What if the economy was not something separate from our lives, but the way we organise care, food, housing, work, relationships, resources, and responsibility to future generations?
That is the question at the heart of the wellbeing economy movement. Rather than treating economic growth as the ultimate measure of success, a wellbeing economy asks whether our systems are meeting the needs of people and the planet. It shifts the focus from profit and productivity alone towards care, connection, reciprocity, ecological health, and collective flourishing.
In this episode of Voices of the New Economy, Sally from WEAll Aotearoa shares how this work is unfolding in Aotearoa New Zealand, and why economic system change must be grounded in place, long-term thinking, and Māori values.
Moving Beyond GDP
One of the central ideas behind a wellbeing economy is that GDP is not enough. Economic growth can tell us whether more goods and services are being produced and exchanged, but it cannot tell us whether people are safe, connected, nourished, housed, healthy, or living meaningful lives.
A wellbeing economy begins by asking a deeper question: what is the purpose of the economy?
If the economy is meant to support human and ecological wellbeing, then our systems need to be designed around that purpose. This means rethinking what we measure, what we value, and what kinds of decisions we reward.
It also means recognising that the economy is not a natural force with fixed laws. It is a social system shaped by political choices, cultural values, and collective priorities. If we have built it one way, we can build it differently.
Learning from Māori Worldviews
A key theme in the conversation is the alignment between wellbeing economies and Māori worldviews.
Sally explains that Māori approaches to economy are grounded in interconnectedness: people are not separate from the natural world, but part of living ecological systems. Values such as reciprocity, stewardship, collective flourishing, and intergenerational responsibility are central.
This creates a very different starting point from an economy based on individualism, extraction, and short-term profit. Instead of asking how much can be taken, a wellbeing economy asks how people and place can thrive together.
Importantly, this is not about treating Indigenous knowledge as an abstract inspiration while leaving existing systems unchanged. It means creating the structural conditions for Māori economies to organise according to their own values, priorities, and forms of collective ownership.
The Role of Government
Government has an important role to play in shifting the conditions that currently force communities and organisations to operate within market-based systems.
Sally points to the idea of a Future Generations Act as one example of a powerful systems lever. Inspired by Wales, this kind of legislation would require governments to make decisions with long-term wellbeing in mind, rather than being trapped in short election cycles.
This matters because many of the crises we face are the result of short-term decision-making. Climate change, housing insecurity, inequality, and ecological degradation cannot be solved through policies designed only for the next budget cycle or election campaign.
A future generations approach asks: what do we owe to those who come after us?
Wellbeing in Practice
The wellbeing economy is not only a policy idea. It is already visible in practical, place-based initiatives.
Community supported agriculture, local food systems, community land trusts, co-housing, public banking, distributive energy systems, cooperatives, and universal basic services all offer glimpses of what a different economy can look like.
These examples show that economic transformation does not only happen through national policy. It also happens in neighbourhoods, farms, businesses, councils, and communities where people are already experimenting with new ways of meeting needs and sharing resources.
The challenge is not that alternatives do not exist. The challenge is creating the conditions for them to grow, connect, and become part of a wider systems shift.
Business as a Site of Change
While much of the wellbeing economy conversation focuses on government and policy, Sally also highlights the role of business.
Business is often treated as part of the problem, especially when it is driven by shareholder returns, extraction, and endless growth. But businesses can also become sites of transformation, particularly when they shift ownership, governance, purpose, and accountability.
Small businesses, cooperatives, social enterprises, and values-led organisations can help model different ways of distributing wealth, sharing power, and embedding care into economic life.
The question is not simply whether business is good or bad. It is what kind of business, owned by whom, for what purpose, and accountable to which values.
Living the Change
One of the most powerful threads in the conversation is the reminder that economic change is not only institutional. It is also embodied.
The way we work for change matters. If we are trying to create economies based on care, connection, and wellbeing, we cannot do that from a constant state of urgency, burnout, and disconnection.
That does not mean individual lifestyle changes are enough. But it does mean that how we live, relate, consume, organise, and make decisions can either reproduce the current system or prefigure something different.
A wellbeing economy asks us to imagine a society where people have enough time, security, and support to care for each other, participate in community life, connect with nature, and live in alignment with their values.
Another Economy Is Already Emerging
The wellbeing economy is not a distant utopia. It is a practical and political project already taking shape in communities, organisations, Indigenous economies, policy campaigns, and local experiments around the world.
It asks us to stop treating growth as the goal and start asking what kind of lives our economy makes possible.
An economy that meets basic needs, respects place, supports future generations, and allows people and the planet to flourish together. That is the promise of a wellbeing economy.
