Various institutions, including the UN, the WHO, the IMF, the OECD, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, are explicitly noting the extent and array of challenges facing the world today. As the World Economic Forum (WEF) puts it: “The cascading and connected crises…demand a new descriptor to define the scale of the problems the world is facing … a single word to sum up all this strife. So here’s a new one: polycrisis.” WEF’s latest global risks explains that:
“the world is facing a set of risks that feel both wholly new and eerily familiar. We have seen a return of ‘older’ risks – inflation, cost-of-living crises, trade wars, capital outflows from emerging markets, widespread social unrest, geopolitical confrontation and the spectre of nuclear warfare…amplified by comparatively new developments in the global risks landscape, including unsustainable levels of debt, a new era of low growth, low global investment and de-globalization, a decline in human development after decades of progress, rapid and unconstrained development of dual-use (civilian and military) technologies, and the growing pressure of climate change impacts and ambitions in an ever-shrinking window for transition to a 1.5°C world. Together, these are converging to shape a unique, uncertain and turbulent decade to come.” – World Economic Forum
These warnings from the World Economic Forum mirror the conclusion of the United Nations Human Development Report:
“Uncertainty is not new, but its dimensions are taking ominous new forms today. A new ‘uncertainty complex’ is emerging, never before seen in human history. Constituting it are three volatile and interacting strands: the destabilising planetary pressures and inequalities of the Anthropocene, the pursuit of sweeping societal transformations to ease those pressures and the widespread and intensifying polarisation. This new uncertainty complex and each new crisis it spawns are impeding human development and unsettling lives the world over.”
Such statements are based on evidence that comes from a range of sources. Together they constitute the impetus behind a raft of ideas and approaches being put forward for how to redesign the economy. All of these ideas and approaches, to varying degrees and in different ways, elevate social and environmental goals.
Firstly, there is vast evidence in academic studies of the need for change in how the economy is conceptualised vis-a-vis other goals. Schools of research and thought such as ecological economists and feminist scholars such as Marilyn Waring and Hilary Wainwright have been documenting for decades how positioning the economy as a goal in its own right (and as distinct from society and nature) is deeply problematic. First Nations communities around the world for millennia have been living an approach that inherently recognises the interconnections between people, planet and economy.
Secondly, researchers in universities and major global institutions have amassed a considerable body of evidence and forecasts from models that lay out the extent and prospects of the environmental crisis. Examples of this work and institutional recognition of the extent of the challenges include:
Considerable evidence also shows the harms to individuals and communities that result from the current production and consumption systems, and the prevailing distribution of resources and power. There is a suite of academic literature and institutional reporting that illustrates the extent of how unevenly the resources of the world are shared. The World Economic Forum points to how prioritisation of economic growth vis-à-vis social equity has generated inequalities of wealth and income. In the World Inequality Report, a major contribution mapping the extent of economic inequality, the authors report that:
“In 2021…global inequalities remain extremely pronounced: they are about as great today as they were at the peak of Western imperialism in the early 20th century. In addition, the Covid pandemic has exacerbated even more global inequalities. Our data shows that the top 1% took 38% of all additional wealth accumulated since the mid-1990s, with an acceleration since 2020…wealth inequality remains at extreme levels in all regions.”
These social and environmental trends intersect to exacerbate vulnerability and inequality. There is increased recognition of the impact on the majority world (the ‘global south’) of the production and consumption systems in rich industrialised countries.
Thirdly, evidence of dangerous impact of current production and consumption patterns on the planet and people – whether floods or the looming threat of droughts and bushfires; and food banks and homelessness, loneliness, suicide, anti-depressant use, and long hours – is hard to ignore even when simply looking at news, strolling the streets, and talking to neighbours and friends.
Fourthly, major supranational agencies such as the UN (not least the International Panel on Climate Change), the World Health Organisation (WHO), and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) are calling for a new way of approaching the economy, and are establishing their own strands of activity and advocacy accordingly. For example, the UN’s Research Institute for Sustainable Development has called for: “a new development model with…alternative economic approaches that centre environmental and social justice and rebalance state–market–society–nature relations” and the European Union 8th Environmental Action Plan states that its long term goal is that “by 2050 at the latest, Europeans live well, within planetary boundaries, in a well-being economy where nothing is wasted. Growth will be regenerative, climate neutrality will be a reality, and inequalities will have been significantly reduced.”
Finally, as seen in briefing #9, people themselves support policies that prioritise environmental and social outcomes. Whether seen in the results from polling or from more deliberative dialogues, what emerges is that people place a strong emphasis on goals and measures that align with the ideas and suggestions associated with a wellbeing economy.
These mini-briefings look at the idea of a wellbeing economy, how it relates to other ideas for economic change, and what some of the core elements of a wellbeing economy are. They reflect on why Australia needs to build a wellbeing economy.
This series of ‘mini-briefings’ attempts to clarify terms and expressions and associated wellbeing economy ideas so that discussions can take place from a basis of shared understanding and language.
