Rli starts preparing advisory report ‘Focusing on wellbeing in environmental policy practice’

3 november 2023

In recent years, central government, provinces and municipalities have often stated that their policies are aimed at achieving wellbeing. The term ‘wellbeing’ expresses the idea that quality of life is about more than just money, material goods and services; it is also, for example, about the way we live together, the quality of the environment and how wellbeing is distributed.

How can central government ensure that its decision-making focuses in a targeted way on maintaining and enhancing wellbeing, with particular consideration for the domain of the living environment?

The key question in the report is: "How can central government ensure that decision-making focuses in a targeted way on maintaining and enhancing wellbeing, i.e. taking into account economic, social and environmental aspects, current and future generations, impacts in other parts of the world and the distribution between groups of citizens? How can focusing policy efforts on wellbeing be made practically manageable for different applications and in different situations? And how can we ensure consistency in this process?"

In the advisory report the Council will offer the next government guidance on how to focus on wellbeing and will identify the main problem areas.

The Council expects to issue its advisory report in the spring of 2024.

To comment or for more information, please contact the project leader, Douwe Wielenga, at douwe.wielenga@rli.nl, or on +31 (0)6 2124 0809