By World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 2001
Depending on the nature of public reaction to an unintended event that might happen in biotechnology, the acceptability of biotechnology might fluctuate widely – a story explored in the first scenario, The Domino Effect.
The industry could prosper or not depending on factors other than technological success and sustainable development benefits – risk and liability issues, for example, or consumer choice in relation to issues of sustainable development. These variables are explored in the second story, The Hare and the Tortoise.
The third unknown had to do with the consequences of a successful and widely accepted biotechnology industry – what kind of world might this produce? And how might wide acceptance come about? The story of Biotrust is a response to these questions.
In a way, scenarios can be seen as virtual stage sets for imagining, in detail, many different possibilities for the future – possibilities that push us out of the box of our habitual modes of thinking and into the future, which is always unpredictable.
