Tag: wego

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climate change WEGo in Practice

Germany Moving Towards a ‘Wellbeing Economy Logic’?

The latest announcements that the new German Minister for the Economy and for the Climate, Robert Habeck, made in the run-up to the launch of the latest report on the German economy are very interesting — in many respects, he uses a vocabulary and terms that seem to come from the Wellbeing Economy school of thought.

The influential German weekly DER SPIEGEL reported on the new tone in the report, based on a draft that was circulated early:

The draft report states that “overall economic growth, measured in terms of growth in gross domestic product, is a necessary but by no means sufficient prerequisite for sustainable prosperity, employment, participation and social security”. For the first time, the German government will examine “complementary dimensions of material and immaterial prosperity as well as intergenerational sustainability” beyond gross domestic product (GDP).

And further down:

In addition, a “saturation with basic consumer goods” had been reached in the middle of society. Therefore, “a political promise of further and generally rising consumption levels cannot be made.”

In the center/conservative daily paper FAZ, a commentator says:

The Greens have long been at odds with the concept of basing the country’s well-being primarily on the value of domestically produced goods and services. As a consequence, they have negotiated a passage in the coalition agreement about a well-being report which is to be integrated in the annual economic report and “that covers not only economic but also ecological, social and societal dimensions of well-being”. A GDP framed green.

(Translations from German all mine.)

The actual report (German) that finally did come out has been toned down — most likely to accommodate the other two coalition parties that are not as progressive in their thinking about the economy. Overall, the report focuses less on a changed approach to running the economy, and much more on the climate crisis (which is still encouraging news, coming from a ministry that was in the hands of staunch fossil fuel defenders for decades). But I believe that the statements that were circulated beforehand are the real news that deserve our attention. Because that seems to be where Habeck’s heart is.

Today, the Wellbeing Economy Alliance have published a guest piece on their blog I have written. I am commenting on Habeck’s initiative from my point of view as a German, having spent most of my life surrounded by a society that was deeply marked by the unbridled adoration of GDP growth — no surprise there, Germany built its entire raison d’être around increasing the material output of its economy after the disaster of World War II and the Nazi era.

I personally hope that Habeck will get the support that he needs to see his vision through. If Germany adopted this way of thinking more broadly, it could produce a chain reaction in Europe and beyond.

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WEGo in Practice

New Members Joining the Wellbeing Economy Governments

As humanity is struggling with the Covid pandemic (and, in many parts, trying to get into a Christmas spirit, despite the virus), there is still some good news happening. Yesterday, the Finnish Government declared that it is joining the WEGo project:

“Joining the network will give us new opportunities to promote the economy of wellbeing approach, for example in the recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. This approach makes it possible to create a sustainable foundation for a just, equal, climate-friendly and competent society which is better equipped to respond to future crises and to overcome them more swiftly,” says Minister of Social Affairs and Health Aino-Kaisa Pekonen.

To us, it is incredibly exciting to witness the development of this alliance. We started following the project when it was nothing more than a visionary idea in the heads of a handful people who wanted to establish a different approach to running our economies.

We were there, at the end of 2018, when it was officially launched to the world, at an OECD conference in South Korea.

Today, a little over three years after the first small meeting was held at the University of Glasgow, to discuss an approach to economics that finally puts the wellbeing of people and planet at the core of economic policy development, five regional and national governments have publicly declared that this is the right one for them.

This does not mean that these governments abandon GDP as a key measurement tool in their work. Not yet. Finland cannot, actually: As a member of the Eurozone, Finland is committed to the Maastricht criteria, which indirectly leads to requirements for GDP growth. But if you carefully read the press release that’s linked above, you’ll see that it makes no reference to GDP growth. And that alone is saying something. It is a starting point.

