Throughout my career I have focused on the well-being of people in our communities and around the world, and on the state of the Earth’s ecological systems, which are the bedrock of our well-being.
Recently, this has been encapsulated in the World Health Organization’s concept of a well-being society, one that is “committed to achieving equitable health now and for future generations without breaching ecological limits.”
I strongly believe that this should be the highest aspiration of a society and the central purpose of governance. As I noted in last week’s column, this requires a shift in the core values that underpin our modern society, and in particular our economy.
An important part of that shift is to re-align the private sector from its focus on making money to a focus on its role in achieving the societal purpose of well-being.
In part that requires changing the purpose of a corporation. In a 2002 opinion piece in the independent news outlet Common Dreams, Robert Hinkley, an American corporate securities lawyer, wrote that after 23 years he realized that corporate law “in its current form, actually inhibits executives and corporations from being socially responsible.”
His proposed remedy was simple; he suggests adding “26 words to corporate law,” which would create a “Code for Corporate Citizenship.”
While a corporation “would still have a duty to make money for shareholders,” he would add “but not at the expense of the environment, human rights, the public safety, the communities in which the corporation operates or the dignity of its employees.”
But more broadly it also means changing the purpose of government and the broader process of societal and community governance, where governance, as UN Habitat puts it, is “the sum of the many ways individuals and institutions, public and private, plan and manage the common affairs of the city” — or any other level of society.
Recently the International Standards Organization created “the first ever international benchmark for good governance.”
Applicable to all organizations, including governments and corporations, it is intended to ensure that “organizations act with purpose, sustainability and society in mind.” It should be made a requirement for all governments and corporations in sa国际传媒.
The federal, provincial and territorial cabinets should take as their central purpose the role of ensuring sustainable and equitable wellbeing for current and future generations.
They should establish SHE (sustainable, healthy, equitable) policy units at the cabinet level and in each ministry to guide wellbeing policy — including a well-being budget — and follow the lead of Wales by adopting a Wellbeing of Future Generations Act.
This act establishes the right of future generations and puts planetary health and human well-being at the heart of governance. It requires ministries and national, regional and local authorities to establish and report on their sustainability goals, and creates the position of a Commissioner of Future Well-being to monitor and report on progress.
However, I am not confident that we can expect action will be led from the top, given the close ties between business and government. Much of my work has focused on the local level, on helping communities across sa国际传媒 and around the world think about how to become healthy and sustainable.
Locally we have the example of One Planet Saanich, which works with organizations in Saanich on ways to reduce their ecological footprint to be equivalent to one planet’s worth of biocapacity, instead of the approximately four planets we use today, and to meet the ten criteria for One Planet Living established by Bioregional, a U.K.-based non-profit consultancy. But we are not really talking seriously about this.
At the regional level, here and across sa国际传媒 and around the world, we need a well-organized and ongoing community-wide conversation about the future we want. What do we have to change to ensure a healthy, just and sustainable future for all who live here, for our descendants and for others around the world?
That is the aim of a small local NGO I have established, Conversations for a One Planet Region, and it is one of the areas I will focus on in my monthly columns. I can think of no more worthwhile and important task, and invite you to contribute to that work.
Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy
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