Over the past several months, I've been involved with a group examining the notion of well-being economies. Seeking a deeper understanding of the concept, I came across a 2020 article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review by Anna Chrysopoulou that posed a compelling vision for what a well-being economy might look like. "To solve the social, economic, and environmental challenges we face today, we need to rethink the status quo. Governments and other institutions around the world need to...

I love this, Robert! Thank you for sharing. I think Cooperative Extension has a critical role in advocating for a well-being focused economy. Cooperative Extension was created to meet the needs of our communities, and our communities need well-being champions!

Historically, Extension has worked in silos employing downstream measures, "focusing on health interventions related to poor diet" and "encouraging consumer demand for healthy food," along with upstream approaches to improving agricultural supply chains. Perhaps to mitigate the effects of larger problems it is time to break down the silos within our system, employ an Extension Health in All Policies and Programs , and attend to "root causes and interconnectedness" as an approach to social,...

Great piece - this will be good bite-size fodder to help catalyze conversations with my natural-resource and CED extension colleagues.

Really enjoying the SSIR article and the idea of connecting this to extension work. Made me think of the "Health in All Policies: Working Across Sectors in Cooperative Extension to Promote Health for All" (Journal of Human Sciences and Extension, Volume 6, Number 2, 2018). https://www.jhseonline.com/article/view/718 One key idea that stands out to me - the for this to take hold it will require extension to embrace the ideas from the ground up, and the top down. because extension has such...

Many counties around the work are questioning the way they measure progress as a nation. Instead of an economy based on the expectation of continual economic growth, they are thinking about building economies that promote well-being of people and the planet. This TedX presentation by Katherine Trebek of the Well-Being Economy Alliance shares her thoughts about why the transition is essential. Watch the presentation at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt9NKulHTDE What are your thoughts?

Hi Roger, thanks for sharing this article. I whole heartedly agree. I particularly liked this statement "A well-being economy recognizes that people need to restore a harmonious relationship between society and nature, enjoy a fair distribution of resources, and live in healthy and resilient communities, and these elements are beginning to emerge in the individual policies of several countries." I do think this is a vision that Extension is well positioned to assist with. We are rooted in...

@Deborah John is spot on. The real opportunity is for Extension to lead this conversation in all program areas. This will take genuine, inspired leadership on everyone’s part and a willingness to reduce our commitment to the program-driven expert model and engage with people and communities to be part of the solution. In many states, the performance evaluation model for Extension workers will need to shift to parameters that reflect engagement, trust-building, generative conversations, and...

Thanks for sharing this article and posting this prompt Roger. I absolutely think Cooperative Extension has a unique and critical role to play in helping our communities transition to a well-being economy. Perhaps even an obligation! In fact this is something I looked closely at over the course of my year-long Extension Foundation fellowship back in 2018. My particular focus was on how Land Grants, Extension, and libraries like my own at Cornell might help optimize local and regional food...