Introduction

According to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), the Asia-Pacific region faces particular challenges in advancing Goal 12 (responsible consumption and production) relative to the other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [1]. In the region of Eastern and Southeastern Asia, which is a global hub for resource and emission-intensive industries, SDG Goal 12 is “very far from target” with respect to domestic material consumption per unit of GDP, while the world average is only a “moderate distance (from) target” [1]. As this region is also becoming home to an expanding middle class, there is an urgent need for effective sustainable consumption and production (SCP) practices.

To date, numerous European-funded organizations have been established to help implement SCP practices in the Asia-Pacific region. The literature suggests that Europe plays an integral role in “increasing the engagement in developing economies in SCP practices and implementing strategic and technical approaches to address SCP issues” [2]. However, consumption and production patterns are highly interlinked with the regional context, which results in a broad range of SCP practices based on factors such as cultural diversity, stage of economic growth, and political environment. Wang et al. [2] showed through their literature review a distinct difference in the SCP patterns exists between developed and developing economies, and whether the lessons learned from the experiences of European countries can be transferred to the emerging economies of Asia is highly questionable. Such uncertainty also raises questions about the applicability of the European conception of the circular economy in other regions. Additionally, our previous work on future SCP scenario development in Japan and Malaysia suggests that the key drivers needed to achieve SCP differ between the two countries, despite being in the same region in Asia. In Malaysia, the key driver was found to be political will, while in Japan the drivers were predominantly bottom-up in nature, where changes in the behaviors and initiatives of consumers and producers are of principal importance [3]. Thus, for successful implementation, SCP practices must fit the specific national or regional context.

In addition to the limited integration of the regional context, the measures taken to promote SCP to date have been rather sharply divided between the consumption side and production side, such that their linkages have not been fully considered. Historically, the international agenda relevant to SCP has focused on alternative patterns of production, primarily promoting the advancement of resource use efficiency and technology development for expanding productivity. The reasons for this are thought to be the lack of a well-founded understanding of consumer behavior [4, 5] and an institutional reticence to engage with issues of consumer behavior and lifestyle [6]. The latter refers to the hesitance of institutions to question the way in which modern society functions. Intervening in consumer behavior would contradict the sovereignty of consumer choice. Moreover, reducing consumption could threaten the key structural role that consumption plays in economic growth. Arguments to reduce consumption appear to undermine legitimate efforts by developing countries to provide for basic needs and to improve the quality of life [6].

Despite these limiting factors, the need to regard consumption and production systems as one dynamic system for sustainability has been increasingly recognized in the literature (e.g., [7]) and in policy practices. A number of articles have used empirical and theoretical analysis to investigate the relationship between the consumption and production sides. From the field of transition studies, Geels et al. [8] call for a “reconfiguration” position to pursue SCP, which proposes transitions in socio-technical systems and social practices in societal domains such as mobility, housing, agro-food, heating, and lighting [8]. The reconfiguration position is thought to enable a fruitful study of the interactions between production and consumption. Recognizing the importance of connecting consumption and production is also observed in policy dialogues. The SDGs Goal 12 clearly communicates that production and consumption must be altered together for sustainable development. There were several regional Roundtable for Cleaner Production across the world until around late 1990s, where they have been renamed to Roundtable for Sustainable Consumption and Production (e.g., Asia-Pacific Roundtable for Sustainable Consumption and Production [9]). While there is increasing awareness about the significance of the consumption and production linkages, SCP studies still tend to focus too much on either the production or consumption side of SCP. In our view, exploring the crossover of the two is necessary to advance SCP. Linking consumption and production is also a prerequisite for closing the “loop” or enabling circular use of resources towards achieving a circular economy.

In this paper, we present a participatory backcasting procedure aimed at identifying critical linkages between consumption and production to improve sustainability. The procedure is demonstrated through the case of the Klang Valley, an urban conglomeration centered in Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya, Malaysia, with the target year 2050 and the participation of SCP experts from academia, government, and industry. In designing the procedure, we adopted the workshop methodology reported by Tasaki et al. [10] using the scenario design cycle [11]. To constrain the scope of the SCP, we selected socio-technical systems and daily life practices in three domains: mobility, household chores, and living space. The workshop results were analyzed to define the critical linkages between consumption and production for sustainability (which we called “SCP patterns”) and examine their relation to SCP concepts such as circular economy. The outputs present scenarios and illustrations describing each SCP pattern in Klang Valley, which is a first known attempt to systematically envision SCP in the context of emerging economies of Asia.

