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TYPE Original Research
PUBLISHED 10 October 2022
DOI 10.3389/frsus.2022.966876
OPEN ACCESS
EDITED BY
Wolfgang Sachs,
Wuppertal Institute for Climate,
Environment and Energy
gGmbH, Germany
REVIEWED BY
Friedrich Hinterberger,
University of Applied Arts
Vienna, Austria
David Barkin,
Metropolitan Autonomous
University, Mexico
*CORRESPONDENCE
Anders Hayden
anders.hayden@dal.ca
SPECIALTY SECTION
This article was submitted to
Sustainable Consumption,
a section of the journal
Frontiers in Sustainability
RECEIVED 11 June 2022
ACCEPTED 14 September 2022
PUBLISHED 10 October 2022
CITATION
Hayden A and Dasilva C (2022) The
wellbeing economy: Possibilities and
limits in bringing suciency from the
margins into the mainstream.
Front. Sustain. 3:966876.
doi: 10.3389/frsus.2022.966876
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does not comply with these terms.
The wellbeing economy:
Possibilities and limits in
bringing suciency from the
margins into the mainstream
Anders Hayden1*and Clay Dasilva2
1Department of Political Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada, 2The Balsillie School of
International Aairs, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada
The idea of suciency faces great obstacles in contemporary political
economies in which production and consumption growth has long
been considered imperative. Despite evidence supporting calls for a
suciency-oriented, post-growth approach to environmental challenges, only
pro-growth environmental perspectives have found significant mainstream
political support until now. However, one recent formulation that has a
strong anity with a suciency approach—a wellbeing economy—has found
growing support among mainstream political actors including governments
and international organizations. Does the growing support for a wellbeing
economy represent the long-sought breakthrough for a suciency-oriented,
post-growth environmental approach? To help answer this question, we
conduct case studies of New Zealand, Scotland, and Iceland—the three
founders of the Wellbeing Economy Governments (WEGo). These nations
have (to varying degrees) taken steps to downplay the centrality of economic
growth and instead highlight wellbeing as the ultimate goal. They have
also moved “beyond GDP” by introducing new wellbeing measurements
and using them in policymaking. However, movement in a post-growth
direction is limited by continuing dependence on economic growth to
achieve intermediate goals, such as employment creation and provision of
welfare state services, that are closely associated with the goal of wellbeing.
We therefore characterize the emerging practice of the wellbeing economy
as a “weak post-growth” approach. To become a “strong post-growth”
perspective, it needs to be linked to a much more challenging project of
disentangling contemporary societies’ dependence on economic growth. The
article includes a discussion of ways that WEGo nations could contribute to
addressing that considerable challenge and build on the suciency-oriented
elements evident in the wellbeing economy.
KEYWORDS
wellbeing economy, suciency, post-growth economy, beyond GDP, growth
dependency, welfare state, sustainable growth, degrowth
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Hayden and Dasilva 10.3389/frsus.2022.966876
Introduction
Ecological debates have long pitted defenders of economic
growth against advocates of post-growth approaches. On
the pro-growth side, one finds mainstream formulations of
sustainable development (WCED, 1987) and related ideas such
as ecological modernization/eco-modernism (e.g., Mol et al.,
2009;Asafu-Adjaye et al., 2015), green growth (e.g., OECD,
2011), green economy (e.g., UNEP, 2011), and sustainable and
inclusive growth (e.g., European Commission, 2010;Jacobs
and Mazzucato, 2016). Such pro-growth approaches emphasize
the possibility of decoupling GDP growth from negative
environmental impacts through improved technologies and
greater ecological efficiency, while arguing that environmental
policy can create opportunities for greater economic activity,
profits, and jobs, with “first mover” advantages and greater
competitiveness for countries and companies that lead the way
(Jänicke and Jacob, 2004).
On the other side of the debate, post-growth approaches
(e.g., Jackson, 2017;Victor, 2019) include calls for degrowth
(e.g., Kallis et al., 2020;Hickel, 2021), a steady-state economy
(Daly, 1996), and strong sustainable consumption (Lorek and
Fuchs, 2019). Related concepts such as “doughnut economics”
(Raworth, 2017) and a-growth (van den Bergh, 2011) do not see
economic growth as a priority objective, but are agnostic about
whether adequate action to address environmental challenges
could still allow for some continued GDP growth. While
post-growth approaches generally accept the possibilities for
some activities and sectors (e.g., renewable energy, care-related
activities) to expand, along with some role for technology and
efficiency, they also see a centrally important role for sufficiency,
i.e., the idea that “there can be enough and there can be too
much” (Princen, 2005).
Alongside efficiency and consistency (i.e., technologies
and production methods consistent with natural processes),
sufficiency can be considered one of three key components of
a comprehensive ecological strategy (Sachs and Santarius, 2007,
pp. 158–165)—one that mainstream pro-growth approaches
neglect. Sufficiency can be understood as “living well within
limits” or having enough for a good life, but not consuming so
much that it is ecologically excessive—that is, not consuming at
a level that undermines possibilities for others, today and in the
future, to also lead good lives (O’Neill et al., 2018;Fuchs, 2020;
Hayden, 2020).
The concept of sufficiency is discussed in more detail
elsewhere in this issue we briefly highlight two points relevant
to the analysis that follows. “Enough” involves two thresholds:
a minimum and a maximum (Spengler, 2016). Although
this article focuses mainly on sufficiency with regard to
the upper threshold—i.e., the need for the globe’s affluent
consumers and consumer societies to limit consumption
and production volumes—for those living with very little,
sufficiency may require more consumption. This article also
emphasizes sufficiency at the macro-economic level, i.e., a
critical perspective on GDP growth as a dominant societal
goal and the search for post-growth alternatives. However,
sufficiency can also involve efforts to limit specific products,
practices, or sectors considered excessive due to their social or
ecological impacts (Hayden, 2014a,b), or other manifestations
of the modern emphasis on “faster,” “further,” and “more”
(Sachs, 2001), and be pursued through a wide range of policies
and actions that enable people to reduce specific forms of
consumption (Schneidewind and Zahrnt, 2014;Darby and
Fawcett, 2018;Toulouse and Attali, 2018;Hayden, 2020).
There is considerable evidence to support calls for a
sufficiency-oriented, post-growth approach. Although these
issues remain contested (e.g., Hausfather, 2021), the pro-growth
project of decoupling economic growth from environmental
impacts has produced limited results to date, falling short
of what is needed to address climate change and other
environment challenges (Parrique et al., 2019;Haberl et al., 2020;
Jänicke, 2020;PwC, 2020;Wiedmann et al., 2020). However,
until now, only pro-growth environmental perspectives have
found significant mainstream political support—largely because
they are consistent with the perceived political imperative
of economic growth (Dryzek et al., 2003;Richters and
Simoneit, 2019;Wiedmann et al., 2020), including the need
for economic growth to generate adequate revenues for state
expenditure (ranging from military needs to social spending),
keep unemployment at bay, and most generally to maintain
economic and social stability. Environmental reform efforts
thus confront a “glass ceiling” as states must limit themselves
to measures that do not inhibit economic growth, with an
additional constraint relating to the legitimation imperative and
the need to avoid “impinging on the quality of the citizens’
lifeworld” (Hausknost, 2020). The result is an unsatisfying
impasse between politically viable but ecologically inadequate
pro-growth perspectives on one side (Jänicke, 2020), and more
ecologically sound but seemingly unachievable post-growth
approaches on the other.
