Welcome to the Wellbeing Economy Policy Design Guide. This guide has been co-created by the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll) to support visionary policy makers, like you, to build more just and sustainable economies for people and planet.
Around the world, governments are moving beyond Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and embracing new metrics of progress, from the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to national wellbeing indicators. This movement is significant, as it moves us beyond a focus on ‘means’, i.e. economic growth, to a focus on the achievement of ‘ends’, i.e. our collective wellbeing.
The challenge is that our current economic thinking has not only determined our measurements of progress, but also our government structures, societal power dynamics and cultural narratives. Developing a Wellbeing Economy is, therefore, not only about different measures or different policies, but also about changing our relationship to the economy and our approach to its management and governance.
With this in mind, the aim of this guide is not to say what policies are needed to build a Wellbeing Economy, but rather to explore how to develop policies for a Wellbeing Economy. We recognise that there is no-one-size-fits-all approach, as every society has unique structures, values, and objectives. This guide therefore strives to be practical without being overly prescriptive so that you can align these policy design processes and ideas to your unique context. What we aim to provide in this guide is a starting point for policy makers interested in building a Wellbeing Economy; to consider relevant processes that can support them along the way.