The remainder of the paper is structured as follows: the “Background of SCP Policy and Practices in Malaysia” section introduces the background of SCP policy and practices in Malaysia, and the “Methodology” section describes the overall design and strategy for structuring SCP. The “Results” section presents the results of the workshop. The “Discussion” section discusses the effectiveness of the procedure based on the outcome and evaluation by the participants and outlines reflections on potential future research. The “Conclusions” section concludes the paper.

Background of SCP Policy and Practices in Malaysia

As in most of the world, the concept of SCP began to appear in development policy documents in Malaysia from the 2010s, prompted by the Rio +20 Conference. In Malaysia, integrated plans for the development of all the constituent states are put forward through a series of Malaysia Plans, which are essentially a blueprint prepared by the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) of the Prime Minister’s Department and the Finance Ministry of Malaysia. The word “sustainability” in the context of sustainable development first appeared in the Ninth Malaysia Plan (9MP) that allocated the national budget from 2006 to 2010. In the 9MP, “improvement of standard and sustainability of quality of life” was named as Thrust 4, which had a focus on infrastructure development. In this plan, the budget allocated to environmental policy aimed for environmental conservation, pollution control, and disaster prevention [12]. The Tenth Malaysia Plan (10MP) in 2011 identified sustainability as one of the three key premises of the development plan, which consisted of high income, inclusiveness, and sustainability. While the importance of environmental endowments was clearly written into the 10MP, the sustainability concept was centered around the economic growth of the nation [13]. In 2012, the SWITCH-Asia program was embedded within the EPU, a European Union-led policy advocacy. With SCP specified as one of the SDGs in Agenda 2030 in 2015, the Eleventh Malaysia Plan (11MP) in 2016 specifically used SCP terminology [14]. The EPU, with assistance from SWITCH-Asia, also published the National SCP Blueprint in the same year, setting a benchmark for SCP policy-making in Malaysia [15]. The emphasis to implement SCP was reiterated in the 12th Malaysia Plan, through Strategy A5 Scaling Up Green Practices to accelerate the adoption of green practices among industries [16].

Today, the National SCP Blueprint (hereafter, the Blueprint) is the official document guiding Malaysia’s implementation of SCP. The Blueprint defines SCP as follows: “SCP in Malaysia stands for gaining more through less” (p. 10, SCP Blueprint). Critically reviewing the SCP concept in the Blueprint suggests that the growth of the nation should progress “as a result of productivity and efficiency gains through sustainable utilization of resources,” which reflects the efficiency approach in SCP policy [7]. The Blueprint recognizes that there is an option to reduce wants and needs to pursue SCP; however, for Malaysia, SCP means “to become more efficient and productive” without explicitly interfering with the consumption side (p. 12, the Blueprint). This Blueprint is crucial to understanding how SCP is perceived in Malaysia. The Blueprint presents 10 pathways to achieve the SCP goals, which encompass a wide variety of stakeholders in the life cycle of products. However, the underlying concept is that productivity should be prioritized over limiting consumption. For example, Pathway 2, Transparency of SCP benefits for private households, describes the role of consumers in SCP. This Pathway involves educating private households to seek efficiency in their purchasing choices and behaviors, especially regarding their use of water and energy.

Another observation from the SCP documents is that circular economy is not treated as a key principle for the industrial and environmental policies in Malaysia. There exist components of circular economy such as recycling but it is merely a concept relevant to improving waste system; Pathway 4 in the Blueprint is “towards a circular economy waste system.”

Methodology

Approach

To envision the linkages between consumption and production for sustainability in this specific region, we need to understand the complex relationship between natural and human systems as well as the diverse values of stakeholders [17, 18]. Given this transdisciplinary nature, a procedure for supporting knowledge creation and integration in the domain of SCP by drawing on participatory backcasting [19] was developed. Participatory backcasting was used because the concept of SCP is normative and value-laden with drastic changes needed in the interaction between consumers and producers. When compared with existing studies on participatory backcasting such as Kishita et al. [20], Robinson et al. [21], and Vita et al. [22], the originality of our method is to put a clear focus on SCP where workshop participants are encouraged to conceive sustainable consumption and production patterns.