Some observers see a possible break in the impasse as
one idea with roots in post-growth thinking and a strong
affinity with a sufficiency approach—the concept of a wellbeing
economy (WE)—has recently found a growing number of
adherents among governments, international institutions,
and other mainstream political actors (Fioramonti et al.,
2022). One understanding of a WE is that it shifts the
central goal from economic growth to the generation of
human wellbeing in ecologically sustainable ways. In line
with sufficiency-oriented thinking, many proponents of a
wellbeing economy are critical of the limits of the project of
decoupling economic growth from environmental impacts, as
well as the limits of further consumption growth in generating
wellbeing in already affluent societies, while emphasizing
the need for an equitable distribution of income and wealth
rather than hoping for economic growth to trickle down
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Hayden and Dasilva 10.3389/frsus.2022.966876
(Fioramonti et al., 2022;WEAll, 2022a). Does the growing
support for a wellbeing economy represent the long-
sought breakthrough for a sufficiency-oriented, post-growth
environmental approach? If not, how can the concept of
a wellbeing economy be taken further so as to advance a
post-growth environmental politics?
After explaining materials and methods used, the article
will examine in more detail differing post- and pro-growth
formulations of a wellbeing economy and inroads the idea
has made into the political mainstream, before turning to case
studies of three countries that have embraced the concept.
The case studies examine changes in understandings and
measurement of economic success, and policy initiatives related
to a WE, with an emphasis on the degree to which post-growth
and sufficiency elements are evident. The discussion that follows
considers some ways that the WE could become a stronger post-
growth concept, notably by engaging with the challenging task
of lessening the growth dependency of contemporary societies.
Materials and methods
To examine the question of whether a wellbeing economy
represents a long-sought breakthrough for a sufficiency-
oriented, post-growth environmental approach, we conducted
case studies of three countries—New Zealand, Scotland,
and Iceland—that have committed to becoming wellbeing
economies. The countries selected are the founding members
of the Wellbeing Economy Governments (WEGo).1The case
studies are based on an analysis of documents from the WEGo
nations, with an emphasis on documents that help to assess
the degree to which commitment to a wellbeing economy
has affected government policy priorities and particularly the
orientation toward economic growth. These include: speeches
and opinion pieces by government leaders related to a
WE, government budgets and related background documents,
official documents outlining new “beyond GDP” wellbeing
measurements, governing party policy statements, agreements
on coalition government policy agendas, and—in the case of
Scotland—a document specifically outlining the government’s
economic transformation strategy to create a WE. In addition,
we draw on existing academic research, NGO reports and other
gray literature, and media articles on the WE experience in
these countries. We focus mainly on governments to understand
whether, in practice, a WE represents a post-growth, sufficiency-
oriented perspective since governments are the key institutions
capable of translating the abstract WE concept into concrete
policy actions. To provide additional background, we also
examined documents from non-governmental organizations
1 As WEGo founders, they oer a slightly longer experience to examine
as aspiring wellbeing economies than more recent members, Wales and
Finland.
and international/EU institutions related to the more general
debate on a wellbeing economy.
Background: Wellbeing economy
meanings and inroads
Post-growth formulations
Similar to concepts such as sustainable development
and democracy, a wellbeing economy is an idea with
potential to find widespread support, although adherents may
have quite different understandings of the term. We begin
with understandings of the idea put forward by the main
non-governmental proponent of the concept: the Wellbeing
Economy Alliance (WEAll), which was established in 2018
(Abrar, 2021, p. 163). WEAll (2022a) describes itself as: “a global
collaboration of almost 200 organizations, alliances, movements
and individuals working together to transform the economic
system into one that delivers on five core needs for ecological
and human wellbeing: dignity, connection, nature, fairness, and
participation.” Its membership list includes many ecologically
minded, civil-society organizations, including the Doughnut
Economics Action Lab, European Environmental Bureau, GNH
Center Bhutan, New Economics Foundation, Oxfam, Post-
Growth Institute, The Club of Rome, and The Next System
Project, among many others (WEAll, 2022b).
WEAll (2022a) provides 16 different “20–30 second
descriptions” plus eight short phrases to characterize a
WE, including:
•“A Wellbeing Economy is one that serves people and
planet. It doesn’t focus on growth in economic terms—
but instead, growth in human wellbeing, flourishing,
environmental quality, which are more important than
just money.”
•“A different economic system which prioritizes the
wellbeing of people and the planet. At the moment,
we are chasing economic growth—that is destroying the
planet without delivering what we really need as humans.
A Wellbeing Economy is aimed at changing this and
delivering what we need, the first time around.”
•“Building a Wellbeing Economy is about transforming our
economic system so that it delivers social justice on a
healthy planet, the first time around rather than addressing
societal issues after they take place.”
These particular statements highlight a transformative, post-
growth vision along with emphases on social justice and a
preventative approach toward social and ecological problems
(themes we will return to below).
Similarly, Fioramonti et al. (2022), who have connections to
WE-All, describe a WE as “an economy that pursues human
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and ecological wellbeing instead of material growth” (p. 1).
In the WE paradigm, “the goal is no longer growth, but
balanced sufficiency, equity, and sustainability as drivers of
wellbeing” (p. 5). While the WE approach “reject[s] any attempt
at making conventional economic growth more socially or
environmentally acceptable (as is the case with ‘inclusive’ or
‘green’ growth), it calls for completely refocusing the debate
away from growth” (p. 3). The authors similarly criticize the SDG
agenda, which still has economic growth at its center (p. 6).
The European Environmental Bureau and Oxfam Germany
put forward their own post-growth WE vision, in which “all
policies are framed in terms of human and ecological wellbeing,
not in terms of economic growth” (EEB and Oxfam Germany,
2021, p. 8). Their WE approach emphasizes the need to
tackle the “root causes” of exploitation: “the dependency on
growth and associated material acceleration of the economy, the
vicious circle of economic and political concentration of wealth
and power and the perpetuation of exploitative structures,
which allow costs to be shifted onto others” (p. 18). A WE
thus involves: “a process of global dismantling of neocolonial
structures and [countering] structural discrimination and
racism,” “[d]emocratising the economy, dispersing economic
and political power into the hands of the many rather than the
few,” and “making the economic system independent of growth
and thus allowing a reduction in material use” (p. 42). The goal
of “reducing the fixation and dependence on growth” entails
shifting “the political mindset away from simply growing GDP
and global trade to aiming directly for the growth of wellbeing
within planetary limits,” while related policy tasks include action
to “[d]ecouple employment/work and social security systems
from economic growth” (p. 47).
WWF’s European Policy Office has also called for Europe to
embrace a post-growth vision of a “wellbeing economy beyond
GDP” to guide recovery efforts after COVID-19 (Humphries
et al., 2020). WWF highlights both the “limitations of GDP as the
headline measure of progress” and the “fallacies behind ‘green
and sustainable’ growth” (p. 9), calling for “an alternative model
that goes beyond green growth” (p. 15). While some observers,
as mentioned, have criticized the continued focus on economic
growth in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, WWF calls
on the EU to adopt a WE strategy “with the SDGs acting as a
guiding tool” (p. 6). Among its recommendations are for the
EU to use the European Semester to track progress using a new
wellbeing measurement framework, while replacing the goal of
“sustainable growth” (pp. 26–27).
Inroads in the political mainstream
Finding support in ecologically-minded NGO circles for a
post-growth WE vision is one thing, but some leading WE
advocates have argued that the wellbeing economy concept is
also the most effective way to bring post-growth ideas and
policies into the political mainstream (Fioramonti et al., 2022).
They identify numerous similarities between a WE and other
sufficiency-oriented and post-growth approaches, including
degrowth, but argue that there are important differences in
terms of political appeal: “Both the WE and degrowth agree that
material production and consumption cannot grow forever on
a finite planet and that wellbeing can improve while reducing
GDP. Yet, . . . the degrowth approach has not yet had much
success in influencing policy making” (pp. 3–4).
