PPEPSIII Framework

The PPEPSIII framework facilitates a deeper understanding of drivers shaping the 2030-2060 time horizon. In general, frameworks such as STEEP and PESTLE are a helpful way for foresight practitioners to ensure a comprehensive and balanced set of drivers and themes are considered in a research project. The PPEPSIII framework can help surface key tensions that exist among drivers and stakeholder agendas.

More specifically, the PPEPSIII framework represents the tension between efforts to live within planetary boundaries on the one hand and attempts to improve the human condition for billions on the other. Various forms of innovation are being pursued to help humanity exist within this band of sustainably prosperous living. Yet this urgency to innovate on the one hand comes into tension with the constraints and limitations of society’s current infrastructures. Furthermore, efforts to move towards preferred futures must navigate the many tensions between economic, political, and social systems if they are to be realized.

Since the beginning of history, humans have sought to mediate relationships with each other and with planet earth. This is represented with People and Planet in the framework (see figure 1) - the first two letters in the PPEPSIII acronym. Today, society is attempting to simultaneously mediate a minimum living standard for all People while also attempting to stay within Planetary boundaries.

Unfortunately, our various systems are operating above planetary boundaries while failing to provide a minimum standard for all of humanity. The global mission for most societies in the coming decades is to build societal systems that enable people to live within the band of sustainably prosperous living.

Figure 1 - People and Planet form the boundaries to sustain prosperous life

This leads to the 4 core systems that human society uses to mediate relationships with each other and with the planet. Specifically, Economic systems, Political Systems, Social systems, and Information systems. These are represented as the four middle boxes between People and Planet as seen in Figure 2 – they are the next 4 letters in PPEPSIII acronym, from top to bottom.

Figure 2 - The 4 systems society uses to media its relationships with each other and the planet.

Information systems have played a central role throughout human history, including communication systems – from the innovations of language, writing, printing press, mass communication, and the Internet. As Harari clearly articulates in his book Sapiens, communication is what enables societies to function. However, it also includes other information systems used to mediate every human’s place in this world and with each other, such as the ancient solstice for planting and harvesting, the invention of clockwork time, and modern science.

Social systems describe the relations between humans within a society and reflect the culture, value and ethics, ethnic differences, spiritual beliefs, etc. that bring a group of people together into a shared understanding of the planet and their place within it.

Political systems speak to both the power structures, and governance models, of a society. Economic systems play a fundamental role in providing for the needs of a society – from basic survival needs to material goods, status, etc.

Lastly, both Innovation and Infrastructure play central roles in the shaping of society and its futures as shown in Figure 3. These represent the last two letters in the PPEPSIII acronym.

Figure 3 - Innovation and Infrastructure

Innovations are used to transform various systems - from people to planet and everything in between. Innovations can take various forms from tools and technology to processes, knowledge, mental models, forms of interaction, etc.

As societies scale out Innovations into information, economic, governance and social systems they grow into critical infrastructure elements. And as the infrastructure scales it comes to define and structure these various systems; including Information infrastructure, Economic infrastructure, Social infrastructure, Political infrastructure, etc.

Yet as innovations integrate and are adopted by a society, they complexify in the sense that they become entangled within a society. As a result, the integration of new Innovations which run counter to existing infrastructure, can be slowed as society deals with a form of “system debt” (much like we have technological debt) from the old way of doing things.

And so, on the one hand, infrastructure, and the human history it represents, can act like ruts that affect how innovations shape futures. On the other hand, infrastructure can act as a dampener which can slow change for innovations that do not easily fit with existing infrastructures.

Topics related to demographics, health, human biology, etc.

Topics and systems related to planetary resources, climate, climate change, planetary ecosystems, other species, etc.

Topics and systems related to human knowledge, information, communication, etc.

Topics and systems related to culture, values, ethics, ethnicities, sociology, religion, etc.

Topics and systems related to economic activity such as production, consumption, work, finance, etc.

Topics and systems related to societal governance, power dynamics, governments, cooperation, conflict, etc. at regional, national, international levels.

Topics and systems related to new tools, technology, processes, knowledge, mental models, forms of interaction, forms of organization, etc.

Topics and systems related to established and widely adopted tools, technology, processes, knowledge, mental models, forms of interaction, forms of organization, etc.

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