FNK at Sustainability Science Summit 2025

24 March 2025

Photo: Nadine Stenzel Photography

As a final event of the activities of the DKN Working group RiskTransScens, Jana Sillmann and Hermann Held, together with Sabine Fuss (PIK) and Pia-Johanna Schweizer (RIFS), co-chaired a session on ‘Assessing Risks and Benefits of Technologies in Scenarios for Sustainability Transformations’ (the former DKN Working Group ‘RiskTransScens’).

The session started by a series of impulses. Sabine Fuss introduced the overall concept of RiskTransScens, emphasizing three dimensions of innovation for scenario generation and subsequent iteration with stakeholders suggested by this working group. The following impulses described those dimensions.

Jana Sillmann quantified the present role of extremes and motivated the necessity to include extremes more adequately in integrated assessment. Hermann Held and Lukas Tank highlighted the necessity of adequate metrics when generating scenarios, with a focus on relating technology assessment and global warming impacts, and further disentangling norms and systemic boundary conditions. Pia-Johanna Schweizer and Gundula Hübner described various modes of stakeholder engagement in the context of large-scale infrastructure projects.

The subsequent discussion was very engaged. A range of arguments assembled around issues of justice and the adequate moment of stakeholder involvement. Overall, the approach chosen and presented by the working group received strong support by the international audience.