FeliX ISE: An Interactive and Participatory Tool for Exploring Behaviour Change Scenarios in the Food System

Tan, R.Y.W., Marntirosian, F., Swamy, D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5316-8825, Tantaroudas, N., & Eker, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2264-132X (2025). FeliX ISE: An Interactive and Participatory Tool for Exploring Behaviour Change Scenarios in the Food System. In: Forum on Scenarios for Climate and Societal Futures (Scenarios Forum 2025), 16-18 July 2025, Leeds, United Kingdom.

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Abstract

Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) are essential tools for informing climate policy, yet their technical complexity often limits their accessibility to non-experts, including policymakers, civil society, and local practitioners. This limitation is particularly critical today, as effective climate action increasingly depends on inclusive, cross-sectoral decision-making that spans technological, economic, and socio-cultural systems.
To bridge this accessibility gap, we developed an Interactive Simulation Environment (ISE)— a user-friendly interface that abstracts the complexity of IAMs into an intuitive, participatory tool. While part of a broader effort to democratize IAMs, this tool is unique in its focus on behavioral change within the food system—a sector with a substantial environmental footprint and high potential for demand-side mitigation through dietary shifts, and reductions in food loss and waste. By enabling stakeholders to adjust key assumptions and parameters, the tool makes the underlying complexity more transparent, thereby enhancing its practical relevance for real-world decision-making.
At the core of the ISE is the Full of Economic-Environment Linkages and Integration dX/dt (FeliX), a system dynamics-based IAM that captures interlinkages between economic, environmental, and social systems. Crucially, FeliX incorporate behavioural feedbacks—such as the influence of social norms and perceived self-efficacy—which shape the extent to which food-related transformations occur. Because social norms and self-efficacy can accelerate or dampen consumption changes at a population level, incorporating these behavioral feedbacks reveals how individual shifts may scale into broader systemic impacts.
The ISE is designed to support intuitive and interactive exploration of a diverse range of scenarios. Users can experiment with behavioural factors related to dietary change as well as food waste and loss to observe in real time their implications across multiple environmental systems—including land use, climate, fertilizer use, biodiversity, and water. A distinctive feature is the ability to compare multiple scenarios side-by-side using shared graphical outputs, which facilitates both reflection and dialogue around possible futures.
Initial lessons from a stakeholder workshop revealed insights into the disconnect between expert-driven models and user expectations. A notable tension emerged around how the system-scale, feedback-oriented logic embedded in the FeliX model (e.g. behavior diffusion through social norms), could be at odds with the individual-scale mental models of users, who understandably seek more direct, causal narratives (e.g., "if I stop eating meat, what changes?"). This highlights the importance of thoughtful framing and clear, context-sensitive communication that can bridge the differing scales, allowing for more meaningful and constructive engagement.
We propose to present a demonstration of the tool at the Scenarios Forum to illustrate its potential in supporting inclusive scenario development processes. Through some hands-on exercises, we aim to spark broader discussion on how to design interactive tools that not only simplify access but also enhance co-creation, engagement, and trust among stakeholders who bring diverse perspectives and expertise. In doing so, we hope to contribute to the ongoing innovation of methodological approaches in participatory scenario development for greater robustness and inclusivity.

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