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SWICE position paper on wellbeing

Sascha Nick
2023
Report or working paper
Abstract

This document aims to help ensure consistent use of wellbeing in all work packages and activities of SWICE (Sustainable Wellbeing for the Individual and the Collectivity in the Energy transition). Sustainability is usually defined as a practice that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Brundtland 1987), which corresponds to wellbeing for all within planetary boundaries. SWICE aims to answer the question for Switzerland: how to improve wellbeing for all with a much lower resource footprint, especially energy? While completely absent from political discourse, this question is probably the most important one the country is facing. Simply constraining resource use without changing the way society is organized will reduce overall wellbeing. A positive outcome requires a culture of sufficiency, better provisioning systems, reduced inequalities, as well as adapting rules, laws, and institutions. Identifying and validating such conditions is the focus of SWICE.

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Environmental science
Related concepts (36)
Energy transition
An energy transition (or energy system transformation) is a significant structural change in an energy system regarding supply and consumption. Currently, a transition to sustainable energy (mostly renewable energy) is underway to limit climate change. It is also called renewable energy transition. The current transition is driven by a recognition that global greenhouse-gas emissions must be drastically reduced. This process involves phasing-down fossil fuels and re-developing whole systems to operate on low carbon electricity.
Sustainability
Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long time. Specific definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Experts often describe sustainability as having three dimensions (or pillars): environmental, economic, and social, and many publications emphasize the environmental dimension. In everyday use, sustainability often focuses on countering major environmental problems, including climate change, loss of biodiversity, loss of ecosystem services, land degradation, and air and water pollution.
Future generations
Future generations are cohorts of hypothetical people not yet born. Future generations are contrasted with current and past generations, and evoked in order to encourage thinking about intergenerational equity. The moral patienthood of future generations has been argued for extensively among philosophers, and is thought of as an important, neglected cause by the effective altruism community. The term is often used in describing the conservation or preservation of cultural heritage or natural heritage.
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