Sustainable and inclusive wellbeing: the Trojan horse for beyond-growth in Europe or just another set of metrics?

Welcome to Economics for Rebels: Introducing Sustainable Wellbeing I think well-being is the core we, we are born with, with our needs, we have innate needs that needs to be satisfied. So that's well-being. well-being is about personal growth. It's it's about different, like it's both in material and material needs. So therefore I think it's something that we all recognise very well, but it's also it makes it also difficult because it's difficult to be defined. Speaker 2 Exactly. Hello and welcome to Economics for Rebels, the podcast of the European Society for Ecological Economics. Up until recently, it was an act of rebellion to pursue economics as if nature met it and the Earth was finite. This rebellion must bring a major shift to economic thinking. Our podcast is dedicated to exploring the economics of just and sustainable transformations in conversations with scientists, experts, activists pushing for rapid and radical change for people and planet. Speaker 3 To our podcast, I am your host Alexander Kovesh, and you are listening to the Economics for Rebels podcasts. The GDP was never meant to be an indicator of human happiness. Ecological economists have been criticizing the use of the GDP as a sole measure of progress for over half a century now. And even if a myriad of other indicators exist in the world, it still captures the imagination of policy makers. Can we turn it around? Is it true that you cannot have what you do not measure? And can the concept of sustainable and inclusive well-being guide the EU beyond growth? Our guest today, Tulahir Villami, believes that Europe's single mindedness with competitiveness should be replaced by the true understanding of what sustainable and inclusive well-being might bring to the table. Thule is a social policy researcher with an expertise in sustainable welfare states, theories on sustainable well-being, ecosocial policies and post growth trajectories. She's a senior lecturer in social policy based at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Thampera University, Finland. She's currently involved in many EU funded research projects that relate to introducing ecological economics principles into policy making and focusing on the science policy interaction at the EU level. Unpacking the Definition of Sustainable and Inclusive Wellbeing Welcome. Speaker 1 Tuli, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Speaker 3 So for me to wrap my head around this concept of sustainable and inclusive well-being is is is always a little difficult because I'll have just so many things revolving in my hand when I, when I hear this term, especially when I put my D growth hat on. So I'm never too sure whether it's just about measurements or, or it's a it's a new way of guiding policies. Could it be a Trojan horse in the EU for beyond growth advocates? Or is it is it just a term that resonates with policy makers? But after a little while they will just to it and not really digested. So I have loads of questions to you and it will hopefully help not just me but also the listeners to understand what's sustainable and inclusive well-being is. So let's try and clear up the definition first. What is sustainable and inclusive well-being? Speaker 1 Yes, indeed, a good question and you had so many good questions. I hope we have time to cover others as well. But yes, let's start with the definition or with the term sustainable and inclusive well-being because I I assume it might be new to some of the, the listeners. If you for example, Google that sustainable and inclusive well-being, this exact term, I think you mainly find some recent documents from the European Commission or some UN related documents like more policy documents. Some reasons research also has used this. There is for example Nature editorial, a Nature review by Robert Costanza and other scholars published just recently endorsing this term. Or you can end up to some of our projects, EU Horizon projects using this term, but it's not exactly like used that much I would say. So most of us, I think we are probably more familiar with the term sustainable well-being that we have used in ecological economics for a long time. But and I to, to start with, I think this is not so different from that. So it's, it says that maybe some actors using it a bit differently, but OK. What is the simple definition of sustainable inclusive well-being? To add to answer to your question, sorry for, for going around a bit, but simple answer to the question, The very broad definition, it is that it's well-being for everyone now and in the future, well-being within planetary boundaries, also emphasising the importance of of inclusion. So it's about ensuring people's well-being, like current generation's well-being. And then therefore you can include different factors that contribute to to well-being. If you, for example, measure current well-being, you can measure health or education, clean air or decent employment or social relationships and life satisfaction or what do you prefer to defence? Also on, on different theoretical backgrounds, whether you call