While human “wellbeing” has historically been measured by economic growth, traditional metrics do not fit the challenges of the 21st century. Increasingly, decision-makers are adopting new guiding frameworks that encompass a more holistic understanding of wellbeing and progress including concepts such as ecological health and subjective wellbeing. Yet, the development processes and implementation challenges faced by these initiatives - as well as the opportunities for advancement - remain relatively unexamined for state and regional communities. This research considers the implementation and potential of existing wellbeing indicator systems in Vermont. With limited research on wellbeing measurement at the state or local level, this thesis provides novel insight using the state of Vermont as a case study. A better understanding of specific measurement tools, public and political interest in data collection, and shared experiences can help to fill the current gap in the literature and provide useful information for decision-makers. The first article contains a case study analysis of four wellbeing indices at the regional and state level in Vermont: the Vermont Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), the Vermont Happiness Index, the Chittenden County Environment, Community, Opportunity and Sustainability (ECOS) project, and Vermont Act 186 (the “Outcomes Bill”). The case studies provide contextual background describing the impetus and development of each wellbeing initiative. The similarities, differences, and connections between each case study are further examined based on a general program theory of wellbeing measurement. The second article narrows in on one specific wellbeing index: the 2017 Vermont Happiness Index, a representative statewide survey of subjective wellbeing. The Index is composed of eleven domains of wellbeing, with each domain as an aggregation of 3 or more Likert-scale questions. The survey results are analyzed through statistical testing and recommendations for future research are provided.

Cutting down carbon dioxide emissions produced by our current way of life will not be enough to stop climate change. By aligning myself with the Collaborative economy scenario of a Sweden in 2050 produced by The Beyond GDP-growth program i have tried to understand how we could live in another (economical) paradigm. I propose rebuilding the existing building Lågskär 1 in the suburb of Kärrtorp south of Stockholm. Adapting existing buildings is in line with the scenario, as is “docking around nodes in the public transport system”The house was built in 1949 and of consists of a ground floor with shop premises and two floors of apartments. To turn it into a building of the scenario i located core home functions (sleeping, some storage) to the apartment floors and extended home functions (hygiene, cooking, eating, social contact, workshop) to the ground floor. Placing common functions in the ground floor is also mentioned in the scenario text.The number of inhabitants of the house is more than doubled compared with today, and consumption and use of resources is reduced by sharing spaces and commodities used in everyday life.

This milestone presents a pool of available indicators and indicator systems which go beyond the narrow concepts of national economic accounts as well as a structuring of the indicators and indices according to central areas of well-being. The milestone builds the basis for Task 202.2, where a subset of indicators will be selected based on different theoretical frameworks, e.g. services / functionings, needs. Some of the indicators will be included in the macro-economic models in order to account for key dimensions of sustainability. / Series: WWWforEurope

Questioning GDP as dominant indicator for economic performance has become commonplace. For economists economic policy always aims for a broader array of goals (like income, employment, price stability, trade balance) alongside income, with income being the priority objective. The Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission argued for extending and adapting key variables of macroeconomic analysis. International organisations such as the EC, OECD, Eurostat and UN have proposed extended arrays of macroeconomic indicators (see 'Beyond GDP', 'Compendium of wellbeing indicators', 'GDP and Beyond', 'Green Economy', 'Green Growth', 'Measuring Progress of Societies'). Despite these high profile efforts, few wellbeing and environmental variables are in use in macroeconomic models. The reasons for the low uptake of socio-ecological indicators in macroeconomic models range from path dependencies in modelling, technical limitations, indicator lists being long and unworkable, choices of indicators appearing ad hoc and poor data availability. In this paper we review key approaches and identify a limited list of candidate variables and - as much as possible - offer data sources. / Series: WWWforEurope

