How seven billion people can live well, sustainably and peacefully on a finite planet is a key question, perhaps the key question, for our times. It’s also central to the Network of Wellbeing’s vision, mission and values. “Building Wellbeing Together for People and Planet: a shared path to social change and quality of life” is my modest contribution to that debate. It’s a chapter in the forthcoming Springer Handbook of Quality of Life and Social Change. Here, is an edited version of what I wrote.
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Population growth and rising consumption, enabled by economic growth, have led, over the last fifty years, to greater changes in the ecosystems that underpin human wellbeing than in any other comparable period of human history (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). Trend research suggests that further growth over the coming decades will put even greater demand on ecosystems (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005) and that several key planetary boundaries, essential for human wellbeing could be overshot (Rockstrom et al 2009; Diaz et al 2019).
This impending catastrophe has stimulated a huge academic and popular literature and led to growing calls for alternative strategies to boost human wellbeing, including through ‘degrowth’ (Demaria, 2016). However, strategies to reduce emissions (and consumption) and to degrow economic activity could be resisted because of perceptions that they will lead to reductions in human wellbeing (Buchs and Koch: 2019).
In such circumstances, the question of whether and how we can all enjoy a good life, without economic growth and without overshooting these boundaries, would seem to be of vital academic and public interest.
The foundations needed to answer this question would appear to have long been laid – as much is known about both human wellbeing and about human impact and dependence on the natural world. The study of human happiness and wellbeing, on the one hand, goes back to Aristotle and the ancient Greeks. It was of interest to enlightenment thinkers such as Adam Smith and Jeremy Bentham and to 20th century psychologists, such as Abraham Maslow. Most recently, a whole new field of enquiry – positive psychology – has emerged which explicitly explores the constituents of happiness and wellbeing, including their relationship to public policy (Bok D, 2010). Meanwhile, on the other hand, a vast literature exists on the many ways people impact on the natural world, the resources we take from it and their uses and value – and of course, through economics, sociology and other disciplines, on how the use of those resources benefits humanity.
Yet since Andrew Simms and Joe Smith edited a book with that very title in 2009 (Simms A and Smith J, 2009), and with the exception of Tim Jackson’s Prosperity without Growth (Jackson, 2009), which includes a whole chapter on flourishing, not much seems to have been written on whether a good life need cost the Earth – and some of what has been written focuses on meeting basic needs rather than enabling a good life per se (O’Neill et al, 2018; Millward-Hopkins et al, 2020). The assumption that there is a conflict between sustainability and people’s aspirations for a good life persists both in academia and in popular debate.
Yet, new thinking is beginning to emerge that challenges the assumption that people cannot live well within planetary boundaries. New organisations are focusing on wellbeing and its relation to economic growth and sustainability and more arguments are appearing that explore, from different perspectives, how ethics and psychology can inform a better understanding of human need in ways that shed light on its relationship to consumption, pollution, and economic growth.
This new perspective, I believe, must be developed more widely over coming decades, if we, as a society, are going to get to grips with the sustainability challenges we face and the changes that they necessitate in the way we live. There is an urgent need to experiment in new ways of living which – with appropriate support from policy makers – could enable us all to live well within planetary boundaries.
As David Green, now a Network of Wellbeing Trustee, has argued, humanity faces a choice, in the 21st century, between three eventualities:
- we could ignore the clamour for change and “suffer” from unchecked environmental catastrophe;
- we could restrain our consumption, respect planetary boundaries and “survive” at some cost to our wellbeing; or
- we could focus on what matters to our wellbeing and learn to “thrive” while simultaneously reducing our consumption, our economic activity, and our environmental impact.
This third path goes further than conventional narratives of sustainable growth and sustainable consumption and production, which focus on how products are made and disposed of. It implies asking why we even consume in the first place.
The core idea that happiness and wellbeing may not depend on material consumption, once a minimum level of basic physical needs have been met, seems intuitively obvious when one considers the ‘Five Ways to Wellbeing’ (Aked et al, 2008).
- Taking note of one’s surroundings and oneself costs nothing. It can involve something as simple as stopping to look at a flower beside the road or the moon in the sky – or by mindful practice whereby a person stops periodically to reflect on their emotions and what’s driving them.
- Connecting with others can be expensive and polluting but can also be achieved more cheaply and sustainably by a walk in the park or by inviting a friend over for a cup of tea.
- Being physically active likewise might involve a car trip to an expensive gym with all its fancy equipment but can equally well be achieved by dancing, by running in the park or on street – or even by volunteering for a gardening project.
- Giving oneself to others or a higher cause can be as simple as smiling to a stranger and can also be achieved through volunteering for a local community group.
- Learning might entail travel for costly study for a Masters or PhD, but can also involve borrowing a book from a public library or helping a friend fix a motorbike.
On the face of it, the achievement of none of the five ways necessitates consumption or pollution. Nor does it necessarily contribute to or require economic growth. And, even if we look beyond the Five Ways to the higher needs, such as agency, belonging, love, self-actualisation and transcendence, that were contained in Maslow’s famour triangle of needs (Maslow, 1954), their achievement does not intuitively seem dependent on high levels of economic growth, consumption or pollution. In fact, too great a focus on material consumption can hinder the achievement of higher goals (Kasser, 2002).
