Publications
A European Agenda To Navigate Uncertain Times
This paper was written at the request of DG-RTD of the European Commission. It was co-written by the consortium coordinators and policy leads of four Horizon Europe research and innovation projects: SPES, ToBe, WISE Horizons and WISER. These projects also collaborate in the Coordination and Support Action called MERGE. The contents of the report do not necessarily reflect the opinion of all researchers and institutes involved in these consortia.
Social sustainability in the decarbonized welfare state: Social policy as a buffer against poverty related to environmental taxes
Decarbonization, environmental protection, and sustainable development are more topical than ever. Despite long-standing debates about the regressive profile of environmental taxes, the welfare state’s role in buffering adverse distributive impacts of climate policy is largely unexplored. We examine if social policy shields households from falling into poverty due to environmental taxes tied to consumption. We specifically focus on the importance of income replacement in social insurance and social assistance. To enable detailed assessments of the distributive outcomes of environmental policy, we impute environmental taxes into the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). Our comparative analysis of 26 European countries indicates that the welfare state protects households from relative income poverty due to environmental taxes. Moreover, comparisons between educational groups suggest that both social insurance and social assistance play different yet complementary roles in reducing socio-economic gradients in poverty related to environmental taxes.
Time ToBe Transformative: Strengthening sustainable wellbeing and economic alternative
Read ToBe’s first Policy Brief! It gives research-based insights for on-going discussion about how to transform the economy, design desirable policy options and measure development towards sustainability paradigm.
Response to the Call for submissions: Thematic report to the UN Human Rights Council “Eradicating poverty in a post-growth context: preparing for the next Development Goals”
ToBe’s response to Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights Olivier De Schutte’s open call to provide written input for his thematic report on one or more of the following issues: government’s measures of social progress complementing GDP, measures to ensure that growth primarily benefits the bottom 40 per cent of the population, obstacles for alternative development pathways, and how to overcome path dependencies.
Modelling what matters: How do current models handle environmental limits and social outcomes?
Models that represent the economy, society, and environment are critical macroeconomic policy tools. However, economic output as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is increasingly being seen as an unreliable and undesirable economic indicator and policy goal. Instead, multiple indicators of environmental impacts and social outcomes are needed to make decisions about sustainable development. Drawing on the Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries, and the Sustainable Development Goals, we analyse 50 models to assess the state of the art in modelling the environment, society, and economy. We categorise models according to their economic foundation and modelling approach, assess their coverage of 15 environmental and 21 social indicators, and identify feedbacks between different model parts. We further construct a targeted sample of 15 models that represents the diversity in modelling approaches and indicator coverage, and use this sample to investigate how environmental and social indicators are linked to macroeconomic drivers
Dataset on the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare for the EU27 and beyond
This dataset contains data about two ISEWs for the EU27, its individual Member States (MS), the UK and the US. Following Van der Slycken and Bleys (2023) (1), two variants of the ISEW are presented in this dataset: the ISEW_BCE accounts for the benefits and costs of the present and pasts activities experienced in the present and within a specific country (Benefits and Costs Experienced); the ISEW_BCPA accounts for the benefits and costs of present activities experienced in the present and in the future, both domestically and internationally (Benefits and Costs of Present economic Activities).
Deliverables
D1.1 Towards a postgrowth policy paradigm. Report on the theoretical framework on sustainable wellbeing and transformation
This document presents an overview and contextualisation of the research conducted in WP1, which focuses on the conceptual synthesis of sustainable wellbeing as a unifying vision for a sustainability paradigm. It explores the interconnections between social, ethical, political, economic, and environmental/material impacts of key drivers of change, aiming to enhance understanding of their broader implications. Authored by Tuuli Hirvilammi, Mladen Domazet, Tvrtko Vrdoljak, Aleksandar Matković and Alessia Greselin.
D1.2 Sufficiency as a confluence for post-growth streams
This report explores sufficiency as a unifying concept across post-growth streams, namely Degrowth, the Doughnut economy and the Well-being economy, suggesting that embracing sufficiency could enhance coherence and effectiveness in post-growth transitions. It traces sufficiency’s historical roots and proposes refined definitions. Considering that the notion is currently gaining momentum, the report urges for the development of co-constructed sufficiency indicators and policies.
D1.3 Report on transformative indicators initiatives for a sustainable wellbeing paradigm
This deliverable explores the potential of Transformative Indicators Initiatives (T-IIs) to reshape policymaking within the European Union (EU), aiming to overcome the pre-eminence of conventional socio-economic evaluations such as GDP.
D2.1 The Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare for the EU27 and beyond: methodology, data and results
This deliverable provides a dataset featuring two variants of the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) for individual EU countries, the EU as a whole, and two non-EU countries. It is accompanied by a detailed report that outlines the data, methodologies used, and key findings from the welfare trend analysis. Covering the period from 1995 to 2020, the dataset allows for direct cross-country comparisons, as a consistent methodology was applied across all nations. This deliverable thus addresses a crucial research gap in the study of Beyond GDP indicators.
D3.1 Framework for the case studies
Document introducing a case study framework that will be used in Work Package 3 of the “ToBe” project to explore drivers, barriers and outcomes of alternative growth initiatives in the Global North and the Global South, and how these dynamics contribute to change, and even transformation, of larger economic systems and practices. The focus is on change from ‘business as usual’ to alternative economic systems.
D4.1 Report on the capacity of existing models to incorporate wellbeing and sustainability indicators
This report analyses how capable current macroeconomic models are of simulating the transition to a more just and sustainable society. First, we assess how well-represented social and environmental indicators are in a sample of 50 models. Second, we investigate the methods that are used to model these indicators in a smaller targeted sample of 15 models. Last, we analyse which variables are commonly used to determine social and environmental outcomes.
D5.1. ToBe Communication and Dissemination Plan
Document containing general information on the ToBe project and outlining the communication and dissemination activities to be undertaken during the three years of the project. It comprises a presentation of the communication and dissemination activities, as well as information on ToBe’s objectives and expected impact. It provides an overview of the project’s key messages, target group segmentation and communication instruments. Furthermore, it explains the designated evaluation and monitoring methods, elaborates on internal communication measures, and illustrates the project’s visual identity and branding.
D5.2. Communication Activity Report V.1
This document is presenting the activities carried out within ToBe WP5 Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation during the first 6 months of the project (March – August 2023). The progresses with regard to visual identity, website, social media channels, newsletter and events are presented.
D5.5. ToBe Exploitation and Sustainability Plan vol. 1
This document is the first of two Exploitation and Sustainability Plans. It serves as an initial guide to maximising ToBe’s results thereby creating an effective impact at scientific, social and economic levels. By laying out a plan, from the identification of exploitable results to the expected impact these will have, the aim is to describe the exploitation efforts in order to ensure that the project’s results continue to be utilised beyond ToBe’s contractual end date.
