The UK Government’s sustainable development strategy, ‘Securing the Future’, commits
the Government to a clearer focus on well-being. The strategy identified the need to
ensure that well-being issues are tackled consistently, in the right way, and that the
Government is genuinely making a difference to people’s lives.

Against this background, the project specification asked for a think-piece that would
explore the relationship between well-being and sustainable development.

In order to address this issue, there are three stages of research:
1. A review of the relationship between well-being and sustainable development
which will also serve to clarify some of the key concepts that will feed into the
two empirical stages that follow
2. A questionnaire to explore what stakeholders think and to provide insights into
how best to explore the relationships between well-being and sustainable
development in the workshop that follows
3. A workshop to bring together experts to focus on key questions about the possible
synergies and tensions between different concepts of well-being in a sustainable
development context