Of course, millions of people in Western countries are struggling to meet their basic needs for food, shelter and warmth. Economic growth has, historically, helped people in Western countries to boost their incomes, increase their consumption and achieve these basic needs. Yet that does not imply that further economic growth, or even existing levels of economic activity are needed to help the millions who are currently struggling out of poverty. Different Western economies vary substantially in their effectiveness in turning economic activity into wellbeing – both physical health and longevity (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2010) and happiness (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2019). The struggles poorer people in Western economies face to meet their basic needs now are not the result of lack of economic growth but of the skewed distribution of its benefits (Stiglitz, 2013). Most of the growth in Western economies in the last two decades been hoovered up for excessive consumption by the already wealthy.
And, of course, hundreds of millions of people in poorer countries still struggle to meet their basic needs. Economic growth has proven a powerful means for living millions of these people out of poverty, especially in Asia, albeit with significant environmental costs. However, in many poorer countries, economic growth has only enriched elites while leaving millions behind in poverty.
This suggests, as many are now arguing, that the pursuit of economic growth as a goal in Western countries, and possibly more widely in some developing countries, is failing to deliver improvements in health and in wellbeing (Trebeck and Williams, 2019).
Conversely, by implication, paying more direct attention to what matters for people’s physical health and wellbeing would seem a more effective end than the pursuit of economic growth itself. This idea lies behind the development of many alternative economic indicators, which prioritise health and wellbeing as an alternative or complement to growth (Hoekstra, 2019).
Moreover, paying more direct attention to what matters for people’s physical health and wellbeing might also act as an effective means to facilitate a transition to a fairer, more sustainable economy. Much of the opposition to the policies needed to facilitate such a transition seems rooted in the conviction that individual health and wellbeing is dependent on high levels of consumption. If this link is shown to be false, then some of that opposition may fade away. In rich, Western countries, this might enable an actual contraction of economic activity and a lowering of consumption. In poorer countries, it might involve a redistribution of the benefits of growth.
Arguments of this sort seem to be being made more frequently by authors from a range of disciplines. In ethics, Skidelsky and Skidelsky (2012) have asked: “how much is enough?” and put forward a universal basic income and curbs on advertising to reduce the pressure to consume. Belton (2014) explored the lives of “modest consumers” to show how changes in lifestyle can lead to lower environmental impact and greater life satisfaction.
In economics, Raworth (2017) has challenged the primacy of economic growth, recognised the need for the economy to enable people to “thrive” as well as meet their basic needs and referenced the Five Ways as potential first steps “towards the art of living”.
In philosophy, Soper (2020) has called for an “alternative hedonism” … “a new vision the good life, one capable of detaching wealth and happiness from the idea of continued economic expansion”. In anthropology, in a chapter entitled “secrets of the good life”, Hickel (2020) discusses “flourishing without growth”. Meanwhile, in a tour of modern lifestyles, Mackinnon (2021) has explored how “ending consumerism gives us a better life and a greener world”.
Most recently Lelkes (2021) has called for a “sustainable hedonism” and explored, using different perspectives of wellbeing from ethics and psychology, a “thriving life that does not cost the Earth”.
What all these authors, from their different perspectives, are arguing is firstly that the level of economic activity in a society is no longer the best measure of its progress and secondly that there needn’t be a trade-off between wellbeing and sustainability. We can have a good life without it costing the Earth.
Exploring what this new focus on wellbeing and quality of life means in practice and how it might be achieved has been, in a very modest way, the mission of the Network of Wellbeing over the last ten years. We have focused first on connecting like-minded people through events, including the first conferences that attempted to bring the UK’s nascent wellbeing movement together, and secondly on experimental projects to encourage new ways of living.
Our most successful demonstration has been the Share Shed, which we believe is the world’s first travelling library of things. Based on an idea pioneered in Frome, UK (Share, 2022) and Germany, it offers equipment, such as carpentry and gardening tools, kitchen appliances and even musical instruments, for loan for a small fee and thereby enables its members to get things done, whether it be cleaning a patio or putting up a set of shelves, without buying the equipment needed. In doing so, it aims to challenge the link between access and ownership of items and pave the way for thriving life with less consumption.
Founded in 2017, and now serving seven locations in South Devon, it has made to date over 5,500 loans from an inventory of more than 350 items and saved its members an estimated £415,000 in purchases and their associated emissions.
Similar projects have now sprung up all over the world, with over 90 in the UK alone. Their growth has coincided with an upsurge in interest in wellbeing and alternatives to consumption that has also encompassed connection with nature, growing and the making, repairing and upcycling of consumer goods. This in turn is leading to increased interest from the state. The devolved administrations in both Wales and Scotland now have programmes to stimulate libraries of things and similar projects (Welsh Government 2021; Scottish Government, 2021) and national ngos are pushing for legislative action to make it easier for people, e.g. to repair items and to access nature (Restart Project 2022, Wildlife and Countryside Link 2022).
A new vision of the good life is emerging that is more equitable and less dependent on material consumption.
These projects and many more like them are exploring how people can thrive without consuming. They are creating social capital, a form of public good that enables people to live better lives without having to buy things and often without having to spend much or any money at all. There is an urgent need for more of them if mainstream society is to genuinely shift in a sustainable direction.
These projects point to a different sort of economy and a different way of living. They are helping to create a society where the link between wellbeing and material consumption is broken, where good lives need not cost the Earth.
If you are interested in exploring these issues further, email me on roger@networkofwellbeing.org. I’d love to hear from you.
References
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