The WE concept has key political advantages over other
post-growth approaches, Fioramonti et al. (2022) argue,
including a more “positive and forward-looking” language:
“unlike other critiques of the growth economy that project
an image of contraction, parsimony and deprivation, the
WE uses a ‘positive language’ of abundance, wellness and
conviviality, with a view to building a forward-looking narrative
of opportunities for human creativity, thus inspiring collective
action and making governments more amenable to policy
change” (pp. 2, 5). Furthermore, they argue that the WE’s
language and concepts are “more adaptable to different social
and economic contexts” than those of other post-growth
approaches (p. 1), having relevance not only in high-income
nations but also in the global South: “Unlike degrowth,
the concept of wellbeing, in its multidimensionality and
simplicity, has no boundaries and requires no disclaimers: it
resonates the world over” (p. 4). The potentially broad political
appeal of a WE is also linked, according to the authors, to
the general perception of wellbeing as a “post-ideological”
concept (p. 3).
Fioramonti et al. (2022, p. 4) note that the “most striking
example of the WE’s policy impact is the establishment of
the Wellbeing Economy Governments (WEGo). . . ,” which was
launched in 2018 by New Zealand, Scotland, and Iceland, with
Wales and Finland later joining. The partnership’s aims “are to
deepen their understanding and advance their shared ambition
of building wellbeing economies” (WEAll, 2021). WEGo, which
grew out of the idea of creating an alternative to the G7—
a “WE7”—promotes sharing of expertise, best practice and
policy ideas to advance their “common ambition of building a
Wellbeing Economy” (Abrar, 2021, p. 168).
As a further indication of the WE’s inroads into the
political mainstream, Fioramonti et al. (2022, p. 5) point to
the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s
work in this area. An OECD (2019, p. 4) working paper on “The
Economy of Wellbeing” notes that: “As wellbeing has matured as
a statistical and measurement agenda, it has become increasingly
relevant as a ‘compass’ for policy, with a growing number of
countries using wellbeing metrics to guide decision-making
and inform budgetary processes.” At a WEGo symposium,
the OECD’s Secretary-General, Gurría (2019) stated that the
OECD is taking action “to help countries build ‘economies of
wellbeing’,” adding that the “pursuit of greater wellbeing for all
must become second nature in policymaking.”
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A wellbeing economy has also found support within
European institutions. Before joining WEGo, Finland made the
“economy of wellbeing” a major theme during its presidency
of the Council of the European Union in 2019 (Ministry of
Social Affairs and Health, 2020), leading to an endorsement
of the concept by the Council in October 2019 (Council of
the European Union, 2019). In January 2020, the European
Economic and Social Committee declared that the “EU urgently
needs to develop the foundations for a sustainable and inclusive
wellbeing economy that works for everyone” (EESC, 2020). The
EESC added that “building the wellbeing economy must start
by adopting a precautionary approach in which macroeconomic
stability does not depend on GDP growth.”
Pro-growth and other formulations
While the above-mentioned examples illustrate significant
advances into the political mainstream for a concept that first
emerged out of a critical perspective on economic growth, one
should be cautious before accepting the conclusion that states
and international organizations are embracing post-growth
ideas through the WE concept. In some hands, the wellbeing
economy has taken a pro-growth turn. For example, the OECD
Secretary General stated that the “Economy of WellBeing”
highlights the need for “a growth model that is equitable and
sustainable from the outset” (Gurría, 2019). Similarly, the OECD
working paper cited above—whose full title is “The Economy
of Wellbeing: Creating opportunities for people’s wellbeing and
economic growth”—“defines an economy of wellbeing around
the idea of a ‘virtuous circle’ in which individual wellbeing and
long-term economic growth are mutually reinforcing” (OECD,
2019, p. 4).
Variations on the theme of the WE as a form of inclusive and
sustainable growth are indeed common among governments
and mainstream political-economic institutions. In the case of
the Council of the European Union (2019), for example, their
endorsement of the idea came with this understanding: “Taking
wellbeing into account in all policies is vitally important to
the Union’s economic growth, productivity, long-term fiscal
sustainability, and societal stability.” Further examples of such
pro-growth WE thinking appear in the case studies that follow.
Meanwhile, some understandings of a WE focus on matters
other than growth. For Birkjær et al. (2021), a WE “is about
actively using wellbeing metrics and tools to inform government
priorities and policymaking . . . .” (p. 5). From this perspective,
it is not enough to introduce new wellbeing indicators that go
“beyond GDP”; to be a WE, “governments must ‘go beyond
measurement’ and give wellbeing metrics an active role in
government” (p. 14). As will become evident, all three cases that
we examine meet this criterion, although there are questions
about the degree to which they involve a shift toward post-
growth politics.
Case studies
New Zealand
Aotearoa New Zealand has long been a pioneer of
progressive reform, including women gaining the right to vote
in parliamentary elections in 1893, early introduction of welfare
state programs, and declaration of a nuclear-free-zone in 1987.
It has also been home to influential work critiquing GDP’s
limits as a prosperity indicator, including that of Waring (1988)
that helped set the stage for later “beyond GDP” initiatives. At
the same time, the country’s colonial history has left a legacy
of socio-economic marginalization for indigenous M¯
aori and
Pasifika peoples. New Zealand also faced a macroeconomic
and political crisis in the mid-1980s and went onto adopt
neoliberal reforms and austerity—an experience that still marks
the country. This brief background provides some context
for New Zealand’s emergence as a leader in the wellbeing
economy movement.
A “beyond GDP” living standards framework
New Zealand’s Treasury began developing the Living
Standards Framework (LSF) in 2011, drawing together several
different initiatives on measuring social wellbeing in ways
that go beyond GDP (Patterson, 2019;Ng, 2022). The LSF,
which was formally released in 2018, draws heavily on the
OECD’s wellbeing approach. It includes a multidimensional
dashboard of economic, social, and environmental indicators
to assess “intergenerational wellbeing.” The LSF dashboard
includes indicators grouped into 12 current wellbeing domains2,
as well as indicators for four forms of capital—natural, human,
social, and financial and physical. In addition to national-level
data to measure the state of “our country,” individual-level data
allows comparisons across social groups, i.e., “our people,” while
data on the four capitals help to assess the ability to sustain
wellbeing in “our future” (Treasury, 2018b). The LSF can play
an important role in highlighting wellbeing differentials within
the population. A notable, although unsurprising, finding is
that M¯
aori and Pasifika populations have lower wellbeing on
many indicators, while less expected is the degree to which
older people do better than younger people in most domains,
including measures of material wellbeing (Grimes, 2021, p. 280).
A revised LSF was introduced in 2021 (Treasury, 2022); we have
focused on the previous version that was used to shape wellbeing
budgets up to and including 2022.
2 The domains are: civic engagement and governance, cultural identity,
environment, health, housing, income and consumption, jobs and
earnings, knowledge and skills, safety, social connections, subjective
wellbeing, and time use.