this as need satisfiers or capabilities, it's very much depending on, on on the theoretical frameworks. But it's the, the first dimension is it's focusing on current well-being. Then the second dimension is of course, the sustainability. So it's ensuring well-being in the future as well. And I think we all understand that this works only if we stay within planetary boundaries. So this kind of environmental sustainability is the top priority. I would say that future well-being can only be guaranteed if we ensure a kind of planetary integrity and integrity of ecosystems that we depend on. But it's also maybe sustainable well-being also refers to tackling the challenges, the current challenges of ageing population, for example, or demographic changes in more general terms. Also societal resilience and transformation can be kind of somehow understood as part of this future well-being. And then third, it's about inclusiveness, it's about inclusion. So that we also understand that the limiting and mitigating inequalities are important and we have to track the the distribution of wealth and income as well. And also addressing gender inequality and tackling social exclusion and discrimination and all that. So basically this just brings all these concepts and these dimensions together, highlighting the importance of of inclusion maybe as different from from how sustainable well-being has been used. Though I would say that sustainable well-being also includes this understanding of, of social justice. But anyhow, this is the basic understanding. The Debate: Are Metrics Diverting from Core Wellbeing Philosophy? It's very interesting that you didn't talk about metrics at all, because very often when I hear people speak about sustainable and inclusive well-being, they speak a lot about metrics. They, you know, they talk. Speaker 1 About the EU. Speaker 3 Who has set the goal of having an indicator dashboard for sustainable and inclusive well-being And, and and very often I I get the impression that it's. Speaker 1 It's it's it's. Speaker 3 It's all about metrics and all about like trying to, trying to measure something differently. But then also I was, I was at a conference recently where, where you were there and I heard people speak of hundreds of things that we measure currently, like hundreds. And, and I'm, I'm thinking yes. And of course, the dashboard is also containing quite a lot of these metrics. How important you think this is in this concept of, of sustainable and inclusive well-being? And is that it kind of because to me, sometimes just measuring things is, is a red herring. We're not we're not talking about the real stuff. And I get a lot of feedback that I always take things to the philosophical. Speaker 1 Levels but. Speaker 3 I can't I can't really help myself. And and yes, when we talk about metrics, I think we don't talk about philosophy and we don't we don't talk about the meaning. We just focus on the metrics. But to me, it seems that in this discussion around sustainable and inclusive well-being, there's a lot going on about metrics. So where does it stand? Do you think it's important part of it or it's it's just something that kind of supports us? Speaker 1 Yes, a very good, a very good thinking there about the distinction or relationship between metrics and philosophy and more fundamental questions of what well-being is. And maybe you, you pointed correctly that I didn't talk about metrics, but it's also because maybe my own background is not in indicator dashboards, but it's more on theories of sustainable well-being and how we understand well-being from different theoretical perspectives. But, but now I collaborate a lot with, with others who are into this beyond GDP metrics field. And I've started to understand that this, this term, this framework of sustainable and inclusive well-being, it has been increasing the used by the community of so-called beyond TDP approach. And, and we know that for decades the actors have developed beyond TDP indicator initiatives, indeed collecting and trying to understand what are then the metrics we should follow if we don't, if we get rid of the dominance of TDP, what are the metrics that should replace? And we know that the, they, the, the list is like enormous, as you say, say, as you heard, so many things are being measured like some initiative dashboard indicator dashboards can can include like 100 different indicators or even more. And now this kind of abundance has been a big challenge, challenge for for policy making, but also for, for our research on this topic. Because then we don't, first, we don't maybe understand the, the content. We don't, we get lost in, in sustainable and in our understanding of sustainable inclusive well-being. If we have like indicators of housing and we have indicators of air pollution and, and you name it, gender inequalities, etcetera. So we got lost a bit. What is the essence? What, what are the, the main components that we should track and understand like, and then the the second challenge is that there is not convergence towards certain indicators. The initiatives are scattered that we don't know what what is what's there and what should be included if we want