REVIEW: #futuregen
‘#futuregen – Lessons from a Small Country’ is part-memoir, part-diary, part-textbook, part-manifesto. It describes the creation of the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 from the point of view of Jane Davidson. Davidson, a former Minister in the Welsh Assembly Government, did more than any other politician to bring the WFG Act into being.
One might expect the book to be organised around the key lessons learned by Davidson, with chapter headings like: ‘build a consensus’; ‘think systemically’; ‘legislate, legislate, legislate’; and ‘no politician is bigger than the Act’. The book isn’t organised like that and instead it describes Davidson’s personal journey into and through politics, how the Act came into being and how the Act has influenced policy and life in Wales (so far).
Davidson is a former teacher (and now a lecturer); she understands the educative process; she doesn’t spoon-feed. She trusts the reader to draw key lessons out by themselves. This approach also, I think, reflects how humble she is, more than once she references light-bulb moments and occasions when her thinking was challenged and ultimately changed by others. She doesn’t mind admitting her faults, it is refreshing to read a politician (albeit a retired one), being so honest; ‘right thing at the right time’ belligerence this is not.
Policy wonks, politicians and campaigners will discover many interesting lessons as they read this book, but so too will the general reader. The Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act, is a triumph in engaging and unifying people around sustainability – in part because it drops that word, but also because it adds a fourth leg to the usual three-legged stool. Culture is added to the staples of Economy, Society and Environment. This seems to have been crucial in gaining cross-party support for the Act.
What is so impressive about the WFG Act is that it also doesn’t attempt to spoon-feed. ‘Wellbeing’ or ‘Sustainability’ aren’t imposed onto an unsuspecting public; it does not impose specific rules and regulations from on high. It simply asks the politicians and people of Wales to consider the wellbeing of future generations (their children and children’s children – but also other people’s children, both here and abroad), but leaves it up to them to decide on the appropriate actions to take – it guides and prompts, but ultimately promotes local, decentralised decision making.
Questions of what is and isn’t in the interests of future generations are of course contestable; what the Act does is to ensure their interests are considered – and seriously. That’s what is new and bold. In reviewing any policy proposal it enables politicians, civil servants and voters to ask: ‘but what about future generations?’ This question was raised when the Welsh Government debated and ultimately blocked the development of the proposed M4 relief road in south Wales and again recently when the Dulais Valley opencast mind was refused a license to continue operating.
But the Act isn’t just there to prevent future harms, it also allows Politicians to put forward ideas that will benefit future generations. It might argue for example that we have a duty to plant an orchard not so we can enjoy its fruits, but because our children will need fruit (and a carbon sink; and shade from future heatwaves; and something nicer to look at than an industrial estate). It galvanises those who want to act on behalf of the future; they can point at the WFG Act and say: ‘this gives us the mandate’.
Many more lessons can be drawn from this book, they are there to be discovered, I too won’t spoon feed them to you. But I do have a few broader observations about the book and the Act…
Hopefulness
I was expecting a bit more thunder. The book is hopeful about the future and thus echoes the ‘feel good narratives’ we’re used to hearing about climate change. It is solutions focused, there is talk of being given hope by ‘wonderful human beings.’ This positivity is understood by many to be motivating – people only act when they have something positive to aim for, or so the story goes. Negativity is to be avoided.
Davidson doesn’t go deep into the into the nature and severity of the climate and ecological emergency we face. This is not a book that will inspire any outrage (also a powerful motivator) about the failings of our political leaders. If anything, it will add to the sense that, thanks to the WFG Act, things are under control; that the wellbeing of future generations is in safe hands (in Wales at least). Sadly, they really aren’t; we are being let down by politicians; things are worse than many might think. As Kevin Anderson and Isak Stoddard recently put it ‘peel away the layers of obfuscation and even these ‘climate leaders’ [UK and Swedish Government’s] are actively choosing to fail – and by a huge margin.’ We are living in a ‘climate of comfortable ignorance’.
The sooner the general public understand quite how threatened their children and children’s children are, the sooner they will understand why the WFG Act is so necessary and why Wales’ children are in slightly better hands than most. They will also realise that the wellbeing of future generations can’t ever be the sole responsibility of the Government; the WFG Act makes the Welsh Government’s hands safer than most, but politicians can’t ensure the wellbeing of future generations on their own; all our hands need to be put to the pump. It will take an almighty effort to bend the arc of history towards something more compassionate, more civil, more democratic, more equal and well. Advocates for the Act need to emphasise that a bit more I think, the transition is urgent, it won’t just happen, we all need to make it happen.
To put it bluntly, once we step out of the climate of comfortable ignorance, we will properly understand why the Act exists and be incredibly grateful to Davidson and her colleagues for the work they have done to make it a reality. Davidson may have held back on the thunder under the assumption that readers of this particular book (a quite specialist audience) are up to speed on the true scale of the challenges. However, it may be necessary for those, like Sophie Howe, Wales’ first Future Generations Commissioner, to be a bit more straight with the Welsh public (and potentially some politicians and civil servants).
