OAFP 8055 - The Well-being Economy: Post-growth towards cooperation and full health

The Well-being Economy aims at reconciling human well-being with safe and just Earth system boundaries and reform economic systems so that they work for humans, non-humans and the Biosphere. More precisely, the Wellbeing Economy is a post-growth economy that generates sufficient human wellbeing by fostering health and cooperation. This class will explore the conceptual underpinnings of the Well-being economy and its policy applications at different levels of governance (UN, EU, national and local). In part 1, we will explore the limitations of the growth-based economy (where GDP and economic growth govern public policies) and detail its impact on human well-being and the Biosphere. In part 2, we will outline the plurality of post-growth streams and dive into their visions and models (degrowth, Donut economy, the Well-being economy and Just Transitions). In part 3, we will focus on the well-economy and more specifically detail its three core notions: sufficiency, cooperation and full health. The final part (part 4) will explore how well-being policies are already implemented globally and locally. All throughout, the class will explore case studies, actors, obstacles and levers of well-being economy policies.

No prerequisites.

Each session, except for the first introductory one, will be based on the same format:

• 1h20 lecture (concepts, frameworks, data);
• 5 minutes break;
• 35 minutes collective intelligence session on levers, blockers and actors of the well-being economy introduced by students’ presentation.

The final grade will comprise 4 elements:

• debate introduction (15%): a 10 minutes presentation in groups of 2 or 3 with slides around a key dimension of well-being economy policies implementation such as “narratives”, “digital world” or “finance and accounting” (all sessions except for session 1 and 12);
• participation in class and debates (10%): questions and comments during class lectures are welcome; debates will follow debate introduction and all students are expected to contribute to this collective intelligence session;
• policy brief (60%) : A 10-pages policy brief detailing and illustrating a well-being policy proposal (visual aspects are expected to reinforce rigorous reasoning and analysis to convey robust ideas in a fun and efficient way);
• poster presentation (15%): the policy brief will be presented in 3-4 minutes with the help of a one slide free visual during the final session (session 12).

https://unu.edu/inweh/collection/environmental-cost-of-AIs-Enrgy-Use-Carbon-water-and-land-footprints

• Oral skills: participation in the class lectures, presentations and debates;
• Written and visual skills: policy brief (illustrated with graphs and tables) and poster