The One Planet Centre

If you ever wondered how local or national government can save the planet, you need to do this online-only course from next October, and learn from a critique of Wales’ Well-being of Future Generation Act and examples from all over the world.

The PGCert One Planet Governance programme will provide a continual professional development opportunity for sustainable political, civic and public governance, administration and policymaking.

Well-being as a measure of governments’ success has risen up the agenda, particularly as a result of the covid-19 pandemic.

Here are some recent developments that are making this course more and more relevant:

• In May 2020, Wales joined Scotland, Iceland and New Zealand in a Wellbeing Economy Alliance.
• A Wellbeing of Future Generations Act has been introduced to the Westminster parliament.
• At the end of March WWF published this report on the links between the loss of nature and rise of pandemics. The crisis has shown how social and environmental well-being are intricately co-dependent.
• In March also, Amsterdam became one of the first cities in the world to adopt the “doughnut economics model” as a means to help it become genuinely socially and ecologically sustainable. Philadelphia and Portland, Oregon are among other cities following suit.

Taught by the Director of the One Planet Centre, David Thorpe, the course explains how local and national governments can sustain humanity and their local populations within planetary limits, building on the doughnut model, using lots of examples from all over the world, including a critical examination of the Well-being of Future Generations Act.

Austerity, unemployment and social deprivation will for some time continue to be a global feature of life post-pandemic. Doing things differently – with communities, health, and the state of the planet at the heart of our policies and actions – will be the way to build back better.

Learning online has become much more popular and accepted since the covid-19 crisis began, and it will be easy to do the course from wherever you are in the world. To find out more, click here.