Page 211 - Sustainability Communication Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoritical Foundations

194 H. Heinrichs

Consensus Conference

Since the end of the 1980s in Scandinavian countries, the consensus conference has
been developed and used as a citizens’ panel with expert input. Representatively
selected citizens discuss controversial topics – mainly in the area of innovative tech-
nologies. They make themselves familiar with the topic, also by using the opportu-
nity to question experts, and then at the end of this discursive process they make a
public statement presenting their conclusions to the decision-makers. Although this
procedure is designed to achieve consensus, there is a possibility to voice a minority
opinion. Consensus conferences, due to their discursively generated and informed
citizens’ opinion, have a rationalising input in publicly negotiated, often tech-
nological, controversies (Joss and Durant 1995).

Planning Cells/Citizens’ Reports

Planning cells, which were developed in the 1970s by Dienel, involve a group of
randomly chosen citizens to work on a clearly delineated communal, and often
technological or environmental, problem. They familiarize themselves with the
problem to be discussed, work with expert knowledge and then in a citizens’
report develop recommendations for the planned project. This method was
intended as a form of democratisation during the planning euphoria in the 1970s.
Planning cells have since shown that citizens as laypeople are, after a short period
of time, capable of producing informed reports that have creative solutions ori-
ented toward the common good (Dienel and Renn 1995). Decision-makers are
given an insight into the informed opinion of citizens about a specific planned
project as well as innovative, publicly acceptable ideas that are adapted to the
local conditions.

Future Workshop

The future workshop developed by Robert Jungk is neither designed for conflict
resolution or preventative conflict avoidance nor for the consensus-oriented devel-
opment of courses of action (Jungk and Müllert 1989). On the contrary this method
is meant to produce creative ideas in response to the question: How do we want to
live, work and act in the future? Group work is divided into three phases, with criti-
cal reflection of existing conditions in the first criticism phase, developing future
scenarios in the second imagination or utopia phase, and finally finding ways to put
such elements into practice in the third implementation phase. Especially in the first
two phases, participants are encouraged to free themselves from any restrictions on
using their imagination. It is not until the third phase that, with input from experts,