Earlier this year, at the beginning of May, the Welsh Government became first new member after the alliance’s founding:

Covid-19 has dramatically changed our lives and will have a lasting and profound effect on all of us, on our economy, on our public services and on our communities. We cannot go back to business as normal, and need to plan for a Wales, shaped by the virus, that is more prosperous, more equal and greener, rooted in our commitment to social-economic and environmental justice. Last week, we joined the Well-being Economy Government (WEGo) Network and will be working with Scotland, Iceland and New Zealand – who all have a shared ambition to deliver and improve well-being through their economic approach.

Katherine Trebeck has been fighting for years for this alliance to come about, and to this day, she is part of countless conversations that are happening all around the world — as governments are beginning to rethink their approach to economic development, and slowly moving into a wellbeing economy logic.

I am truly excited that we will get to tell the story about some of the amazing people behind all this in our film.

Which will come out next year. Just bear with us. Still working on that edit. And will keep doing that for a little while longer …

A Christmas season that may be as merry as it can — to all those who celebrate it, and also to those who don’t or can’t. And all the best for a year 2021 to all of us — may it make things come true that we currently don’t even dare dream of yet.

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Behind the Scenes OECD South Korea On the Road

2019: A Breakthrough Year for Our Film Project.

The development of this film project in 2019 was rather remarkable.

Our stories and protagonists took to the global stage!

Originally, we thought the final chapter in our story about the Wellbeing Economy Governments was going to be the big OECD conference in South Korea where the initiative was officially launched and publicly announced for the first time. But that event felt somewhat anti-climactic: It was a so-called “breakfast session” — very early in the morning, in a small room, with hardly anyone attending. And at the time, we asked ourselves: This is supposed to be the big breakthrough?

It seemed a little like the project had failed as it was succeeding.

But it turns out: A small launch can still lead to a big change. In the following months, all kinds of little things were happening in the three WEGo countries, and also between them. And then, another few weeks later, the big news broke that Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish First Minister, was announcing and explaining the WEGo initiative from the TED stage. To this day, her talk has been watched over 1.7 million times — and that does look a lot more like the big event that we would have hoped for. And then towards the end of the year, Icelandic prime minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir gave a speech about the initiative in London, which got the BBC interested, and which finally even led to a brief radio interview I gave to the BBC about the WEGo initiative.

Lorenzo’s story also took an unexpected turn around the middle of the year — he was promoted from Vice Minister to Minister of Education in the surprisingly formed new PD/5-Star government. In this role, he made waves in Italy, he got plenty of pressure from many sides, his policies made him unpopular with many people — as he is proposing uncomfortable solutions to really transform the Italian society for the future, while he also got international headlines for his push to have Italian schoolchildren taught about sustainable living and the climate in all classes starting with the coming academic year.

All this culminated in him being invited to the Climate Conference in Madrid and to an audience with the Pope. (We were there with the camera for the former, but not for the latter.) And now, just before the end of the year he resigned from his job as minister. Which came as no surprise to us — on the contrary. But the background to his resignation doesn’t belong here, it’ll be in our film.

The key thing for us is that we were very lucky — which is a requirement for any documentary film project: When we met Lorenzo, he was not yet a member of the Italian parliament, and then he transformed into an internationally respected politician in under two years. When he resigned, the news was reported around the world. How often does the world take an interest in an Italian Minister of Education who has been in office for only a few weeks?

We found powerful partners!

Around the middle of the year we met a director and producer who is very well established in the German film industry and who quickly warmed to our project. In November we signed an agreement according to which we will finish and market the film together with his company. For the development of our film, the second half of the year was characterized by getting to know and discussing the film project with our new partners. In our exchanges we thought and learned a lot about how our film can work, how we should structure it and what the focus should be. This was enormously helpful for our understanding of what kind of film we are making. But it also took time, of course.

So … we are looking very much forward to an eventful year 2020 in which we will launch into the next phase of the production. Carving out a compelling story from all the material that we have collected. Happy New Year everyone, and wish us luck!