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Wellbeing budgets
While many countries have introduced beyond-GDP
measurement initiatives, what makes New Zealand a pioneer is
the degree to which they have used those new measurements
in policymaking, notably in “wellbeing budgets” starting in
2019 under a Labour-led government. Information from the
LSF was used—along with evidence from sectoral experts and
input from government agencies—to determine the budget’s five
priorities: mental health, child wellbeing, supporting indigenous
(M¯
aori and Pasifika) people, supporting a thriving nation
in the digital age through innovation, and the transition to
a sustainable, low-emissions economy (Treasury, 2018a;Ng,
2022). In their budget bids, public agencies had to show how
proposed expenditures aligned with the five priorities and refer
to their initiatives’ wellbeing impacts. As Prime Minister Ardern
(2019) explained: “If you are a minister and you want to spend
money, you have to prove that you are going to improve
intergenerational wellbeing.” Agencies also had to describe how
they collaborated with others in developing their initiatives—
with the aim of breaking down agency “silos.” The LSF was
then used as part of the process to assess and rank spending
proposals for decisions about budget allocations (Treasury,
2018a;NZ Government, 2019;Ng, 2022). The 2019 budget
ultimately included record levels of spending on mental health
along with significant investments in efforts to address family
and sexual violence, venture capital to help start-ups expand,
low-carbon innovation, railways, and fixing hospitals, among
other items.
Subsequent wellbeing budgets have each had different
emphases. The response to the COVID-19 crisis took center
stage in 2020. The 2021 budget was notable for its substantial
increase in social assistance benefits with the aim of “tackling
inequality and child poverty” and helping “low-income New
Zealanders to meet their basic material needs”—underlining
a break with past orthodoxy on the thirtieth anniversary of
the neoliberal, program-slashing “Mother of All Budgets” (NZ
Government, 2021, pp. 14, iv). Other noteworthy elements
included a NZ$3.8 billion Housing Acceleration Fund to expand
housing supply—a response to New Zealand having some of the
OECD’s most unaffordable housing—in addition to investments
to address the disadvantages of the M¯
aori population in areas
such as housing, health, and education (NZ Government, 2021,
pp. 14, 18; see also Bartos, 2021).
Three high-priority elements stand out in the most recent
2022 wellbeing budget: new funding of NZ$11.1 billion for
the health sector to improve access to and reform the delivery
of health services, NZ$2.9 billion in spending from a Climate
Emergency Response Fund, and NZ$1 billion in short-term
measures to help low- and medium-income earners cope with
rising living costs (NZ Government, 2022; see also Ardern, 2022;
Robertson, 2022;Shaw et al., 2022). The climate spending, which
the prime minister called the country’s “biggest investment in
climate action ever” (Ardern, 2022), supports the country’s new
Emissions Reduction Plan. Also noteworthy is the use of a M¯
aori
wellbeing framework, He Ara Waiora, in addition to the LSF to
develop the 2022 budget.3
How much of difference do these wellbeing budgets make?
The answer will become clearer over time, but commentators
on New Zealand’s initial experience have frequently pointed
to positive, incremental improvements that fall short of being
transformational or sufficient to address core social and
environmental challenges (e.g., Bradford, 2022;Hughes, 2022a;
Shaw et al., 2022;Spence, 2022). As the Country Lead for the
Wellbeing Economy Alliance Aotearoa put it, the 2022 budget
“contained many good measures. . . However it continued the
incremental, slow approach to change that won’t substantially
alter persistent poverty, wealth inequality or the biodiversity and
climate crises.” While some have called for greater increases in
social spending, the government has remained committed to
budget responsibility rules that limit spending, prompting one
critic to write: “If you’re not willing to spend on social problems,
a wellbeing ethos alone won’t help you” (McClure, 2021). With
regard to environmental sustainability, critics have welcomed
additional spending and related actions in the country’s first-
ever Emissions Reduction Plan, while calling for much greater
ambition (Bradford, 2022;Hall et al., 2022;Hughes, 2022b;
WWF-NZ, 2022).
Although impacts have not been as substantial to date as
some had hoped, a WE approach does strengthen the case for
more social spending, particularly that which benefits the most
disadvantaged, for whom every dollar of spending will generally
create a greater boost in wellbeing compared to spending on
the already well-off (Bartos, 2021). Wellbeing budgets have also
advanced the idea of treating public spending as investment
(e.g., early intervention to address mental health) that generates
positive social returns and helps prevent future costs (Mintrom,
2019).4Another indication that a genuinely new approach is at
play is the inclusion of a “wellbeing outlook” for the nation—in
addition to a conventional economic outlook—at the beginning
of the wellbeing budget documents. The outlook highlights
3 The NZ Government (2022, p. 11) states that, in developing the
budget, it considered the “alignment of initiatives with the principles
of tikanga (decisions made in accordance with the right processes)
and manaakitanga (maintaining a focus on improved wellbeing and
enhanced mana for all New Zealanders),” while in future budgets it will
include other principles: “kotahitanga (working in an aligned, coordinated
way), whanaungatanga (fostering strong relationships through kinship
and/or shared experience that provide a shared sense of belonging), and
tiakitanga (guardianship and stewardship of the environment, particularly
taonga and other important processes and systems)”.
4 On this point as well, critics argue that the approach has not been
taken far enough; Hughes (2022a)maintains that the government has
focused largely on paying costs of damage created by the economic
system rather than addressing the factors driving those costs.
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successes (e.g., high levels of social trust) as well as problems
requiring policy attention (e.g., a 7.5 year gap between M¯
aori
and non-M¯
aori life expectancy) (NZ Government, 2021, pp.
4, 6). One limit, however, is that the Outlook’s environmental
information does not provide a full picture of unsustainability of
New Zealand society, a point we return to below.
Post-growth and suciency elements in New
Zealand
One fundamental change in New Zealand that has an
affinity with post-growth thinking is the explicit shift away
from GDP as the primary indicator of prosperity toward a
multidimensional understanding of wellbeing. As Fioramonti
et al. (2022, p. 4) write, New Zealand’s “Wellbeing Budget stems
upon the understanding that GDP growth does not guarantee
improvements in living standards. . . .” Meanwhile Laurent
(2019, p. 86) suggests that New Zealand’s 2019 wellbeing budget
involved a decision to “exit growth” (“sortir de la croissance”).
It is important, however, not to overstate the degree to
which New Zealand is moving in a post-growth direction.
What Prime Minister Ardern actually said in the first Wellbeing
Budget document was: “while economic growth is important—
and something we will continue to pursue—it alone does
not guarantee improvements to our living standards” (NZ
Government, 2019, p. 2). The Budget document goes on to say:
“Sustainable economic growth is an important contributor, but
many factors determine people’s wellbeing” (NZ Government,
2019, p. 5), while Treasury official Ng (2022, p. 183) explained
the approach to growth as follows: “While higher market
incomes are a very powerful means to the end of higher
wellbeing, they are nevertheless only a means.” In her
statements on the 2022 Wellbeing Budget, Ardern defended her
government’s record by stating that it had “delivered one of the
strongest economies in the world, with GDP up 5.6% in the past
year. . . .” (NZ Government, 2022, p. 2) while also celebrating
small and medium businesses for their “potential to accelerate
our economic growth” (Ardern, 2022).
Although its actions have raised the hopes of some post-
growth theorists, New Zealand clearly has not moved beyond
the pursuit of economic growth; however, it has downplayed the
centrality of growth to some degree by reframing it as one means
among others to achieve the ultimate objective of wellbeing.
Also evident are some examples of sufficiency-oriented policies
targeted at specific sectors, such as a NZ$375 million allocation
in the 2022 budget to reduce reliance on cars by investing in
cycleways and public transit.5That said, there is as yet no sign of
5 The NZ$375 million for that purpose should be kept in perspective,
as it compares to the NZ$569 million spent on a more conventional
technological shift: encouraging people to scrap fossil-fuel-powered
vehicles and replace them with low-emissions vehicles (NZ Government,
2022, pp. 35, 36).
a sufficiency approach to the country’s biggest GHG source—its
cows—despite the limited scope for technological and efficiency
solutions to limit their methane emissions and calls for action to
reduce livestock numbers (Hughes, 2022b; see also Levitt, 2021).
