Operationalizing sustainable welfare and co-developing eco-social policies by prioritizing human needs

The need to develop synergetic policy frameworks, ideas, and instruments to tackle the double challenge of climate emergency and social inequality has increasingly gained momentum over the past few years and is reflected in the increasing number of academic contributions. The iconic model of a ‘safe and just space for humanity’ (Raworth, 2017) considers both planetary and social boundaries. Economy and society develop within a doughnut-shaped space, where resource use is below the level of critical planetary boundaries but above the sufficiency level required to meet people’s basic needs. Building on this, Fanning et al. (2020) discuss the complex processes through which patterns of material and resource extraction within this space result in different ecological and social outcomes. The concept of ‘sustainable welfare’ (Koch and Mont, 2016) addresses the intersection of environmental and social policies. This concept has resulted in critical assessments of the environmental consequences of existing welfare systems and suggestions of concrete eco-social policies. If integrated into a holistic policy framework, these have the potential of initiating a virtuous policy cycle (Hirvilammi, 2020) necessary to re-embed Western production and consumption patterns within planetary limits.

We argue that theoretical terms such as sustainable welfare need to be complemented by bottom-up measures of operationalization. This is not only necessary because the frames and concepts listed above leave plenty of leeway for concrete policy development and implementation at the local, regional, and national levels, but also because of the pressing need for citizen mobilization to achieve systematic changes of national states and multi-national governance structures (Koch, 2020a; Pirgmaier and Steinberger, 2019). In many cases, national states and multi-national governance structures have proven incapable of bringing about the required social and ecological transitional efforts to avert climate disaster (Hausknost, 2020).

In an ongoing research project, ‘Sustainable welfare for a new generation of social policy’, financed by the Swedish Energy Agency, we combine the practical knowledge of citizens with expert knowledge on sustainable needs satisfaction. Following Max-Neef’s Human Scale Development (HSD) methodology, we carried out 11 citizen forums in 2020, where 84 individuals participated in discussions about how we satisfy our fundamental needs today and how this could be done in more sustainable ways. The point of departure of HSD is that all people (now and in the future) have the same fundamental needs, but these needs are satisfied in different ways depending on historical, social, and cultural contexts (Max-Neef, 1991). Forum participants discussed each of Max-Neef’s fundamental needs (subsistence, protection, affection, understanding, participation, idleness, creation, identity, freedom), considering negative, positive (or utopian), bridging as well as synergetic needs ‘satisfiers’. This resulted in a range of eco-social policy ideas in areas such as work, distribution/inequality, housing, or transport.

What kind of synergetic needs satisfiers and eco-social policy ideas were mentioned particularly often? The forum participants called for new and non-commercial (physical and digital) meeting places, which can ensure better inclusion of vulnerable groups. They also emphasized the need for affordable housing in order to facilitate, among other things, intergenerational living and more localized production and distribution loops. Addressing the pressing problem of economic and social inequalities, many participants proposed a universal basic income, working hour reduction, as well as state support of social enterprises and cooperative companies as synergetic satisfiers. Alternative satisfiers and corresponding policy suggestions included an introduction of caps on wealth and income or a wealth tax as well as a land reform that would, among other things, facilitate access to urban and ecological gardening. Finally, many participants mentioned the complementation of the institutions of representative democracy through deliberative elements such as citizen forums, an increased role of the third sector and an expansion of universal basic services (especially but not exclusively, public transport).

Many of the synergetic satisfiers identified by the forum participants are compatible with existing models of a social and ecological transformation such as doughnut economics or the virtuous cycle of sustainable welfare and resonate well with a novel way of conceiving welfare proposed by Milena Büchs’ contribution to this Forum. However, we argue that our bottom-up approach contributes two unique aspects to eco-social policy development. First of all, since the data material consisting of filled-in matrices and transcriptions of the forum discussions builds on citizens’ subjective experiences and reflections rather than compartmentalized policy areas, it is possible to identify and further develop how previously separately discussed policy areas are in fact intricately connected. One cross-cutting theme discussed in all forums was an insight that many of the needs that were discussed were deeply interconnected. Reflecting on alternative ways in which we can satisfy our fundamental needs, therefore, reinforced a more holistic understanding of our existence, which in turn questioned the dominant way of conceiving individual agency driven only by economic incentives in our current policy paradigms. Departing from the needs-based perspective at individual level can therefore pave the way for integrating different policy areas and promoting systemic thinking, as William Hynes calls for in his contribution to this Forum.

The second unique contribution of the bottom-up approach in eco-social policy development is that our forum data add an important dimension to the possible eco-social transition process that goes beyond the claims of universality and systemic thinking (Meadows, 2019). Many models of sustainable transition processes are built upon the quest for establishing and proposing system-level roadmaps that can be applied across contexts (see, for instance, the policy frameworks established by World Bank and ILO in the other contributions to this Forum). What the deliberation process involving citizens’ voices points to is the importance of complementing such transformational policy paradigms at the system level with theories based on social practices at individual and local levels (Koch, 2020a). For instance, many participants argued for a transformational change strategy building upon a more conscious and ‘lifeworld’ based ethic, which can arguably only be achieved by long-term commitment to educational efforts leading to internal change processes for all members of the society.

Although the state was mentioned as a responsible actor for change (especially as a provider of education that can facilitate a democratic sustainability transformation) in relation to nearly all policy areas, participants also observed that state action should not be prioritized at the expense of individual political practice and participation. In other words, there was consensus across all forums that state ‘top-down’ policies can only be successful in initiating the required ecological and social transformation if they react to and reinforce ‘bottom-up’ mobilizations, especially at local levels (Koch, 2020b). Participants discussed the importance of democratic participation and the role of individuals acting as active political subjects for the transition process leading to sustainable welfare systems. This is in other words a call for expanding deliberative elements within policymaking processes, especially but not only in relation to the provision of environmental and social sustainability.

In order to reach out further with our needs-based approach to operationalize sustainable welfare and co-develop eco-social policies, we are presently launching a survey study addressed to a representative sample of the Swedish population. The questionnaire includes about 70 items of eco-social policy proposals that were suggested in our forums. The study allows the general population in Sweden to take a stance on them, serving as a meaningful data basis for further policy deliberations with representatives of public institutions and civil society.

Citizen assemblies or forums can provide the opportunity to reflect on sustainable ways of satisfying fundamental needs that are embedded in a local geographical as well as social context. From such a perspective, policy innovation can be achieved in a way that clearly echoes local needs. However, we acknowledge that there are real challenges in including people of all socio-economic backgrounds and ideological orientations in such deliberative policy processes, especially considering growing inequalities that inevitably lead to radically diverging lived experiences among different groups of people (on the very real and comprehensive consequences of inequalities, see the contribution by William Hynes to this Forum). We believe that the needs-based approach opens up a possibility to identify what we all have in common and to focus on the sufficient level of energy and resource use, rather than overly emphasizing individualized and subjective notion of well-being.