Following the developed procedure, a participatory workshop was conducted with various experts; the results of which were used by the organizing team (i.e., the authors of this paper) to develop preliminary scenarios. The scenarios were reviewed and evaluated by the participants in the following year. The revised scenarios were further analyzed to elucidate a set of linkages and a scenario in each of the three activity domains of mobility, household chores, and living space. The following sections describe each step in detail.

Procedure Development

The procedure employed a participatory backcasting approach [19, 23] using an expert workshop in order to generate and structuralize various ideas on SCP patterns, and a scenario design cycle [11] to describe the role of the SCP pattern in the pathways to sustainability. A participatory workshop methodology was integrated to capture local perceptions of future options in society. The secondary objective of the procedure was to encourage stakeholders to participate in SCP discussions with a defined goal. The procedure contained iterative scenario design cycles of divergence and convergence of ideas to allow articulation of future images and encourage visionary discussion among the stakeholders.

The six-step procedure, shown in Fig. 1 and summarized in Table 1, was developed for this purpose. In the first step, the organizing team sets an overarching SCP goal to frame the sustainability problem within the workshop. The procedure aimed to generate scenarios with normative future thinking [24], where the goal was “To halve per capita resource and energy consumption from the business-as-usual (BaU) scenario, while satisfying an appropriate level of quality of life (QoL).” This goal was defined based on the description of SCP in the SDGs: “Sustainable consumption and production is about promoting resource and energy efficiency, sustainable infrastructure, and providing access to basic services, green and decent jobs and a better quality of life for all” [25]. QoL was not strictly defined for participants, so they each brought their own QoL vision.

Fig. 1
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Overall procedure and its implementation in the case of Malaysia

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Table 1 Details of the steps in the workshop process
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The second and third steps were performed in an expert workshop. The second step aimed to identify ideal activities and relationships between consumption and production to implement SCP (i.e., SCP patterns) in a specific activity domain. Other than the definition of the SCP, further description such as constituents of SCP patterns were neither defined in the procedure nor in the workshop. The participants were asked to brainstorm as many SCP patterns as possible using the ideation cardsFootnote 1 proposed by Tasaki et al. [10]. After the generation of the SCP patterns, one or two SCP patterns that involved the greatest level of transformation were selected based on discussions among the participants. Next (step 3), the participants were asked to conceptualize SCP goals, policies and enablers, and regional characteristics that are associated with each of the selected CP patterns. These ideas were organized using the structuralization template shown in Fig. 2, with the relationships between the items indicated by the arrows. The “Template for Structuralizing CP Patterns” section explains how and why this template was applied.

Fig. 2
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Output from mobility group using the structuralization template

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Based on the filled structuralization templates, the organizing team develops an anticipatory scenario [26] for the selected SCP patterns (step 4). The scenarios are developed by examining the themes, drivers, and critical uncertainties involving a desirable future vision of SCP in the region as structuralized in the template. The scenarios were also used to generate a descriptive illustration, which facilitated communication between the organizing team and the participants during the scenario assessment phase in step 5. The illustrations were expected to help strengthen engagement and inspire coordinated action among the participants [27]. Step 5 asked participants to review and assess the scenarios and illustrations formulated from the earlier workshop. The scenario review process aimed to clarify the role of consumers and producers and to reflect upon the scenario’s adherence to the overarching goal. In the case of Malaysia, the scenario assessment was conducted through group discussions in a workshop. After the scenario assessment, the participants were invited to revise the structuralization template based on the discussion. The revised structuralization template was then reviewed by the organizing team to elaborate the scenarios as necessary. Once the elaboration was complete, the organizing team examined the suggested revisions as well as survey responses to finalize the scenarios and illustrations through discussions (step 6). Additionally, participants were requested to respond to a web survey to evaluate the outcomes individually after each workshop in the case of Malaysia.

