Navigating the emotional landscape of urban futures: Exploring the role of feelings in participatory backcasting for net zero transitions

Participatory backcasting is an established foresight method that engages stakeholders in the development of actions to achieve future goals. However, it overlooks the affective dimensions of transformative change. This paper presents an innovative methodology for participatory backcasting that integrates emotions into transition management processes in the context of an urban precinct undergoing net zero transformation in Melbourne, Australia. We report on a series of workshops designed to elicit participants’ emotional responses to potential net zero futures, focusing on urban domains such as energy, mobility, green space and governance. Using design card activities, we analysed participants’ responses through the categories of activating, inhibiting and ambivalent emotions. The workshops facilitated emotional reflection, allowing participants to express both positive feelings, such as safety and connection and negative feelings, such as anxiety and uncertainty. Our findings demonstrate how these feelings shaped the development of pathways and offer practical insights for planners and policymakers by demonstrating how the integration of emotions into participatory backcasting expands the scope of transition activities beyond technocratic solutions to encompass a broader range of concerns. Doing so strengthens the legitimacy of participatory backcasting for transition management and fosters more inclusive and context-sensitive pathways to sustainable urban futures.