The Microeconomics of Wellbeing and Sustainability: Recasting the Economic Process explores the civil economy tradition in economic thought. Gaining increasing consensus worldwide, this alternative—not heterodox—view of the economic process and agents explains how modern economics is placing increasing emphasis on the determinants of subjective wellbeing and environmental sustainability. With support from behavioral economics, this book makes a foundational contribution that will help users better understand and prepare for future economic challenges. - Marries criticism of the neo-classical model with empirical work on the possibilities of alternative frameworks for action - Links new ideas (homo reciprocans, happiness, relational goods) to established microeconomic concepts (the market, perfect and imperfect competition, utility maximization) - Devotes specific attention to relevant elements in economic history, explaining how we evolved to the current paradigm and to its challenge

In spite of recurrent criticism and an impressive production of alternative indicators by scholars and NGOs, GDP remains the central indicator of countries' success. This book revisits the foundations of indicators of social welfare, and critically examines the four main alternatives to GDP that have been proposed: composite indicators, subjective well-being indexes, capabilities (the underlying philosophy of the Human Development Index), and equivalent incomes. Its provocative thesis is that the problem with GDP is not that it uses a monetary metric but that it focuses on a narrow set of aspects of individual lives. It is actually possible to build an alternative, more comprehensive, monetary indicator that takes income as its first benchmark and adds or subtracts corrections that represent the benefit or cost of non-market aspects of individual lives. Such a measure can respect the values and preferences of the people and give as much weight as they do to the non-market dimensions. A further provocative idea is that, in contrast, most of the currently available alternative indicators, including subjective well-being indexes, are not as respectful of people's values because, like GDP, they are too narrow and give specific weights to the various dimensions of life in a more uniform way, without taking account of the diversity of views on life in the population. The popular attraction that such alternative indicators derive from being non-monetary is therefore based on equivocation. Moreover, it is argued in this book that "greening" GDP and relative indicators is not the proper way to incorporate sustainability concerns. Sustainability involves predicting possible future paths, therefore different indicators than those assessing the current situation. While various indicators have been popular (adjusted net savings, ecological footprint), none of them involves the necessary forecasting effort that a proper evaluation of possible futures requires.

With "Sustainability: A Comprehensive Foundation," first and second-year college students are introduced to this expanding new field, comprehensively exploring the essential concepts from every branch of knowldege - including engineering and the applied arts, natural and social sciences, and the humanities. As sustainability is a multi-disciplinary area of study, the text is the product of multiple authors drawn from the diverse faculty of the University of Illinois: each chapter is written by a recognized expert in the field.

Help build a world based on flourishing well-being for both the human family and nature In the face of political, financial, and environmental upheaval, it's difficult to slow down and build lives of mindfulness and joy. These things are within reach, but how can we go about creating a new world, using common-sense economics? In An Economy of Well-being, author Mark Anielski presents a practical guide for building a new economy of well-being to help communities and nations become more flourishing and happier places to live. In this follow-up to his best-selling The Economics of Happiness, Anielski addresses key questions including: How can our personal and family assets be strengthened for a more fulfilling life of meaning and purpose? How can neighborhoods and cities become flourishing economies of well-being by making the best of abundant community assets? how can organizations, communities and financial institutions measure, manage and finance assets to achieve high levels of well-being? An Economy of Well-being responds to a common yearning for common-sense tools to orient our lives, our businesses, and our communities towards well-being. This is ideal reading for anyone who wishes to contribute to building happier, more mindful communities, and ultimately lives of joy and meaning.

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.

Humanity will have to cope with many problems in the coming decades: for instance, the world population is likely grow to to 8,8 billion people by 2035. Also, changing climate conditions are negatively affecting the livelihoods of millions of people. In particular, environmental disasters are causing substantial damages to properties. From a social perspective, the inequalities between rich and poor nations are becoming even deeper, and in many countries, conflicts between national and international interest groups are intensifying.The above state of affairs suggest that a broader understanding of the trends which may lead to a more sustainable world is needed, especially those which may pave the way for future developments. In other words, we need to pave the way for sustainable futures.Consistent with this reality, the proposed Encyclopedia of Sustainability Futures aims to identify, document and disseminate ideas, experiences and visions from scientists, member of nongovernmental organisations, decision-makers industry representatives and citizens, on themes and issues which will be important in pursuing sustainable future scenarios. In particular, the publication will focus on scientific aspects, as well as on social and economic ones, also considering matters related to financing and infra-structures, which are important in pursuing a sustainable future.The Encyclopedia of Sustainability Futures will involve the contributing authors in line with theprinciple of co-generation, from across a wide range of disciplines, e.g. education and social sciences, natural sciences, engineering, the arts, languages etc, with papers adopting a long-term sustainability perspective, with a time horizon until 2050. The focus will be on themes which are felt as important in the future, and the chapters are expected to interest and motivate a world audience.This book is part of the "100 papers to accelerate the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals initiative"!