Sport
Sport is missing from the book; I was hoping to read favourable comments from cult figures like Geraint Thomas, Alun Wyn Jones, Gareth Bale and Nicole Cooke. Could their voices and influence be harnessed to engage more people in the WFG Act? Sport is part of the culture of Wales; ask any of the 72,000 people at any Welsh rugby international if they would like future generations to experience what it is like to watch their country take on the world’s best and they will say yes. So will the millions or so more who gather to watch the big match round their TV’s in homes, pubs and clubs.
Wales’ sporting infrastructure is far from perfect, yet it has huge potential to boost the wellbeing of communities and individuals. The WFG Act could be a lever to develop our sporting infrastructure, what can be done to boost participation and spectatorship? How can we get children and adults back onto the terraces and pitches so that this central part of Welsh culture survives for future generations? Sport and sustainability, when re imagined, can go hand in hand – near neighbours Forest Green Rovers FC are proving that.
I’ve been watching Jonny Owen’s brilliant documentary ‘Don’t Take Me Home’ again this week, if the WFG agenda can tap into even 5% of that emotion and connection it will fly.
The language
It may be in production already, but I wonder if a Welsh language version of #futuregen would be helpful? Welsh speaking advocates of WFG Act are needed, they surely exist, and their influence could help engage more people. Failing to do this risks the Act being written off as a threat to deeply ingrained cultures and customs and therefore something to oppose. Advocates for the Act are as important as the Act itself; they can help people to identify with it and see how it applies to them. Davidson does discuss the language and its importance both to Wales and the Act, a Welsh language version of her book would reinforce this message powerfully.
Land
Sustainability and more narrowly, environmentalism, is for some in Wales a ‘hippy’ idea pursued by English ‘drop-outs’ in west Wales who don’t much like sheep and dairy farming. In short, it has a bit of an image problem. The abandonment of ‘sustainability’ as a headline term in the WFG Act is helpful in this regard, it helps shed the image. However, if things done in the name of the WFG Act have too strong a whiff of ‘hippy environmentalism’ (and there are warning signs), it will fuel the unhelpful culture wars that already exist in Wales; cynics, sceptics and traditionalists might well reject anything proposed under the WFG banner accusing it of being a cover for other agendas.
The wellbeing of future generations depends more than anything on our relationship with our land. Broadly speaking, that relationship, right now, is not environmentally or economically sustainable. The WFG Act can help that relationship to develop so that it becomes a blend of centuries old tradition and modern, resilient, social and environmental sustainability. Our relationship with our land is up for grabs right now more than it has been for decades. The impacts of Brexit will start to be felt in deprived rural areas in the coming years; innovation will be needed to secure the future of farming communities – the WFG Act was designed to facilitate that innovation. Landowners and tenants will be subject to rules and regulations that are informed by the Act. This needs to be framed as a positive thing, for it gives farmers leverage to do things they perhaps couldn’t before. Ben Lake MP (for Ceredigion) has recently written favourably about the WFG Act, if trusted voices like his can be amplified in rural communities the positive potential of the Act will come into focus for more and more people.
Thinking
Finally, Donella Meadows. The late American environmentalist and co-author of The Limits to Growth, is referenced, a lot, by Davidson. Quotes from Meadows introduce all but one of the book’s six main chapters. It is not that Davidson is not well read, or that Meadows is not a suitable source of inspiration, but the breadth of environmental thought that is worked into the book feels quite narrow and small ‘c’ conservative. The limits of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the UNFCCC process are not critiqued and the way the WFG Act might draw on emerging thinking around concepts like Degrowth, Deep Adaptation, Doughnut Economics, Mutual Aid and Rewilding are not explored. I’m sure Davidson has views on all these, I would love to hear them, perhaps they will find their way into another book.
As Sophie Howe notes in the ‘Last Word’ she was asked her to contribute for this book, we will not know how successful the WFG Act has been for a few years yet, probably decades and it isn’t without its critics. What is beyond question is that its existence alone is a massive achievement and it is already having an impact through the projects that provide exciting case studies throughout the book. But, as with all sustainability initiatives, the acid test is whether it proves to be more than just another way to pick the low hanging fruit.
With this Act, Wales could lead the way in so many areas; e.g. climate change adaptation, abandonment of GDP as a measure of progress, nature-based solutions, planned degrowth, re-wilding, equality and environmental education. Question is, will political leaders emerge who are brave enough and visionary enough to realise the full potential of the Act? I hope they will and when they do, they will be standing on the shoulders of a giant, Jane Davidson. Her story, Wales’ story, can’t but inspire.
You can follow Jane Davidson on Twitter and follow her work via her website.