While this article is mainly concerned with sufficiency
at the “upper threshold”—avoiding ecologically excessive
consumption and production—it is worth noting that New
Zealand’s WE approach puts greater emphasis on providing
enough at the “lower threshold” through various (albeit
insufficient, according to critics) initiatives to meet basic needs
and reduce poverty.
Scotland
Scotland has been led since 2007 by the Scottish National
Party, a center-left pro-independence party. Pursuit of a societal
project that distinguishes Scotland from the rest of the UK
(especially from Conservative-dominated, neo-liberal England)
has been central to arguments for independence, and one factor
behind the country’s commitment to a wellbeing economy (Roy
and Lorimer, 2022). The context for Scotland’s WE efforts
include poor health outcomes (Ball, 2021) and significant
concentrations of poverty and deprivation (Oxfam Scotland,
2013), i.e., wellbeing outcomes and inequalities calling out for
policy attention. At the same time, Scotland has sought to stand
out as a climate leader (SNP, 2021), with some of the world’s
deepest GHG reductions to date and relatively ambitious future
targets: 75% GHG reduction below 1990 levels by 2030 and net
zero by 2045.
From performance management to wellbeing
A key step in Scotland’s journey toward a wellbeing economy
was the introduction in 2007 of a National Performance
Framework (NPF), which began as an indicator set used
internally by government for performance management of
public services (Wallace, 2019). With the NPF’s revision in 2018,
it had evolved into a wellbeing framework and had become
a leading example of national “beyond GDP” measurement
(Wallace, 2019;Bache, 2022). As Scottish First Minister Sturgeon
(2020) described the 2018 NPF changes, “we made wellbeing
at that time an explicit part of our national purpose as a
country” (Sturgeon, 2020). The NPF expressed that purpose
as follows: “To focus on creating a more successful country
with opportunities for all of Scotland to flourish through
increased wellbeing, and sustainable and inclusive economic
growth” (Scottish Government, n.d.). Some NGOs argued that
this reframing of national purpose did not go far enough, as
it “justified an unwarranted focus on sustainable economic
growth and GDP to measure it,” while failing to make clear
that economic growth is subservient to—and only one means
to achieve—wellbeing (Oxfam Scotland, 2017;Wallace, 2019, p.
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58). The Framework identifies 11 priority national outcomes—
related to children and young people, communities, culture,
economy, education, environment, fair work and business,
health, human rights, international contributions, and poverty—
behind which is a dashboard of 81 indicators, many of which
are linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (Scottish
Government, n.d.).
Those who highlight the wellbeing economy’s ability to
bring post-growth ideas into the mainstream have pointed to
Sturgeon’s July 2019 TED Talk, in which she stated: “Growth
in GDP should not be pursued at any and all cost . . . . The goal
of economic policy should be collective wellbeing: how happy
and healthy a population is, not just how wealthy a population
is” (Sturgeon, 2019;Fioramonti et al., 2022, p. 4). She added
that the “limitations of GDP as a measurement of a country’s
success are all too obvious” and highlighted the importance of
promoting “a vision of society that has wellbeing, not just wealth,
at its very heart.” While such statements differ significantly
from conventional growth-centered political rhetoric, Sturgeon
(2019) also made clear that “economic growth matters—it is
important—but it is not all that is important.”
Similarly, in a speech to a Wellbeing Economy Alliance
conference, Sturgeon (2020) proclaimed that Scotland is
“redefining” what it means to be a “successful country” and
“putting wellbeing at the heart of what we are doing.” Sturgeon
stated that GDP “cannot be . . . the only measure of national
progress” and that it “makes no sense to focus purely on
growth.” In other words, GDP remains one measure of national
progress—indeed, an economic growth indicator is part of
Scotland’s NPF—and growth is one thing, among others, that the
government continues to focus on.
Scotland’s strategy for economic
transformation
An important document to understand the government’s
future objectives is Delivering Economic Prosperity: Scotland’s
National Strategy for Economic Transformation (Scottish
Government, 2022a). “A wellbeing economy, based on the
principles of prosperity, equality, sustainability, and resilience,
is at the heart of our vision for the economy in 2032,” according
to the Strategy (p. 13). Elaborating on the meaning of a
WE, the document refers to “a society that is thriving across
economic, social and environmental dimensions, and that
delivers prosperity for all Scotland’s people and places,” adding
that “We aim to achieve this while respecting environmental
limits, embodied by our climate and nature targets (p. 5).
Although a WE is the goal, many elements of the
Strategy are indistinguishable from a conventional growth
agenda. A core part of the vision is to make Scotland
“wealthier,” that is, “[d]riving an increase in productivity by
building an internationally competitive economy founded on
entrepreneurship and innovation” (p. 8). Objectives include
international and domestic recognition of Scotland as a “nation
of entrepreneurs and innovators,” the “best place to start and
grow a business,” a “magnet for inward investment and global
private capital,” and a nation “where employers have the supply
of skills they need, and fully utilize these to grow and take
advantage of opportunities” (p. 7).
Goals include “dramatically increas[ing] the total number
of new businesses created” in Scotland” and “a step change
in the percentage of Scottish start-ups and existing mid-sized
businesses that grow to scale” (p. 17). Not only is economic
growth still an objective, but the goal is faster growth than
in recent years: “we aim to deliver economic growth that
significantly outperforms the last decade, so that the Scottish
economy is more prosperous, more productive and more
internationally competitive” (p. 4).6
The Strategy does make clear that its ambition “is not
just to grow our economy,” but also to transform Scotland’s
economic model and “build an economy that celebrates success
in terms of economic growth, environmental sustainability,
quality of life and equality of opportunity, and reward” (p. 6).
In other words, the ambition is not only to be “wealthier,”
but “fairer” and “greener” as well (p. 8). The WE vision
“builds on our previous inclusive growth approach” (p. 13),
and includes commitments to “significantly reducing poverty”
through “better wages and fair work” (pp. 8, 15), with a
particular emphasis on reducing child poverty and improving
“health, cultural, and social outcomes for disadvantaged families
and communities” (pp. 14, 44).
The Strategy also emphasizes a “just transition” that
contributes to “sustainable growth”—in other words, the goal
is to “create new jobs, businesses and open up markets in new
sectors as well as supporting the transition of existing sectors”
(p. 12). Familiar growth-oriented ecological modernization
language, which has been standard fare in state environmental
strategies since the 1990s, is evident in statements such as “The
transition to net zero is not just an environmental imperative
but an economic opportunity—one where Scotland will become
world-leading and secure first-mover advantage” (p. 15) and
in the celebration of Scotland’s ranking on a Lloyds Banking
Group’s UK Green Growth index as “the number one region in
the UK for green growth potential and opportunity” (p. 26).
It is not surprising that governments highlight the job-
creation and commercial opportunities from, for example,
expanding offshore wind dependent (p. 26). Nor is it surprising
that they struggle to move beyond the growth imperative
and break through the “glass ceiling” of ecological transition
6 To achieve this objective, the Strategy identifies “five key
transformational programmes of action that can drive improvements
in Scotland’s economy: stimulating entrepreneurship; opening new
markets; increasing productivity; developing the skills we need for
the decade ahead; and ensuring fairer and more equal economic
opportunities” (Scottish Government, 2022a, p. 4).
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(Hausknost, 2020). What is more concerning for anyone
with post-growth hopes for the WE concept is the Scottish
government’s conclusion that: “As a consequence of the actions
set out in this strategy, we will have achieved our vision of
building a wellbeing economy” (p. 7, see also p. 54). For
the government, achieving a WE appears to require little
more than a by-now conventional “sustainable and inclusive
growth” strategy other than having a more comprehensive set
of indicators to guide it.
