Wellbeing Economy Policy Design

A project which supports four pilot cities through the process of designing and implementing policies for the wellbeing economy, using the Wellbeing Economy Policy Design Guide

In this moment of a profound health crisis, policymakers are confronted with a complex challenge. They must create policies that can simultaneously achieve wellbeing goals as well as counter environmental issues such as biodiversity loss and carbon emissions. To define, design, and adopt these policies requires a different way of policymaking that can deal with systemic interlinkages, trade-offs and create synergies. Citizen involvement in the policymaking process is critical to the ultimate success of such policies given ownership and support for such policies can only come when genuine collaboration takes place.

The Policy Design Guide, developed by the Wellbeing Economies Alliance (WEAll), aims to give policymakers the guidance they need to develop these types of policies with local stakeholders and partners. The Guide includes advice and examples for:

  • Developing a wellbeing vision
  • Designing a wellbeing economy strategy
  • Assessing and selecting wellbeing economy policies
  • Implementing wellbeing economy policies
  • Evaluating policy impacts on wellbeing

The Wellbeing Economy Playbook is designed to support the process of designing wellbeing economy policies. It provides an operational structure and methods for delivering the processes described in the Policy Design Guide, with guidance, structures, templates, and canvasses to be worked
with. It explores the steps of: laying the foundations, developing a wellbeing vision, assessing and selecting wellbeing economy policies, implementing wellbeing economy policies, and finally evaluating policy impacts.
*Printed copies of the Wellbeing Economy Playbook are available on request. Please write to .

In this project, ZOE Institute has partnered with the Wellbeing Economies Alliance (WEAll) to support policymakers in California, Canada, New Zealand, and Scotland as they pilot the Policy Design Guide. Through this piloting process, these four “hubs” will help us to co-create tools to support policymakers at the local, city, and regional level who want to design wellbeing economies in their communities. Using these tools and the feedback from the hubs on their experience with the policy design process, ZOE will create an interactive online platform on our Sustainable Prosperity website that policymakers can use in their own policy design processes.