways of imagining the future. Such experiential and creative approaches can surface radical ideas, challenge dominant assumptions, and complement conventional approaches by better reflecting the plurality of realities, perspectives, and futures that shape complex socio-ecological systems. In this work, we explore how combining systems-analytical, experiential and creative futuring methods can enhance co-creation processes for transformative change.
We draw on an extensive co-creation process involving three iterative 2–3 day workshops with 23–26 participants from across Europe and various sectors, through which three visions and pathways for a nature-positive Europe by 2050 were developed, evaluated and enriched. The process intentionally integrated systems-analytical co-creative methods – such as backcasting, sectoral structuring, and analysing trade-offs and synergies – and transformative, experiential, and creative exercises. These included reflexive activities (outdoors and written positionality exercises to deepen awareness of personal perspectives and engage with differing worldviews), radicality-oriented techniques (a perspective-taking exercise using radical roles to push beyond conventional assumptions), creativity-based methods (theatre presentations, crafting, and storytelling), and immersive elements (including podcast-based narratives, theatre performances, and guided walks). These aimed to support participants in engaging affectively and relationally with emerging futures. Plurality was strengthened throughout by using the Nature Futures Framework and by explicitly encouraging engagement with diverse value perspectives.
Through reflecting on our experiences, we highlight how integrating systems-analytical, experiential and creative futuring approaches can generate richer, more plural, more emergent, and more relational pathways toward transformative change. These methods help surface tacit knowledge, open imaginative spaces, and challenge the tendency toward overly coherent and managerial narratives. In this presentation, we discuss insights from applying this hybrid methodology, discuss challenges and limitation of these methods and invite further dialogue on expanding the repertoire of futuring methods capable of capturing the complexity, plurality, and relational nature of transformative change.
How to cite: de Pater, M., Hebinck, A., Lazurko, A., Díaz General, E., Vaňo, S., and Harmáčková, Z.: Moving from conventional to experiential and creative futures: methodological reflection on pathway co-creation , World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-387, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-387, 2026.
Living Labs in agricultural systems serve as real-world platforms where farmers, researchers, policymakers, and communities co-create solutions to address complex sustainability and biodiversity challenges. Bridging the gap between scientific knowledge and local practice remains a key challenge for advancing sustainable agroecosystems. Recent studies highlight the potential of participatory modelling, such as agent-based models, to support collaborative decision-making, with broader implications for environmental management and governance. Participatory modelling facilitates structured interactions between scientific teams and stakeholders to address trade-offs, synergies, hidden causalities, and systemic solutions.
Despite the growing application of living lab approaches, a systematic understanding of how participatory modelling can support stakeholder engagement and decision-making within these processes remains underexplored.
This study reviews participatory modelling approaches in the context of agricultural Living Labs, highlighting their potential, challenges, and opportunities for supporting collaborative decision-making. Agent-based models are discussed as a prominent example of such approaches, illustrating how computational simulations can capture stakeholder interactions, emergent patterns, feedback, and system-level outcomes. For this purpose, peer-reviewed studies from major databases, including Web of Science and Scopus, were screened to identify key participatory modelling approaches, stakeholder engagement strategies, and reported outcomes.
Findings indicate that participatory modelling and agent-based models contribute to living lab processes by exploring complex system interactions and trade-offs; supporting biodiversity-centric scenarios analysis for sustainable agricultural management; fostering co-learning and shared understanding among stakeholders; and enabling biodiversity-oriented decision-making at multiple spatial scales. Despite challenges such as data availability, stakeholder capacity, and model complexity, participatory modelling shows substantial potential as a facilitation and transformation tool in living labs. Furthermore, integrating agent-based model outputs with artificial intelligence–driven analyses enables multi-scale assessment, identification of biodiversity hotspots, and optimization of management strategies.
This overview lays the foundation for future empirical studies and demonstrates how participatory agent-based models, complemented by AI, can bridge science, practice, and policy toward more sustainable and resilient agricultural systems.
How to cite: Yousefi, M. and Ewert, F.: Participatory Modelling in Agricultural Living Labs: Linking Society and Practice to Foster Biodiversity , World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-312, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-312, 2026.
In this contribution, we reflect and provide insight on the process and results of the IPBES regional youth workshop for Europe and Central Asia 2025 to increase the understanding and use of IPBES products and processes. During the workshop, 25 early-career professionals from 3 Central Asian countries and 19 European countries came together to explore links between two recent key IPBES assessments, the Transformative Change Assessment and the Nexus Assessment, as well as the Nature Futures Framework, through different participatory methods.
The workshop sessions highlighted the Nature Futures Framework and its intrinsic, relational, and instrumental values presented in the Values Assessment (IPBES 2022), response options of the Transformative Change Assessment (IPBES, 2024), as well as the interlinkages among the five nexus elements biodiversity, water, food, health, and climate change from the Nexus Assessment (IPBES, 2024). Understanding the interactions between these components is critical for effectively implementing them in projects and case studies. However, research linking the frameworks and insights from the different IPBES assessments remains limited. In this context, the workshop applied the IPBES sequence of assessing knowledge, interpreting values, and analysing cross-sectoral linkages to identify leverage points for transformative change across society.
This contribution will outline the methods used during the workshop to link the assessments’ findings and policy recommendations to the collaborative findings developed by the youth participants. We critically reflect on the methodology of the activities in terms of their usefulness in familiarizing youth participants with the IPBES frameworks and products and promoting their application, as well as their implementation in different geographical contexts. It further discusses the outcomes and results generated during the workshop in terms of their methodological robustness and relevance to advancing the conceptual links between the different IPBES assessments and frameworks. Building on the participants’ feedback, the contribution outlines recommendations for future youth engagement activities across all stages of knowledge production and dissemination in order to enhance the uptake and implementation of IPBES products.
How to cite: Belardinelli, S., Rackelmann, F., Samatov, N., Singh Purewal, H., Stoycheva, V., Litherland, N., and Koch, H.: Linking the IPBES Nature Futures Framework with the Transformative Change and the Nexus assessments: Insights from the Regional youth workshop on IPBES for Europe and Central Asia, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-794, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-794, 2026.
