Stakeholders’ engagement has been reported as a key issue of scenario processes (Andersen, Hansen and Selin, 2021), especially in anticipating climate change adaptation strategies (Cairns, Ahmed, Mullett and Wright, 2013). Within the methodological framework of action-based scenarios (Marchais-Roubelat and Roubelat, 2008, 2016), this paper questions the methodological issues of the anticipation of corporate stakeholders’ engagement in climate change adaptation from an action-research that contributed to 2021 annual report on climate change to the French Prime Minister and Parliament (Marchais-Roubelat and Roubelat, 2021).
In a first section, we stress the importance of stakeholders’ engagement in foresight processes, as well as the incorporation of stakeholders’ actions in scenario design. In section 2, we introduce the research design from the three phases of the action research scenario design process: exploration, design, capability assessment. The proposed scenario method is based on the exploration of stakeholders’ moves, the design of sets of rules to exhibit stakeholders’ acts, strategies and organization, and their transformation over time. Section 3 reviews corporate engagement scenarios in climate change adaptation designed by the focus groups of stakeholders of different industries. Section 4 discusses the issues raised from these corporate engagement scenarios: the responsibility and the irresponsibility of future stakeholders’ acts, the critical role of personal experiences in the diffusion of adaptation practices, the development of assessment capabilities including the individual level, the community-based organization of climate change adaptation strategies.