Experiences of the development and use of scenarios for evaluating Swedish environmental quality objectives § Mattias Ho ¨ jer *, Karl Henrik Dreborg, Rebecka Engstro ¨ m, Ulrika Gunnarsson-O ¨ stling, A ˚ sa Svenfelt Environmental Strategies Research, Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden 1. Introduction Management by objectives is a substantial element of Swedish public administration, including environmental policy. A system of 16 environmental quality objectives (EQOs), many more interim targets and three action strategies adopted by the Swedish government in the late 1990s [1,2] constitute the overarching environmental policy framework. The objectives describe the quality and state of the environment regarded as sustainable in the long term, with the intention of providing a coherent framework for environmental programmes at national, regional and local level. The objectives must all be reached within one generation, i.e. by 2020, except for the reduced climate impact objective which must be attained by 2050. The environmental quality objectives system is intended to form a solid foundation for working towards sustainable development. The EQOs primarily represent the ecological dimension of sustainable development, but the system also covers human health issues and the cultural environment [3]. Futures 43 (2011) 498–512 ARTICLE INFO Article history: Available online 3 March 2011 ABSTRACT This paper presents and evaluates a method for encouraging long-term thinking and for considering a variety of scenarios in environmental policy processes. The Swedish environmental policy is based on 16 environmental quality objectives (EQOs) that national authorities are obliged to observe. These objectives are reviewed annually and evaluated in depth every four years. Here we describe and explore a futures study project for introducing more long-term thinking into work on the EQOs, which we tested in the in- depth evaluation in 2008. We found it difficult to design a collective scenario for a case with a wide variety of objectives and individuals with different backgrounds. However, this difficulty makes it even more important to incorporate futures studies into the work of the relevant authorities. Scenario work is often subcontracted, leading to a constant lack of futures studies expertise and thinking within authorities. Despite the difficulties, we found that experts within the authorities did begin to recognise the opportunities provided by futures studies. The project revealed an interest and need for futures studies within the authorities in charge of Swedish environmental quality objectives and our findings show that the authorities need to build up their own skills in futures studies. ß 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. DOIs of original articles: 10.1016/j.futures.2011.02.004, 10.1016/j.futures.2010.02.005 § DOI of original article: 10.1016/j.futures.2010.02.005. Please note that this article was previously published in a recent regular issue [Futures 43 (2011) 1–15]. The author regrets that the published version of the above mentioned article is not edited for language. The language-edited version of the article is published here. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +46 87906451. E-mail address: hojer@kth.se (M. Ho ¨ jer). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Futures journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/futures 0016-3287/$ – see front matter ß 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.futures.2011.02.003