to develop a more kind of universally applicable TDP beyond TDP metrics or whatever. So therefore these colours coming from that field have started to embrace the understanding of sustainable inclusive, well be exactly pointing out that those metrics should cover these 3 dimensions. And this, this stems from the Stiglitz report published 2009. And actually it also stems maybe from the sustainable development very basic idea of of different dimensions. But these actors are now then coming together and saying that yes, we need more consensus and convergence around the terminology and to board certain metrics. But, and I see the potential here, but I also see risks. We can. We can talk more. Navigating the Risks and Potential of Wellbeing Measurement Systems Yes, maybe let's talk about these risks a little bit because I think it's a crucial question in ecological economics as well. And, and a lot of a lot of the scholars in ecological economics don't agree on this either, whether it is it really important to measure things or is, is measuring things just taking the focus away from what we need to do. And I think it's a, it's an exciting, it's an exciting rift even within the field. And I really wonder what you think about this like you as somebody who works on policies is, is focusing on metrics just kind of diverging away from the real discussions or is it actually helping the discussions and and yes, as you mentioned, what are the risks here? Speaker 1 I think it's. It can be both. It can be the, IT can be like diverting the focus. I, I see that when we, for example, keep disagreeing, what are the metrics that should be followed? While we see deforestation is advancing, we see like the increasing risk of authoritarian regimes and we see that the militarisation is replacing the focus on decarbonisation, etcetera. So like why we spend our resources in disagreeing? What are the exact metrics that should be included in one whatever dashboard that is used in whatever policy file somewhere. So it's some it seems to be bit increment incremental. Of course, I, I get this point and I, I totally share the frustration there. But then the but then the dominance of TDP and the systems of national accounts should not be also overlooked. That for example, the if, if we could develop, further develop the systems of national accounts so that they really show and can track the progress of, of nations across the world in terms of, of phosphorus use or, or biodiversity loss, and also in terms of, of different social disparities and eradicating poverty within planetary boundaries. I think that will be and would be a crucial factor or not maybe crucial factor, but at least that would help us to change the paradigm as well. But, but the problem is of course that it takes so much time and resources and it won't happen. This data harmonisation, etcetera. And there are very like lay back and very powerful actors within who are developing these alternatives and or like who maintain the status quo of of certain current metric system. So I don't see that it it's super likely to be happened. But anyway, I see that it's important also to focus on this sustainable and inclusive well-being. And, and because if we operate to analyse well-being, if we manage to, to go more into details what it means, it also then helps to guide the policies. It helps us to evaluate the policy impacts in terms of their impact on on biodiversity, the biosphere and and social well-being you are. Speaker 3 Talking about the policies, what are the policies? I mean, you are involved in, in many projects that that deal with with this concept of sustainable and inclusive well-being. What are the most important policy messages? What are? Speaker 1 The policy. Speaker 3 Packages or what? What what? What do scientists recommend to policy makers? Policy Recommendations and the 'Trojan Horse' for Beyond Growth What should be done? Speaker 1 How to what should be done to support sustainable and inclusive well-being? I think those are we often refer to the policies that have been developed under the label of ecosocial policies or post growth policies or deep growth policies or however you name them. And we know that the list is, is is long and there are very good and prominent promising policy ideas. So often maybe often cited are of course like social floor, protecting social floor through basic income or basic universal services or universal basic services or and they they can be in terms of housing or food or energy. So those are not so different. I would say that sustainable, inclusive well-being can be supported by the policies that are already on the table in the growth and post growth discussion. Speaker 3 Do you think this this concept can breakthrough the the overbearing competitiveness narrative? And because because sustainable and inclusive well-being in it sounds like a nice term and we've had this debate for a long time when it comes to degrowth. Speaker 1 Like. Speaker 3 Do we want to stick to degrowth because it's radical, because people don't like it, because policymakers don't like it, or do we want to use things that they like? But if we start using things that they like, maybe maybe we distance