Cultures of Sustainability and Wellbeing: Theories, Histories and Policies examines and assesses the interdependence between sustainability and wellbeing by drawing attention to humans as producers and consumers in a post-human age. Why wellbeing ought to be regarded as essential to sustainable development is explored first from multifocal theoretical perspectives encompassing sociology, literary criticism and socioeconomics, second in relation to institutions and policies, and third with a focus on specific case studies across the world. Wellbeing and its sustainability are defined in terms of biological and cultural diversity; stages of advancement in science and technology; notions of citizenship and agency; geopolitical scenarios and environmental conditions. Wellbeing and sustainability call for enquiries into human capacities in ontological, epistemological and practical terms. A view of sustainability that revolves around material and immaterial wellbeing is based on the assumption that life quality, comfort, happiness, security, safety always posit humans as both recipients and agents. Risk and resilience in contemporary societies define the intrinsically human ability to make and consume, to act and adapt, driving the search for and fruition of wellbeing. How to sustain the dual process of exploitation and regeneration is a task that requires integrated approaches from the sciences and the humanities, jointly tracing a worldwide cartography with clear localisations. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers interested in sustainability through conceptual and empirical approaches including social theory, literary and cultural studies, environmental economics and human ecology, urbanism and cultural geography.

The idea that we can meet human needs and simultaneously conserve and even enhance the natural environment is an attractive one. Since the Brundtland report popularised a definition of sustainable development based on the concept of needs, there has been a widespread belief that it should be possible to achieve a good quality of life without compromising natural ecosystems. Sustainability and Wellbeing fills a gap in sustainable development studies by drawing on a range of case-studies to discuss the challenges and opportunities of using Max-Neef’s Human Scale Development (HSD) framework in practice. The first section presents the theory and the methodology of HSD in the context of related literature on sustainable development and wellbeing. The second section discusses applications of the HSD methodology with three different purposes: the design of sustainable development interventions; the engagement of researchers with communities or groups of people in sustainability processes and the consolidation of sustainable community initiatives. Finally, the third reflects on challenges and limitations of using the HSD approach to define strategies for sustainable development and concludes. This is an invaluable resource for researchers and postgraduate students in wellbeing, sustainability, sustainable development, and human development.

Happiness, Well-being and Sustainability: A Course in Systems Change is the first textbook bridging the gap between personal happiness and sustainable social change. The book provides a guide for students to increase their skills, literacy and knowledge about connections between a sense of well-being and systems change. Further, it can help students live a life that brings them happiness and contributes to the well-being of others and the sustainability of our planet. The book is presented in seven chapters covering the subjects of systems thinking, personal and societal values, measuring happiness, human needs, ecological sustainability and public policy. In addition, each section includes engaging exercises to empower students to develop their own ideas, prompts for group discussion, suggestions for additional research and an extensive list of resources and references. The book is written in the context of systems thinking with a style that is approachable and accessible. Happiness, Well-being and Sustainability provides essential reading for students in courses on happiness, social change and sustainability studies, and provides a comprehensive framework for instructors looking to initiate courses in this field. A website to support the professors teaching the book is available at : https://www.happycounts.org/coursebook.html

This open access book examines more than two centuries of societal development using novel historical and statistical approaches. It applies the well-being monitor developed by Statistics Netherlands that has been endorsed by a significant part of the international, statistical community. It features The Netherlands as a case study, which is an especially interesting example; although it was one of the world’s richest countries around 1850, extreme poverty and inequality were significant problems of well-being at the time. Monitors of 1850, 1910, 1970 and 2015 depict the changes in three dimensions of well-being: the quality of life 'here and now', 'later' and 'elsewhere'. The analysis of two centuries shows the solutions to the extreme poverty problem and the appearance of new sustainability problems, especially in domestic and foreign ecological systems. The study also reveals the importance of natural capital: soil, air, water and subsoil resources, showing their relation with the social structure of the ‘here and now ́. Treatment and trade of natural resources also impacted on the quality of life ‘later’ and ‘elsewhere.’ Further, the book illustrates the role of natural capital by dividing the capital into three types of raw materials and concomitant material flows: bio-raw materials, mineral and fossil subsoil resources. Additionally, the analysis of the institutional context identifies the key roles of social groups in well-being development. The book ends with an assessment of the solutions and barriers offered by the historical anchoring of the well-being and sustainability issues. This unique analysis of well-being and sustainability and its institutional analysis appeals to historians, statisticians and policy makers.

Wellbeing in the workplace is an essential element in fostering a worker’s sense of being valued, ensuring their engagement, and ultimately leading to higher levels of productivity and organizational performance. This important book specifically adds to the discussion by taking a global perspective, and evaluates wellbeing in the workplace in different countries, identifying both universal issues and specific cultural issues. Chapter authors have been drawn from across five continents and eleven countries to provide ground-breaking research in wellbeing from different regional perspectives, looking at both developed and developing world scenarios. What is clear throughout the book is that organizations that are not people-centered undermine their capacity to attain and maintain quality standards, high performance, and competitiveness. Organizational concerns about workers' wellbeing are growing exponentially due to the global VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) environment. In this environment, organizational success is no longer simply based on short-term revenue maximization, capital investments, or sales, but increasingly depends on people’s wellbeing, human capital, and the development of human talent to ensure sustained and sustainable growth and performance. This book presents a collection of studies that address current and forthcoming organizational challenges and offer realistic solutions to support leaders and managers seeking to balance and value the contribution of people with long-term organizational performance.

This book examines how the way we conceive of, or measure, the environment changes the way we interact with it. Thomas Smith posits that environmentalism and sustainable development have become increasingly post-political, characterised by abstraction, and quantification to an unprecedented extent. As such, the book argues that our ways of measuring both the environment, such as through sustainability metrics like footprints and Payments for Ecosystem Services, and society, through gross domestic product and wellbeing measures, play a constitutive and problematic role in how we conceive of ourselves in the world. Subsequently, as the quantified environmental approach drives a dualistic wedge between the human and non-human realms, in its final section the book puts forward recent developments in new materialism and feminist ethics of care as providing practical ways of re-founding sustainable development in a way that firmly acknowledges human-ecological relations. This book will be an invaluable reference for scholars and students in the fields of human geography, political ecology, and environmental sociology.

In this innovative and cogent presentation of her concept of sustainable happiness, Catherine O’Brien outlines how the leading recommendations for transforming education can be integrated within a vision of well-being for all. Solution-focused, the book demonstrates how aspects of this vision are already being realized, and the potential for accelerating education transitions that enable people and ecosystems to flourish. Each chapter assists educators to understand how to apply the lessons learned, both personally and professionally. The aim is to support educators to experience themselves as change-makers with growing confidence to implement new teaching strategies and inspire their students to become change-makers as well—engaged in deep learning that develops character, connections with life, and invigorating collaborations that revitalize the very purpose of education.