Humanity’s detrimental impacts on the Earth’s ecosystems have been studied extensively, and these impacts’ negative consequences across societal groups, nations, and generations, have garnered much attention, from the scientific community as well as from civil society, where the attention often has been directed at how unfair the distribution of these environmental burdens is. The fairness of the distribution of global environmental benefits, however, has seen much less study, especially when it comes to the implementation of such concerns for fairness in environmental policy. In support of the research project Beyond GDP-growth, this thesis has centered on a Swedish context, and has focused on the term “biocapacity”, which is a quantifiable measure of many environmental benefits, and in the thesis is defined as the ability of terrestrial ecosystems to regenerate the biological materials extracted by humans. The thesis has then aimed to determine the current potential for the implementation of a fair distribution of global biocapacity in Swedish environmental policy, mainly by way of a series of interviews with individuals engaged in different forms of Swedish environmental work – from different levels of government, to civil society and centers of scientific research. It is concluded that the current potential for the implementation of a fair distribution of global biocapacity in Swedish environmental policy is primarily hindered by the seeming lack of a relevant discourse on the matter. Without such a discourse, a lack of public understanding of the subject is deemed to cause poor public support for any potential policies promoting a fair distribution of global biocapacity. It is suggested that a relevant and effective discourse is best achieved through transparent trade practices, and by the active participation of scientific experts and other actors outside of the political system. Furthermore, the thesis discusses the usefulness of the term “biocapacity” in this context, concluding that more research is needed, while identifying the main point of contention as what the term is intuitively understood to mean, as well as whether or not it can be used as a means to achieve a focused public discourse on the fair distribution of environmental goods. / Mänsklighetens skadliga inverkan på jordens ekosystem har studerats i stor utsträckning, och den här inverkans negativa konsekvenser för olika samhällsgrupper, länder och generationer har fått mycket uppmärksamhet från både forskningsvärlden och civilsamhället, där det främst har fokuserats på den orättvisa fördelningen av dessa ”miljöbördor”. Men, rättvisa när det kommer till fördelningen av ”miljönyttor” har studerats betydligt mindre, särskilt i samband med hur sådana rättviseaspekter kan implementeras i miljöpolicy. Den här uppsatsen har – i en svensk kontext och som stöd till forskningsprojektet Bortom BNP-tillväxt – fokuserat på en kvantifierbar term kallad ”biokapacitet”, som innefattar många miljönyttor, och i uppsatsen definieras som landbaserade ekosystems kapacitet att regenerera de biologiska material som människor extraherar. Uppsatsen har sedan ämnat att undersöka de nuvarande förutsättningarna för implementeringen av en rättvis fördelning av global biokapacitet i svensk miljöpolicy, främst genom en serie intervjuer med individer som i olika sammanhang är engagerade i svenskt miljöarbete – från kommunal till statlig nivå, samt i civilsamhället och i forskningssammanhang. Uppsatsen utmynnar i slutsatsen att de nuvarande förutsättningarna för implementeringen av en rättvis fördelning av global biokapacitet i svensk miljöpolicy främst begränsas av att den offentliga debatten till synes inte behandlar ämnet nämnvärt. Utan en offentlig debatt om ämnet förmodas den resulterande kunskapsbristen hos allmänheten leda till ett bristande offentligt stöd för policyförslag som förespråkar en rättvis fördelning av global biokapacitet. En relevant och effektiv offentlig debatt tros bäst kunna uppstå genom transparent handel och ett aktivt deltagande av experter från forskningsvärlden, samt andra utompolitiska aktörer. Dessutom diskuterar uppsatsen nyttan av begreppet ”biokapacitet” i en sådan debatt, och kommer fram till att vidare studier krävs för att nå en tillfredsställande slutsats. Uppsatsen identifierar dock den intuitiva uppfattningen av termens betydelse, samt frågan om termen kan användas för att uppnå en fokuserad debatt på ämnet, som de främsta problemområdena som behöver behandlas. / Beyond GDP-growth (sv. Bortom BNP-tillväxt)

This short paper considers all possible stakeholders in different stages of a sustainability transition and matches their behavioral features and diversity to policies. This will involve an assessment of potential or expected responses of stakeholders to a range of policy instruments. Following the Multi-Level Perspective framework to conceptualize sustainability transitions, we classify the various transition policies at niche, regime and landscape levels. Next, we offer a complementary classification of policies based on a distinction between social preferences and bounded rationality. The paper identifies many barriers to making a sustainability transition and how to respond to them. In addition, lessons are drawn from the case of Denmark. The detailed framework and associated literature for the analysis was discussed in Milestone 31 of the WWWforEurope project (Gazheli et al., 2012). / Series: WWWforEurope