ToBe

ToBe aims to build an understanding of a sustainable wellbeing economy by developing integrated policies and transformative indicators. We contribute to theoretical and empirical knowledge in the field of sustainability transformation and advance understanding of sustainable wellbeing and inclusive economy beyond GDP. Together with researchers, policymakers and citizens in Europe, Africa and South America, we study how mindsets, indicators, innovations and policies could better work together towards the sustainability paradigm. We bring together green growth and postgrowth initiatives to create a novel understanding of economic growth. We also consider environmental and social justice when conceptualising sustainable wellbeing and identifying transformative indicators of a sustainable wellbeing economy. We provide new empirical knowledge on economic development, social outcomes and sustainability to address entangled societal challenges and to envision integrated policy solutions. All this contributes to an ecological macroeconomic model assessing integrated policy packages and to a synthesis typology of an accelerating sustainability paradigm. ToBe’s societal impact is linked directly to Europe’s policy goal of becoming a carbon-neutral continent by 2050. We will improve policy making capacity and coherence by exploring social and economic resilience and sustainability, as well as integrating different policies towards this end. The results will help create a sustainable and inclusive economy, as well as a shared vision for EU-Africa relations that build on sustainable growth. Our co-creation platform will strengthen epistemic communities to drive carbon-neutrality and tackle inequality and vulnerability in the context of entangled crises by a better understanding of trade-offs and synergies between economic growth and a sustainable wellbeing economy, including logics of change across different dimensions of sustainable development.

2023

2026