Template for Structuralizing CP Patterns

SCP is a complex concept with no clear definition, so to systematically describe the components of SCP in an activity domain of a region, a structuralization template [10] was adopted. The template defines four components (i.e., goal, CP pattern, policy and enablers, and regional characteristics) to cultivate a shared understanding of SCP during workshops. As it was explained earlier, in the step 3 of Fig. 1, one or two main CP patterns and their relevant CP patterns from step 2 are selected and recorded as the “CP pattern to realize” in Fig. 2. Based on the characteristics of the CP patterns, the participants were asked to define goals, policy and enablers, and regional characteristics in that order. Then, the participants were asked to identify linkages between them with arrows. This process aimed to encourage interactive discussions through visualizing potential CP patterns based on the linkages between the components for the implementations of SCP patterns. In specific to the regional characteristics, some CP patterns are more generalizable or global, but many are influenced by or influence regional characteristics. As exemplified in Fig. 2, the regional characteristics are extracted by classifying them into six categories [28]: demographics, economy/industry, culture/tradition, infrastructure, climate, and geopolitics.

Workshop Settings

This study selected the Klang Valley, the metropolitan region centered in Kuala Lumpur, which demonstrates many common Asian urban trends, where major drivers of economic development and social change prevail, resulting in dramatic changes in consumption and production patterns [29]. The Klang Valley refers to the region combining the State of Selangor, Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and Federal Territory of Putrajaya. As of 2020, the Klang Valley is home to 8,261,636 people, with the population having grown 570% over the past 29 years. Comparable to other Asian megacities, the Klang Valley represents a significant urban agglomeration with an estimated population density of 2917 person km−2 [30, 31]. In terms of the demographics of Klang Valley inhabitants, the average household size is 3 to 4 persons, with family households dominant. The household expenditure suggests a modern lifestyle with a dining culture of eating out: expenditures related to housing and utilities, restaurants and hotels, and food and non-alcoholic beverages were 25.1%, 15.5%, and 14.3%, respectively [32]. Moreover, with the availability of diverse transportation modes, the number of passengers using public transportation has been increasing for the past two decades (Prasarana Malaysia Berhad, 2019; [33]); however, the vehicle traffic volume observed no apparent change, indicating that passenger car transport remains dominant [34, 35].

The first workshop executing steps 2 and 3 in Fig. 1 took place on October 2, 2019, at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia in Bangi, Malaysia. The entire workshop program took 1 day. A total of 22 participants were in attendance, all of whom were experts on, or practitioners of, SCP from academia, government, and industry. Supplementary Table A1 summarizes the background and the expertise of the participants. The participants were divided into three groups to discuss SCP in distinct domains. The three domains—mobility, household chores, and living space—were selected based on the premise that the demand areas of mobility, housing, and food are predominantly responsible for the environmental impacts of consumption and production [29] and can be influenced at various stakeholder levels. The terms used to describe the three domains were intended to be broad and leave rooms for participants to explore diverse activities in the domain. Each domain group had 5–9 participants, all of whom had responded to our invitation. A post-workshop survey was taken by participants to record the level of satisfaction in participating in the workshop and to reflect upon the outcomes as summarized in Supplementary Table A2.

The follow-up workshop in 2020 executed step 5 and the reiteration of step 3. The workshop in 2020 was originally planned for an on-site event, but the format was changed to online due to COVID-19 pandemic. All the participants of the 2020 workshop had participated in the 2019 workshop. The 2020 workshop had nine participants, with 2–4 participants in each group. The participants were asked to prepare for the discussions by reviewing the scenarios and identifying critical enablers and influential regional characteristics prior to the workshop. The entire workshop program in 2020 was 2 h long. A post-workshop survey was again distributed to the participants, in which they were asked to reflect upon the workshop experience and to evaluate the final outcomes as summarized in Supplementary Table A3.

Analysis Method

Two forms of analysis were applied to examine the workshop results: a semi-quantitative analysis of regional characteristics and a content analysis of workshop discussions and survey responses. In the former, the number of regional characteristics identified during the 2019 workshop was categorized and counted. The frequency data were then analyzed together with workshop results to clarify influential regional characteristics in each SCP pattern. The content analysis was intended to examine the patterns in communication among participants and the workshop outcomes across the domains. Our preliminary content analysis was validated by the scenario assessment step in the 2020 workshop. The content analysis was again performed for the discussions from the 2020 workshop and the post-workshop survey responses to finalize the results.

