Future waste treatment and energy production – an example of development of joint scenarios

Development and use of scenarios for large interdisciplinary projects is a complicated task. The article gives practical examples of how this has been done in two projects addressing waste management and energy issues respectively. Based on experiences from the two projects, recommendations are made for an approach for development of scenarios dealing with both waste management and energy issues. It is recommended to develop and use overall scenarios for the common project and leave room for sub-scenarios in parts of the project and to combine different types of scenarios to adapt to the methods and tools of different disciplines. Furthermore, it is recommended to develop and use explorative external scenarios based on possible marginals as a framework for consequential life cycle assessment (LCA).The approach is illustrated for an ongoing Danish research project.