ourselves from the meaning of the word and, and so, so it's a question. Do we want something that that's a kind of Trojan horse of, of, of post growth? So it sounds nice policy makers can can work with it, they can sell it to politicians and maybe as a Trojan horse, it can, it can somehow somehow position itself as an, as an alternative narrative to this competitiveness narrative, which is like so extremely overbearing now in in EU policy making. So. So what do you think about that? Speaker 1 Maybe first about this terminology, why we need a new term and why is there a risk of cooperation or can it be a throw throwing horse that that helped us to to ride through even without policy making makers understanding what we are actually suggesting it, It would be nice and indeed maybe well-being. Often we think that it's the term that everybody likes, but we've heard that in in EU, the president and and other policy makers actually don't like that term because they well-being is somehow associated with this kind of Wellness culture. It's not material enough in their thinking that it's more like, okay, people go to spa and take like quite a time. And whereas people, policymakers are interested in material conditions for well-being. But I think this is naive thinking. From my perspective, I think well-being is, is not somehow something that we can achieve after the basic needs are satisfied. I think well-being is the core we, we are born with, with our needs. We have innate needs that needs to be satisfied. So that's well-being. well-being is about personal growth. It's, it's about different, like it's both in material and material needs. So therefore I think it's something that we all recognize very well, but it's also, it makes it also difficult because it's difficult to be defined exactly. It's something that we kind of intuitively understand. OK, what is well-being? But then I've been studying this for for years and always I get a bit confused what is well-being, how to define it exactly? I I often ask my students to what is well-being? We have this definition, a good life for all within planetary boundaries. And then I ask, OK, but what is a good life? What is well-being? And then we end up with many, many different understandings. But I still think that the core is there that well-being is not, it cannot be measured with the single metric. It cannot be advanced with the single policy. It's too complicated somehow. So it's, it requires kind of systemic thinking and more this multi dimensional understanding of, of well-being and therefore also different policies and metrics. And OK, now I got lost a bit from your question that also refers to this different terminology. And I would love to come back to this as well because I, I understand that it can be somehow confusing that there are different terms. And, but personally, I, first of all, personally, I, I embrace the, the diversity. I like that there are actors who, who keep saying that I, I only talk about the crowd. Some people say that I only prefer the Donuts economics. That's that's their kind of label that needs to be further developed. Some actors are embracing while being economy, whereas some are like, OK, let's let's focus on sufficiency. But from, from my experience with science of from science policy interaction perspective, I've understood that this can be very confusing for for policy makers, for general public, for media. They don't they get lost what, what, what they are calling for if they there are different these different words. So this this I've therefore, I think that if we also join forces towards sustainable and inclusive well-being, it could help us to to ride through with destroy and horse because we need consensus also around something. We need to bring different actors together instead of of creating kind of small niches or clubs. So I, I hope and see the potential of sustainable inclusive well-being for doing this exactly at this moment, because also there are ongoing initiatives at the UNUN level. And I see that we as ecological economists could and should be involved in this efforts to then try to define that they are, let's say, radical enough or the understanding is is aligned with the science. And I know. Speaker 3 I I had a lot of questions in my previous question but. Speaker 1 Are all packed in. Speaker 3 But do you think this competitiveness narrative can can be can be overthrown in any way? Current EU and UN Initiatives for Sustainable and Inclusive Wellbeing Is this is this a likeable concept that could actually become a rival to the competitiveness narrative? Speaker 1 I don't know is it can it be a rival or can it replace it? But in our merge protect, we brought different PIS of of many EU funded projects together to write a common open letter to, to President of Commission to ask this fundamental question to to call for Europe to to go back to this fundamental question that competing for what? Like why we compete? What is the purpose of competitiveness now? Now the competition is framed around productivity growth and our like competing our economic growth against China or US or whatever. But we try to to frame it that, OK, we have to compete for sustainable