Results

SCP Patterns and 2050 Scenarios

The study resulted in four scenarios representing specific SCP patterns, with two scenarios generated from the mobility domain and one scenario each generated from the household chores and living space domains. Table 5 provides a summary of the SCP patterns and their content, explained in terms of the sustainability problem, goal, drivers, and role of consumers and producers. The detailed outcomes for each domain are described in the following sections.

Mobility

The mobility group generated two SCP scenarios with distinct sustainability problems, where the root problem was conveyed as the lack of regulatory implementation. The first scenario, an efficient end-of-life vehicle (ELV) system, deals with the issue of ELV resource circulation, where passenger vehicles are often abandoned in public spaces in Malaysia due to the lack of an effective system to collect and recycle ELVs. This presents a clear opportunity for improvement from the perspective of a circular economy. The scenario is illustrated in Supplementary Figure A1. Government initiatives and policies have been in existence since 2005, but their implementation has been passive. To resolve this issue, the scenario in Table 2 indicates the need for government commitment, increased consumer awareness regarding vehicle disposal, and greater public acceptance of the quality of remanufactured parts.

Table 2 SCP scenarios in mobility domain
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The second scenario pointed to the lack of connectivity in public transportation, which discourages residents from using public transport. The root cause was identified as the lack of opportunity for residents to provide input on connectivity during the early stages of public transport planning. Public hearings were found to be the driver of the SCP pattern, which could lead to public transportation efficiency, connectivity, safety, and comfort. Supplementary Figure A2 describes the SCP scenario related to public transport.

Household Chores

The household chores domain identified the centralization of household activities as a key SCP pattern (see Table 3). The two household chores to be centralized for sustainability were cooking and laundry. To meet the needs of consumers for eating diverse yet nutritious meals and to launder on rainy days (common to the region), the scenarios proposed the introduction of resource-efficient services. As illustrated in Fig. 3, a residential community has access to a laundry service (i.e., Eco Wash & Dry) and a food delivery service (i.e., Happy Cook), which offer the opportunity for household chores to be outsourced while meeting environmental sustainability standards. The use of such services would create time for households to improve their quality of life and could also reduce the need for appliance ownership. Centralization of food production and processing is considered an opportunity for improved energy efficiency, reduced material consumption through use of reusable containers, and improved circularity through efficient capture and separation of organic and inorganic waste streams.

Table 3 SCP pattern and scenario in household chores domain
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Fig. 3
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Illustration example—household chores

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Living Space

The living space domain identified “Resource circulation for sustainable waste management” as the SCP pattern, which raised the issue of weak regulatory enforcement in household waste management (see Table 4 and Supplementary Figure A3). In the Klang Valley, household waste is not utilized for resource circulation; the root cause was identified as the lack of policy enforcement by local authorities. For instance, the National Policy on Solid Waste Management 2016 provides a specific principle, strategies, action plans, and targets to be implemented and monitored for a specific target region. However, according to the participants, such policies are not enforced at the local level. Thus, the critical driver to achieve the SCP pattern in this domain is regulatory enforcement by local authorities, as described in the scenario. It is suggested that such enforcement would lead to appropriate actions by consumers and producers, increasing consumer awareness and extending producer responsibility.

Table 4 SCP pattern and scenario for living space domain
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Regional Characteristics

Among the regional characteristics highlighted in the workshop, culture/tradition was the most frequently mentioned, followed by economic/industry and infrastructure (see Supplementary Figure A4 for details). When results are compared between the domains, each group had features related to the activity domain. The mobility group cited economy/industry the most often, perhaps because the cost-benefit balance of public transport was discussed. According to the participants, public transportation in the Klang Valley is affordable, but the benefit of using public transport is low because of the lack of connectivity. Moreover, regional characteristics in the culture/tradition category were frequently observed in household chores because the domain itself is highly interconnected with the lifestyle of the households, which is culturally governed. Likewise, the living space group also mentioned culture/tradition most frequently, arising from the fact that the behavior and attitudes of local authorities and consumers were rooted in the culture. For instance, the “tidak apa” (no ownership) attitude was recognized as the reason for lack of action regarding waste segregation. Additionally, infrastructure was a central focus in living space, presumably because the selected SCP pattern focuses on improving the social infrastructure of household waste management.