While welcoming the economic transformation strategy’s
commitment to create a wellbeing economy within
environmental limits, WEAll Scotland (2022; see also Hardt,
2022) criticizes its insufficient plan of action. It pointed to
positive elements, notably the plan for a “Wellbeing Economy
Monitor” that expands the reporting of beyond-GDP wellbeing
measurements7and a review of “how to increase the number of
social enterprises, employee-owned businesses and cooperatives
in Scotland.” However, on the whole, it saw “a continuation of
the same flawed logic that has delivered decades of inequality
and environmental degradation” i.e., a prioritization of GDP
growth and productivity in the hope that wealth will “trickle
down”—an economic paradigm that “has driven a cycle of
paying to fix what we continue to break” (Hardt, 2022).8
Post-growth and suciency elements in
Scotland
Scotland’s adoption of wellbeing as a core objective involves
some downplaying of the centrality of economic growth,
although to a lesser degree than in some formulations of a WE,
in which sustainable wellbeing is the ultimate objective and
economic growth is, at best, only a means among others to that
end. Meanwhile, Scotland’s use of a “beyond GDP” wellbeing
measurement framework could be considered a step in a post-
growth direction, although there is no indication that Scotland’s
government sees it as such. Scotland’s NPF continues to measure
changes in GDP, not merely as an accounting measure useful
for limited practical tasks,9but in a form that illustrates a belief
7 The Monitor “will include measures such as healthy life expectancy,
fair work indicators, mental wellbeing, child poverty, greenhouse gas
emissions and biodiversity” (Scottish Government, 2022a, p. 13).
8 WEAll Scotland’s criticisms also included: the lack of public
participation in developing the strategy, lack of action to ensure that
power is shared more equitable with workers and communities, lack of
strategy to ensure businesses contribute to thriving communities, and
very limited signs that the government is living up to its responsibility to
ensure “that we all have the basics, like safe warm homes, that we expand
the economic activities we need more of, such as decarbonisation, not
just those that oer the biggest profits” (Hardt, 2022).
9 Even a society that deprioritizes economic growth could track
whatever annual variations in economic output occur to facilitate tasks
such as government budgeting.
that the higher GDP growth, the better. The economic growth
indicator compares GDP growth in the most recent year with
average growth in the three previous years; GDP growth above
the three-year average is considered an “improving” situation
(Scottish Government, 2022b).
As in New Zealand, some of the most prominent sufficiency
elements in Scotland’s WE approach are in the emphasis on
ensuring enough in terms of minimal consumption levels, i.e.,
commitments to reducing poverty and creating a fairer society.
Whether the Scottish government has an adequate strategy
to act on these poverty-reduction commitments is a separate
question, beyond the scope of this article; suffice it to say that
some critics argue that the prominent rhetorical emphasis on
such issues is not matched by sufficient concrete action (Hardt,
2022). Although not the main focus of our analysis, one can
also find sufficiency oriented policies targeting specific forms
of consumption, such as a policy goal of a 20% reduction of
car-kilometers traveled by 2030 (SNP, 2021).
There are also elements in Scotland’s WE vision that do not
necessarily reflect a sufficiency approach but could contribute to
it. One is the acknowledgment of the importance of alternative
business models such as social enterprises, employee-owned
businesses and cooperatives (Scottish Government, 2022a, p.
37), which can enable a more equitable distribution of the
rewards of ownership—an issue that becomes all the more
important in in a post-growth society that can no longer
rely on increasing the overall size of the economic pie. Such
enterprises may also be less constrained by pressures to grow
than conventional capitalist firms, as discussed below.
Also relevant is a preventative approach to social and
environmental problems. Driven by factors including cost
pressures in providing public services, poor health outcomes,
costly lifelong effects of child poverty and youth unemployment,
and high levels of criminal offending and reoffending, the
Scottish government has had an interest in preventative
approaches for over a decade (Wallace, 2019, pp. 47, 65–66).
The value of spending on preventative measures to protect
people and the environment remains an important theme in
recent Scottish wellbeing economy debates (e.g., Walker, 2021),
although critics would like to see more emphasis on prevention
than on fixing problems afterwards (Hardt, 2022).
Iceland
Iceland’s commitment to a wellbeing economy builds on a
recent history of pushing the boundaries of what is possible
economically. Its response to the 2008 financial crisis, which hit
the country particularly hard, illustrated different priorities and
different decisions about the distribution of the costs compared
to other nations (Tan, 2018;Abrar, 2021, pp. 170–171). Iceland
decided that its oversized banks were “too big to save” (Tan,
2018). While there were some spending cuts, social benefits
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were protected, and Iceland was the only country to criminally
prosecute bankers for their role in causing the crisis (Robinson
and Valdimarsson, 2016). Iceland also ranks number one in
the world in gender equality, according to the Global Gender
Gap Report (WEF, 2021). Since 2017, Iceland has been led
by an ecological feminist prime minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir,
who heads the Left-Green Movement (Nichols, 2018), which
describes itself as a “radical left wing party, with emphasis on
equality and sustainability” (Left-Green Movement, 2022). It
has governed in an unusual coalition with the center/center-
right Progressive Party and right-of-center Independence Party
(Önnudóttir and Hardarson, 2017).
Wellbeing measurement and prioritization
An important step toward an Icelandic WE was the
commitment in the 2017 coalition government agreement
to create a cross-party task force on “the development of
indicators to measure economic prosperity and the quality
of life” (Government of Iceland, 2017, p. 4; see also Birkjær
et al., 2021, p. 34). In 2018, the Prime Minister’s Committee
on Indicators for Measuring Wellbeing commissioned a survey
about the determinants of quality of life most important to
Icelanders; the top factors were health (good health and access to
healthcare), relationships (with friends, families, neighbors, and
colleagues), housing (access to secure and affordable housing),
and making a living (income and assets) (Government of
Iceland, 2019a, p. 5). The survey contributed to the development
of a framework of 39 indicators covering social, economic, and
environmental dimensions of quality of life that was introduced
in 2019. These indicators, which are linked to many of the
UN SDGs, are “intended to complement traditional economic
measures, such as GDP” (Government of Iceland, 2019b)—
indeed, GDP and economic growth are among the 39 indicators
(Government of Iceland, 2019a, p. 2).
In 2019, the government identified six wellbeing priorities—
mental health, secure housing, better work-life balance,
zero carbon emissions, innovation growth, and better
communication with the public—to guide monetary allocations
in the annual budget and the country’s five-year fiscal strategy
(Abrar, 2021, p. 172; Birkjær et al., 2021, p. 35). These priorities
were established, in part, based on the 2018 quality of life survey,
while also taking into account other government goals such as
gender equality and the degree to which government policy
could make a difference over a five-year period (Birkjær et al.,
2021, p. 35).
