D-1. Vision Building Process
Section outline
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The ECHT project began with the development of a Traceability Strategy, marking the first step for the consortium to define the project's contributions. Creating a traceability strategy required a clear vision of the desired future state and the influencing factors involved. The apparel and carpet flooring ecosystems, with their diverse components, complicate the understanding of which factors impact the system, both in the short and long term, and which actors in the value chain need to contribute to behavioural changes.
Ultimately, the inputs of the consortium were merged coherently to result into the “Theory of Change”.
The complete and detailed process is presented in the following documents.
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The process started with a joint definition of the topic and the development of a shared understanding of the problem. To facilitate this, Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences organised a kick-off workshop, engaging participants from the apparel and carpet flooring supply chain and related sectors. A coherent, contradiction-free future vision of the influencing factors was necessary. For this reason, the ECHT project applied Geschka's "scenario technique" as its methodological foundation. The goal of this scenario development process was to establish a common understanding of key challenges and to develop solution strategies and concrete action steps, resulting in the definition of the project scope.
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During the first workshop, participants defined the project scope for chemical traceability in global textile apparel value chains by 2040. Based on this framework, 16 influencing factors were identified and characterised to shape the envisioned system.
The second workshop involved projecting these 16 influencing factors into the year 2040. The following steps entailed the development of future projections, which formed the foundation for the subsequent scenario stories. These projections aimed to illustrate how the influencing factors could evolve, focusing on different alternatives rather than best- and worst-case scenarios.
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During the third workshop, the projections were integrated to create two coherent scenarios, “Empowered by Transparency” and “No P(l)ace for Trace”. While these scenarios might appear to represent best- and worst-case outcomes, this was not the original intention but rather a natural result of the process and the projections made. Additionally, the perception of positive or negative outcomes is highly dependent on the perspective of the viewer or target group, as their needs may vary. Ultimately, both scenarios were designed to represent plausible and equally possible futures.
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The development of the traceability strategy concluded with the fourth and final workshop of 2024. The mid-term milestones were formulated based on the long-term key changes presented in the scenarios. Specific activities and outputs were defined to achieve those milestones.