Discussion

In this study, the developed procedure aimed to identify the necessary changes required beyond the current CP patterns and to encourage rigorous SCP discussions among the participants. To critically examine the effectiveness of the procedure, we first discuss the insights into the Malaysian SCP patterns. Secondly, we evaluate the procedure compared to past approaches and discuss the result of post-workshop surveys to understand how the discussions and outcome were perceived among the participants. Based on the discussion, we then summarize our reflections on future SCP research.

Insights into SCP Patterns in Malaysia

The SCP patterns and their scenarios for 2050 in the three domains suggest that the Klang Valley should envision a consumption and production system that has a one-directional relationship, where consumption is kept relatively unconstrained while resource use efficiency and circulation on the supply side and at the end of life are significantly enhanced. There were no discussions focused on limiting consumer demand. For example, the SCP patterns of household chores suggested the centralization of consumer demand by producers. This idea aligns with weak sustainable consumption governance [36], where the relationship between consumption and production is merely one-directional.

The clear focus on resource circulation and avoidance on reducing demand in the SCP patterns suggest that the ideas generated in the workshop largely reflect the Blueprint [15]. The distinct influence of the Blueprint on SCP patterns imply that the Blueprint is indeed supported by the SCP experts in Malaysia, or the Blueprint well reflects the SCP challenge in Malaysia. Whichever of these perspectives may be true, our study demonstrated significant presence of the Blueprint in envisioning SCP in Malaysia.

The emphasis on resource circulation also resonates with one of the circular economy principles: circulate products and materials [37]. The mobility and living space proposed scenarios on waste management and household chores group’s scenario on shared laundry and food delivery are promotes product and agri-food circulation. As the Blueprint itself mentions circular economy to the extent of waste management, perhaps products and materials circulation is the focus of the circular economy concept in Malaysia.

Additionally, in all scenarios, the dominant drivers of the SCP patterns were identified as political will and strong law enforcement. When the organizing team asked the participants to discuss the role of producers and consumers in the scenario assessment step, the answers emphasized the imperative to abide by the laws. Indeed, in all the domains except for household chores, there are existing policies but weak enforcement. While the reiteration confirms political will and regulatory enforcement to be the critical drivers in achieving SCP, the outcome may be caused by the participants’ bias (e.g., academics attending mainly had political science backgrounds). Further analysis is necessary to clarify the bias on the outcome.

Evaluation of the Procedure and Limitations

When the proposed procedure and our outcome are compared with past studies involving participatory backcasting approach, our procedure can be characterized with the use of a structuralization template and scenario assessment involving the workshop participants. These two aspects were beneficial in identifying and systematically elaborating CP patterns, and to encouraging and inspiring SCP discussions among participants.

With a participatory backcasting approach, the procedure is effective at describing scenarios for achieving SCP using expert workshops in a stepwise manner. In this regard, our method can be positioned as a workshop-based knowledge creation method with a particular focus on SCP. The integration of the structuralization template was not only beneficial to visualize gaps between sustainability goals and policies and other enablers but also to analyze the influence of regional characteristics on CP patterns. Past relevant scenarios such as low-carbon futures through the SPREAD project [38] and sustainable eating futures through the CONSENSUS project [39] were yet to systematically depict their components. Figure 2 shows that possible CP patterns differ due to economic levels, social infrastructure, and public perception and preferences. As a result, the format in Fig. 2 provides a better understanding of SCP in a particular region. Also, the workshop participants deemed the structuralization template helpful, as shown in Supplementary Table A3.

Involving the participants in the scenario assessment was helpful to polish the outcome and encourage SCP discussions further. Scenario assessment is often practiced in a participatory backcasting approach through methods such as Delphi survey [38] or simply assessed by the organizing team [39]. The benefit of participants’ involvement in the scenario assessment was implied in our post-workshop surveys. As shown in Supplementary Table A2 and Table A3, the completeness of the scenario was perceived to have improved from 2019 to 2020.