Categories
WEGo in Practice Wellbeing Economies: Concept

The Scottish First Minister’s TED Talk – Let’s Move Beyond GDP

The Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon gave a TED Talk — it was just published on the TED.com website. In her talk, she makes the case for governments to focus the efforts of their work no longer on GDP, but on increasing the well-being of their citizens:

In early 2018, we decided to tell the story behind the Scottish and other governments who were trying to join forces, to move beyond GDP. Not knowing if this would happen, and not knowing how it would play out. The fact that the Wellbeing Economy Governments now do exist, and that Nicola Sturgeon just delivered her courageous message is very exciting for our film project.

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OECD South Korea WEGo in Practice Wellbeing Economies: Concept

The Wellbeing Economics Governments Are Moving Forward.

In the past weeks and months, we’ve been excited to notice how the Wellbeing Economics Governments have been making progress.

New York Times About New Zealand’s Wellbeing Budget
The most visible example may have been the New York Times article about New Zealand’s Wellbeing Budget. We were excited to see this in part also because in January we had the chance to interview the very same Grant Robertson who is mentioned in the article for our film — he is New Zealand’s Finance Minister. And some of what he told us then was pretty much verbatim repeated in the article. The text provides an inspiring view-from-the-outside picture of what the current New Zealand government is trying to do differently, and it’s encouraging to see that the NYT is taking note.

The First Wellbeing Economy Governments Policy Lab
Even closer to our film’s subject was the first meeting of the WEGo policy lab in Scotland on May 1st of this year — in a house that Adam Smith himself had lived in.

Back in November, we were in South Korea as the WEGo — the Wellbeing Economy Governments initiative — was first publicly presented at the OECD Forum in Incheon. What may be the crucial part of this project is said Policy Lab. If governments want to move towards a holistic approach to Wellbeing of People and Planet, they need to do a lot of things very differently. And that is hard.

So in order to figure out how to make this happen, they are trying to learn from each other, by organising these policy labs. In the words of First Minister Sturgeon:

But we know that we don’t have all the answers. We know that we have got a lot to learn – and a lot to gain – from working with other like-minded countries.

That’s why the Scottish Government established the Wellbeing Economy Governments initiative and it’s why we’re so pleased to be hosting the first of these Policy Labs. And it’s why we’re delighted to have such a wealth expertise represented here today.

Our film’s protagonist Katherine Trebeck attended the opening session, where both the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, and the Prime Minister of Iceland, Karin Jakobsdottir, gave speeches (New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was not at the lab, but NZ sent representatives). And Katherine published a blog post about what that was like, on the Wellbeing Economy Alliance website. Here is how she explains in her text what the WEGo are about:

WEGo is about governments rolling up their sleeves, linking arms, and walking together down a path that sees national success as being defined by the quality of life of citizens rather than the growth rate of a country’s GDP. As the Chief Economist of the Scottish Government said, WEGo is about driving the wellbeing agenda in economic, social, and environmental policy making.

First Minister Sturgeon’s speech from the event is available online, and some of her statements show where the WEGo are headed, particularly when it comes to their stance on the role of the GDP:

GDP has too often come to be seen not just as an indicator of a country’s wealth, but as the main measure of its success.

(…)

As governments, we see the promotion of sustainable and inclusive growth as a vital way of raising living standards for all. But we also understand that growth is only of any real value if it makes people’s lives better, it is not, and never should be seen, as an end in itself. We have to test whether we are creating a fairer, healthier, happier nation in the process.

And then I cannot help but notice: The heads of these three Wellbeing Economy Governments are all strong and inspiring women. I’m beginning to doubt that that’s a coincidence. And instead a sign of a future that needs a lot more female leaders.

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Behind the Scenes Gross Domestic Product OECD South Korea On the Road Wellbeing Economies: Concept

Film: Thoughts from the OECD Forum in South Korea.

In November our documentary film took us to Incheon in South Korea for the OECD World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Policy. Here’s a little video from the trip!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjNYFjYBitM&w=1110&h=624]