Learning from best practice in sustainable governance performance

This PhD project is a partnership between Natural England and the University of Exeter RENEW project 'Community Action' theme. Many communities are broadening strategic planning beyond conventional economic tools to include measures of health, wellbeing, nature and sustainability (Kubiszewski et al. 2013; Stiglitz et al 2018; Cavalletti and Corsi 2018; Sunderland and Butterworth 2016). The tools can be used in public management decision making systems, and for democratic accountability to political communities (James et al. 2020).

This PhD research project will identify political communities with high performance -especially those achieving health and wellbeing without compromising nature or sustainability, and communities with best practice in the use of strategic tools to promote an integrated approach to promoting these outcomes. The research will assess the potential for spreading best practice at different levels of governance (international, national, regional and local political communities) especially to inform research about the Health, Wellbeing, Nature and Sustainability (HWNS) tool being used by Natural England and local authority partners in England. The theories and methods will be drawn from social and behavioural sciences as used in the fields of public policy, political science, public management, ecological economics, behavioural economics, psychology, geography and sociology. Quantitative methods will be used drawing on available data, supplemented by case studies about the use of the tools. The project outputs will include a PhD thesis and findings for Natural England and local public authorities using, or planning to use, tools of this kind.

Cavalletti, B., & Corsi, M. (2018). "Beyond GDP" effects on national subjective well-being of OECD countries. Social Indicators Research, 136(3), 931-966.

James, O., Olsen, A. L., Moynihan, D. P., & Van Ryzin, G. G. (2020). Behavioral public performance: How people make sense of government metrics. Cambridge University Press.

Kubiszewski, I., Costanza, R., Franco, C., Lawn, P., Talberth, J., Jackson, T., & Aylmer, C. (2013). Beyond GDP: Measuring and achieving global genuine progress. Ecological economics, 93, 57-68.

Sunderland, T., & Butterworth, T. (2016). Meeting local economic decision-maker's demand for environmental evidence: The Local Environment and Economic Development (LEED) toolkit. Ecosystem Services, 17, 197-207.

Stiglitz, J.E., Fitoussi, J-P and Durand, M. 2018 Beyond GDP: Measuring What Counts for Economic and Social Performance. Paris, OECD Publishing.