Landscape and domains of possible future threats from a societal point of view

Abstract

We are currently amid multiple interconnected and complex crises within the different dimensions of our society—a polycrisis, and the future promises even greater complexity in terms of threats. However, the existing crisis typologies and crisis identification often have an introspective organisational focus and tend to concentrate on a limited set of historically known threats. This study takes an exploratory, futures studies‐based approach with a broader societal perspective. Through environmental scanning using 1714 literature sources and consultations with 54 experts, we have identified 153 potential future crises spanning various societal domains. We utilize the PESTLE framework to outline the possible emergence of these crises. Our findings reveal a considerably larger number of potential crisis phenomena than previously proposed, aiming for objective sensemaking of the complex crisis landscape. The results also demonstrate crises vary in their temporal development, albeit evaluating this is challenging. This study challenges the prevalent myopic and subjective prioritisation‐based crisis identification and provides a comprehensive yet comprehensible list of possible future crises. In the current context of siloed decision‐making structures, both public and private organisations can use this list to enhance their future‐oriented preparedness and assess their responsibilities in managing these crises, as well as identifying necessary stakeholders.