and inclusive well-being. We have to take care of our European social model that has provided necessities for people in Europe, but also, of course, it should not be excluding global S but we also have to understand our responsibility to watch that by reducing our environmental burden outside Europe. So therefore, maybe endorsing this kind of sufficiency approach. So sustainable and inclusive well-being could be the goal, the policy goal for competitiveness. So, but this is how we tried. But I personally, I would, yes, I, I would hope to see the EU replacing the competitiveness compass compass with doughnut compass or something like this. Speaker 3 Or the dashboard for sustainable and inclusive well-being. Well, I don't think we need to hold our breath for for that, but but I'm I'm truly hoping that one day maybe it can happen, but there. Speaker 1 Are ongoing initiatives, if I if I may say that the promising initiatives that we tried to support are ongoing initiatives at the EU level. Is this joint research centre development of a dashboard that they have identified 6 areas along aligned with this assembly, inclusive well-being also including resilience and transformation and nature and planetary boundaries. And it has been funded by EU and it, it's has been recognised and acknowledged in the Strategic Foresight report published by EU. And it has been acknowledged that it's, it's already in use or it's, it's ready to be implemented. So what we'd now try to do is that we try to work with the policy makers to to understand better how it could be like integrated into our whatever multi annual financial frameworks or European semester how these metrics could better guide the policy making. And the other example where the sustainable inclusive well-being kind of framework has been applied or is currently somehow under development is the UN level high level expert group of beyond GDP metrics that is linked to the pact of Pact for the Future that was agreed in last year to two years ago. And now they have established a high level expert group. And we have heard that this, this expert group has or is using this three-dimensional understanding of, of sustainable inclusive well-being in their work. And they will launch an idea of what could be the globally applicable DOGDP metric framework. So let's see, I, I understand that it's maybe not so fascinating, but I also hope that this could be one kind of lever to, to advance this agenda. But so far we've also heard that the, their agenda is not very radical or very well aligned with ecological economics. But let's hope for the best. And I think it's important again to to keep an eye on these ongoing initiatives. Tuuli Hirvilammi's Personal Rebellion: Balancing Needs and Inner Peace Thank you, Julie. I, I, I now understand this concert a lot more. And now I'm asking you the question we ask all our guests. What is your rebellion? Speaker 1 Oh, this is a difficult one. I know. You know, I've listened to this podcast for for many years and honestly, I, I didn't imagine that I, I will be the, the person to be asked this question. So it's difficult, but I, I would love to say something like, OK, it's mass capital. It's not something very broad and bold. But to be honest, maybe today I stick with something that is more connected to the topic of today and my, my heart. So I would say that the reppling is to balance needs to, to balancing our needs. And so it's to feeling good in a more harmonious and grounded way. And I come back to our definition of sustainable well-being in terms of having, doing, loving and being. So it's understanding well-being about us, about material basics and meaningful activities, loving and being, being a inner peace, focusing on inner peace and connecting. And it's not always easy to live according to this, understanding that this should be somehow a balanced system. We end up working too much, as you know, or we somehow neglect the needs for the inner peace and mental health or loving side. But I try to think and to live according this, this. So maybe my rebellion is to encourage all of us to balance these needs. Do you remember the loving and to to breathing in and slowing down a bit in this hectic world? Yes. So that's the act of rebel and trying to live and spreading the idea wherever I can, in academia as well, and in everyday encounters with others. Speaker 3 What a wonderful answer and and how interesting is it that in today's world just loving and being slow is an is can be seen as a rebellious act. Speaker 2 Such a. Speaker 3 Contradiction. But I think it's a it's a wonderful answer. You can. Speaker 1 Indeed. Thank You and Stay Tuned for More Ecological Economics So thank you so much, Julie, and thanks to all of you for spending time with us. Stay tuned with us for our next episode. Bye, Julie. Thank you. Speaker 2 Thank you for listening to the podcast series of the European Society for Ecological Economics. If you like the conversation and your work is related to ecological economics in any discipline, consider becoming a member of our society to stay connected. If you are ready to discuss the topic, join our Facebook group called European Society for Ecological Economics.