While the procedure demonstrated SCP patterns that reflect regional characteristics while visualizing the relationship among the components of SCP patterns, the procedure was shown to have several limitations. One major limitation is that the discussions from the Klang Valley case were much more focused on identifying current problems, while the spatial and temporal timescales necessary for decision purposes were not clarified in the scenarios, taking the emphasis away from future development. Based on the expert workshop discussions, the proposed procedure was effective in clarifying the life cycle stage of the sustainability problem that the region faces (e.g., implementing an effective ELV system in the mobility domain) and inspiring SCP discussions among the participants. When the outcome from the current study is compared to other studies in Asia, the characteristics are apparent. For instance, the SCP patterns identified by Japanese experts tended to be technology-oriented, with a focus on the upstream (e.g., promoting sharing services using digital technologies to shift from owing products to using services) [3]. On the other hand, Thai experts identified a systemic transition, improvement of quality of life, and digitization as key directions of SCP patterns in Bangkok [10]. Contextually, there are obvious and apparent differences with regards to geography, climate, demographics, and extent of development. There are issues that arise from average per capita income levels making a variety of activities and household purchases normal in Japan that may not be typical in all Malaysian or Thai households yet.

Reflections on Further Research and Policy-Making Processes

Based on our study, the proposed procedure can be extended for further research through making several adjustments. Firstly, more emphasis can be placed on creating visions (i.e., ideal future states) towards SCP in the procedure described in Fig. 1. Goal setting and vision creation are generally important parts in participatory backcasting, but the corresponding steps were not clearly defined in our procedure. Moreover, if partly customized, the combination of the proposed procedure and the structuralization template in Fig. 2 is transferrable not only to SCP but also to other sustainability issues for a particular region. These should be examined in future research. Secondly, combining the proposed method with other tools to further detail the scenarios is an interesting topic to explore. For instance, roadmapping [40] would clarify possible pathways to SCP in 2050 by which the necessary changes and actions are described, rather than just the end-state. Similarly, interactive simulations that enable quantitative assessment such as the work done by Onozuka et al. [41] can enable quantitative assessment of the scenarios. Thirdly, the impact of COVID-19 pandemic and holding the 2020 workshop online on the workshop results would be worthwhile to examine for further analysis. The 2020 workshop was held during COVID-19 pandemic, which could have changed the perception of participants for a short or a long term. While the 2020 workshop activity was a review of the 2019 workshop results, it would be worthwhile to examine the impact of pandemic on participants’ mindset. Also, the 2020 workshop was held online, which could have limited smooth communications among the participants and the organizers.

Furthermore, it is important to consider how the outcomes obtained from the proposed procedure can be implemented in society, particularly within the context of policy-making processes. The scenario design process proposed in Fig. 1 was useful to derive possible policy options to support SCP patterns in local context (e.g., in Malaysian context, see Fig. 2). When we attempt to develop policy and action agendas based on the outcomes of Fig. 2, it is necessary to extend the proposed procedure to an implementation phase because there is generally a gap between the scenario documentation step (step 6 in Fig. 2) and a real world. For this purpose, the participatory backcasting procedure proposed by Quist and Vergragt [23] is useful to explicitly connect described scenarios and visions with policy agendas and recommendations. In addition, as mentioned above, integrating our procedure and roadmapping [40] is promising to support policy planning along the timeline. Critical appraisal by more diverse stakeholders including policy makers in the scenario assessment step (step 5 in Fig. 2) is also important. The Klang Valley workshops had participants mainly from policy fields; inviting experts from more diverse sectors and backgrounds would certainly provide different perspectives on the scenarios. The best mix of participants as well as organizing team is yet to be clarified in the field of backcasting participatory approaches, and this is certainly an area that could be improved in the current case.

Conclusions

This paper presented the design and implementation of a workshop-based method to envision SCP patterns in Malaysia. The primary feature of the method was to combine a structuralizing template and the six-step process, in which the idea of participatory backcasting was applied. The results showed that the method was effective in identifying region-specific CP patterns through workshops in Malaysia comprised of experts from academia, industry, and government. Based on the described scenarios in three domains (mobility, household chores, and living space), political will and strong law enforcement were identified as the dominant drivers of the SCP patterns (Table 5). On the other hand, the resulting SCP patterns were significantly influenced by the current state of CP linkage, and technological innovations were generally overlooked. Future work includes improving the proposed method to place more emphasis on creating visions and inviting more experts from different sectors and fields.

Table 5 Summary of the workshop outcomes
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