Taking the welfare state one level up
Recent policy actions reflect the above-mentioned priorities,
illustrating a commitment to a strong Nordic welfare state
and relatively ambitious climate action (Jakobsdóttir,
2019a;Government of Iceland, 2021), while also aiming to
manage public finances responsibly (Ministry of Finance and
Economic Affairs, 2021). The country’s WE approach has
been characterized as an effort to “to take the traditional
Icelandic welfare state one level up,” with the goal of creating
“a virtuous circle in which citizens’ wellbeing drives economic
prosperity, stability and resilience, and vice-versa, that those
good macroeconomic outcomes allow to sustain wellbeing
investments over time” (Birkjær et al., 2021, p. 34). In 2019,
the prime minister stated that “Our main project has been to
invest significantly in social infrastructure, healthcare, welfare,
education” (Jakobsdóttir, 2019a). Recent initiatives have
included a social housing plan to address affordable housing
scarcity, a significant increase in child benefits, and an extension
of parental leave (shared between partners) from 9 to 12 months
(Jakobsdóttir, 2019b). The 2021 coalition agreement similarly
promises to maintain a “strong welfare system” as “the basis
of equality” and “promote a healthy society,” which includes
not only investments in healthcare services, but also “more
emphasis . . . on public health, prevention and mental health”
(Government of Iceland, 2021, pp. 17, 21).10 The latest coalition
agreement also proclaims that “We are going to prioritize
climate issues.” Iceland has an interim goal of reducing GHGs
55% below 2005 levels by 2030 on the way toward “carbon
neutrality and full energy conversion no later than 2040,” which
would “make Iceland the first state to be independent of fossil
fuels” (Government of Iceland, 2021, p. 9; see also Nichols,
2018).
The goal of “a strong society of wellbeing and equal
opportunity” is balanced with ensuring “that expenditure
growth remains modest” in Iceland’s fiscal budget proposal for
2022. Moderate spending is related to “the guiding principle
underlying the fiscal strategy [which] is to halt the rise in the
debt-to-GDP ratio no later than 2026.” Limiting the debt-to-
GDP ratio and halting debt accumulation is seen as necessary
“to ensure the financial resilience of the public sector,” i.e.,
safeguarding the government’s ability to respond to future
economic shocks and finance public services and transfers even
as costs grow due to an aging population (Ministry of Finance
and Economic Affairs, 2021). This formulation highlights the
constraints on fiscal capacity for public spending to address
wellbeing goals that are related both to the level of debt and GDP:
action to limit debt expands future public spending capacity, as
does an increase in GDP. These issues are related to the growth
dependency of contemporary states, which we return to below.
10 The 2022 budget proposal also gives a high priority to healthcare
in terms of resource allocation, while continuing personal income tax
changes that emphasize reducing the tax burden on lower-income
households (Ministry of Finance and Economic Aairs, 2021).
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Post-growth and suciency elements in
Iceland
At first glance, the possibilities for a sufficiency-oriented
WE approach appear more promising in Iceland. Compared to
other WEGo leaders, Prime Minister Jakobsdóttir’s statements
illustrate a more critical analysis of the contemporary growth
economy and the need to put saving the planet ahead of saving
capitalism as we know it (Jakobsdóttir, 2019a), and point toward
a more radical post-growth WE vision with a strong sufficiency
component. In an address to a WEGo workshop in Edinburgh,
Jakobsdóttir (2019b) stated:
We have built an economic model under which
constant growth is not only essential, but also considered
positive no matter how it is achieved and at what costs.
This has led to increased social and economic inequality and
an ever-escalating climate crisis. It has left us in a cycle of
wasteful consumption where we need to produce in order to
get by and we need to consume so that we can produce more.
She went onto say that the “Wellbeing Economy
Governments project differs from this thinking.” Jakobsdóttir
(2020) later wrote that a WE is an “attempt to develop
a new economic model, which is centered on wellbeing
rather than on production and consumption.” She added:
“Our generation has no option but to change the way
we live.” Echoing sufficiency-oriented ideas of critics
of consumerism, Jakobsdóttir (2019b) has argued that:
“Carbon neutrality can actually bring us opportunities for
increased wellbeing. Less consumption and a slower pace
of life will help halt climate change while also increasing
general wellbeing.”
Such ideas may not be so unusual within left-green
political circles, but they are much less common in
prime ministers’ offices. To what degree has this critical
perspective on a growth- and consumption-oriented
economic model made its way beyond speeches and into
government policy?
Very little, if it all, if one judges by the 2021 agreement
that outlined the governing agenda for the re-elected
coalition of the Independence Party, Progressive Party,
and Left-Green Movement (Government of Iceland, 2021).
While the document refers to Iceland as a wellbeing
economy and commits to strengthening cooperation
with other WEGo nations (pp. 7, 58), the first specific
commitment after a general introduction is: “We are going
to grow to greater prosperity .. . Growth and prosperity
are the government’s guiding lights in economic affairs”
(p. 5).
The coalition agreement includes the following
commitment: “The growth potential of the economy will
be boosted with strong support for innovation, research and
development . . . ” (p. 26). This point responds to concern
expressed in the country’s five-year fiscal policy statement
for 2022–2026 about the effects of declining productivity
growth and an aging population (Ministry of Finance
and Economic Affairs, 2021), which are two factors that
have been highlighted as drivers of “secular stagnation” of
contemporary economies (Gordon, 2016). Due to these factors,
the Icelandic economy’s annual potential growth rate has
fallen from 2.7 to 2.3%—a rate still well above zero, but which
means that annual GDP will be 300 billion Icelandic krona
(∼US$2.33 billion or US$6,700 per capita), lower in 25 years
than otherwise (Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs,
2021).
In a sufficiency economy, such a trend would be no
cause for alarm—and could be welcomed as a sign of the
maturation of the economy that will bring environmental
benefits. However, Iceland’s fiscal policy statement highlights
the challenges that lower growth will create and seeks to
counter it. It notes that an aging population will increase
demand for public spending, while slower economic
growth will—unless the tax system is changed—reduce
tax revenues and public spending capacity. Rather than
accepting slower growth, the statement emphasizes a policy
role “in counteracting this trend and promoting increased
long-term potential output throughout the economy”
through increased investment and by fostering a climate
of economic stability (Ministry of Finance and Economic
Affairs, 2021).
The fact that the Left-Green Movement governs in coalition
with two right-of-center parties—and is the junior party based
on parliamentary seats11—undoubtedly constrains how far it
can move in a post-growth direction. That said, the Left-Green
Movement (2022) itself still refers to “sustainable growth” as an
economic priority, and justifies its commitment to equality in
part by referring to research showing that “increased inequality
reduces economic growth. An economic policy that reduces
inequality will not only lead to a fairer society, but also to a
richer society.” (However, the party does highlight a number
of sufficiency-oriented ideas targeting particular products or
sectors rather than the economy as a whole).12 Meanwhile
11 The Left-Green Movement was the second largest party after the
2017 election, behind the Independence Party, and fell to third behind
the Progressive Party in 2021, although it held onto the prime minister’s
oce.
12 This includes commitments to: reduce consumption of
unsustainably produced meat, reduce transportation of imported
food by promoting domestic vegetable production, reduce food waste,
improve public transit to enable less private vehicle usage, and plan
urban areas “so that public transport, cycling and walking become viable
options” (Left-Green Movement, 2022).
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Prime Minister Jakobsdóttir (2019a,b), despite other growth-
critical statements, also speaks of the need for “inclusive
growth.”13
While Iceland clearly has not moved fully into a post-growth
growth era, its embrace of the WE concept does involve a more
limited—and still incomplete—shift toward seeing wellbeing as
the end goal and GDP growth one means among others to
achieve it.
One other policy area is worth mentioning in connection
with a politics of sufficiency: work-time reduction. Iceland
has seen some of the most significant recent experimentation
with a shorter workweek. Other WEGo nations have also seen
prominent work-time reduction initiatives of their own (BBC,
2021;Taunton, 2021). In 2015 and 2017, Reykjavík City Council
and the national government initiated two major trials, involving
more than 1% of the country’s workforce, with many employees
moving from a 40- to 36- or 35-h workweek without loss of
income. Success in meeting the trials’ goals—improving worker
wellbeing, while maintaining (or increasing) productivity and
service provision—subsequently led to the negotiation of more
permanent, although more modest workweek reductions for
tens of thousands of employees (Haraldsson and Kellam, 2021;
see also Kobie, 2021;Lau and Sigurdardottir, 2021). Although
these work-time initiatives have not been framed mainly
as a post-growth alternative to increased consumption and
production, building on such experiences could be important
in taking the WE concept further in a post-growth direction,
as discussed below. Indeed, the Left-Green Movement (2022)
wants to continue shortening the work week; one MP has said
“the next step is to reduce working hours to 30 hours per
week” (Bjarkey Olsen Gunnarsdóttir, quoted in Haraldsson and
Kellam, 2021, p. 55).
Discussion
Wellbeing economy as a weak
post-growth perspective
WEGo countries are now exploring what it means to create
a wellbeing economy, a development that has promise as
well as limitations for advancing a sufficiency-oriented post-
growth politics.
Advocates of a post-growth transformation have argued that
GDP growth must be deprioritized in high-income nations if
planetary boundaries are to be taken seriously (e.g., Koch, 2020,
p. 123; Corlet Walker et al., 2021, p. 2). The commitment to
13 A similar phenomenon of political leaders putting forward a critical
perspective on the economic growth paradigm, while reverting to a pro-
growth framing in other contexts, is evident in other countries as well
(Hayden, 2014b, pp. 125–127, 311–318), reflecting the diculties of
trying to pursue a post-growth politics in a political-economic system
still dependent on growth.
a wellbeing economy is a step in that direction as wellbeing
becomes the overarching goal, with growth relegated to a
means to achieve it (a step that is most clearly evident in New
Zealand). However, this step is a small one as GDP growth
remains important to all three countries. Similarly, a post-
growth vision often starts with the idea of moving beyond GDP
and measuring progress in new ways (e.g., Alexander, 2016;
Jackson, 2020). WEGo nations are indeed measuring wellbeing
in more comprehensive and meaningful ways. That said, these
new measurements do not mean that governments are ignoring
GDP to the extent that many post-growth theorists would like to
see (e.g., van den Bergh, 2011, p. 888).
In addition to “measuring what matters,” Jackson (2020, p. 5)
identifies a second of three key steps for wellbeing economies:
“to align government policy as fully as possible with the goal
of achieving societal wellbeing rather than with the narrow
pursuit of GDP growth.” Although work remains on this front,
WEGo nations have taken important steps in this direction,
e.g., through New Zealand’s wellbeing budgets and Iceland’s
establishment of wellbeing priorities to guide budget allocations
and the country’s five-year fiscal strategy. Also noteworthy in
all three countries are preventative investments to help improve
or maintain wellbeing from the outset, discussed in more
detail below.
In all three WEGo cases examined, a commitment to
sufficiency is more evident with regard to ensuring people have
the minimum requirements to live good lives than it is with
limiting excessive production and consumption. Indeed, the WE
concept shows a clear affinity with strengthening the welfare
state. Also evident is a growing emphasis on investments in
programs to improve mental health, which are a “new frontier
for the welfare state” (Layard, 2012), and have the potential to
bring substantial wellbeing benefits.
The emphasis on social spending to improve wellbeing
can be seen as a move away from neoliberalism, even if
WEGo countries try to remain within fiscally responsible
spending limits and critics argue that WEGo policies to reduce
poverty and inequality ought to go further. Scotland and
Iceland also stand out for relatively ambitious climate targets
and policies, while New Zealand, long a climate laggard, has
recently introduced stronger climate policies. The net effect
could be characterized as somewhat more social democracy and
climate action, broadly consistent with ideas of “inclusive and
sustainable” growth.
While critics of neoliberalism and climate inaction could
hail that as a step forward, post-growth WE proponents have
been clear that the goal is not merely an improved growth
model. Indeed, Fioramonti et al. (2022, p. 2) maintain that, with
the rise of the wellbeing economy, it “is the first time that a
variety of national governments,” with the support of the OECD,
“openly unite on the basis of a post-growth agenda.” However,
the cases examined here suggest that it is an error to assume
that governments that adopt a wellbeing economy language are
also embracing the full range of post-growth ambitions that
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motivated those who first developed the concept. While the
WEGo case studies illustrate some elements consistent with a
post-growth agenda, as noted above, what has made it through
the process of political mainstreaming to date is a largely pro-
growth WE vision, amounting at most to a “weak post-growth”
approach. Meanwhile, institutions such as the Council of the
European Union (2019) and OECD (2019) have been explicit all
along in depicting a wellbeing approach as a contributor to an
economic growth agenda.
Even if governments and political leaders were to have
stronger post-growth aspirations, they would still struggle to
achieve them in a context of growth dependency. Indeed,
some statements by Iceland’s Left-Green prime minister, Katrin
Jakobsdottir, suggest that she does have a critical perspective
on an economy focused on production and consumption
growth. However, the Icelandic case shows the strong pressures
on anyone managing the state to ensure sufficient revenue
to fund wellbeing-enhancing social spending and other state
activities. Combined with the challenges of keeping together
an ideologically diverse governing coalition and maintaining
support among voters, the result is a government policy agenda
that emphasizes economic growth as a high-priority means to
the end of wellbeing. Another way to state the problem is that
simply declaring that economic growth has been replaced by
wellbeing as the end goal does not in itself reduce dependence
on growth. The “glass ceiling” of environmental transformation
(Hausknost, 2020) cannot be so easily broken.
Taking the wellbeing economy in a
strong post-growth direction
Tackling growth dependency
In addition to measuring success in new ways and aligning
policy with the goal of achieving societal wellbeing, Jackson
(2020) identifies a third step in moving beyond growth: tackling
growth dependency (EESC, 2020;Petschow et al., 2020; see also
EEB and Oxfam Germany, 2021, pp. 28, 29). This is the most
challenging of the three steps and the one that WEGo nations
have done least to address. We do not claim to have full answers
to how to address this complex but vitally important problem, a
full analysis of which is beyond the scope of this article. In this
section, we point to some ways that WEGo nations, and others,
might contribute to finding solutions and thereby help a stronger
post-growth WE vision to emerge.
A good start would be to openly acknowledge growth
dependency as a problem and support research into better
understanding and overcoming it. WEGo nations could make
an important contribution by carrying out inquiries into growth
dependency of their economies and possible responses, as
advocated by Jackson (2020,2022) for the UK and the European
Economic and Social Committee (EESC, 2020) for EU member
states, building on existing analysis of such issues (Petschow
et al., 2020).
Two of the most fundamental challenges are disentangling
employment and the welfare state from their growth
dependency. With regard to the former, profit-seeking
businesses in competitive markets face strong pressures to
increase efficiencies and reduce labor inputs and costs, and the
resulting increases in labor productivity threaten to increase
unemployment—unless economic output expands at a rate
sufficient to absorb those displaced by more productive methods
as well as new entrants to labor markets. In the post-growth
literature, a widely discussed response to this issue is to use
labor productivity gains to reduce work hours, thereby helping
maintain employment and economic balance even in a non-
growing economy (Hayden, 1999;Schor, 2001;Kallis, 2018;
Lange, 2018;Victor, 2019)—while also creating time affluence as
an alternative to more material affluence by freeing up time for a
less stressful, more convivial life. As noted above, WEGo nations
have recently introduced work-time reduction initiatives of
various kinds, which provide experiences they could build on.
That said, to make a stronger post-growth contribution, the
vision for work-time reduction initiatives would have to shift
from the recent emphasis on reducing work hours without any
sacrifice of output (by ratcheting up hourly productivity) toward
seeing work-time reduction as an alternative to continued
economic expansion and consumption growth.
WEGo