Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity - Transition Funding

在一个有限的星球上，繁荣可能意味着什么？传统的模型假设，富裕意味着物质需求的不断扩大。这一愿景定义了过去150年的人类进步。但它也对地球生物圈造成了不可持续的影响：气候变化、生物多样性丧失、土壤、河流和海洋退化。在世界上最贫穷的国家，进一步发展显然是必不可少的，因为那里的基本需求仍然得不到满足。但那种认为繁荣只能通过持续扩张来实现的观点，即使是在最富裕的国家，也不再可信。随着损害变得越来越明显，很明显，我们需要一个更好的愿景，以实现更公平，更包容，更可持续的繁荣。这就是2016年1月成立的可持续繁荣理解中心（CUSP）所面临的挑战。在最初的五年里，我们探索了如何在有限的范围内生活可以为人们提供更好，更充实的生活。但我们也发现，这种情况发生的可能性在很大程度上取决于社会的组织方式。我们研究了这些发现对家庭、企业和政府的影响，并与这些部门密切合作，了解他们的需求。我们以学术论文和政府报告的形式发展了我们的想法，我们还通过摄影展览，论文写作比赛和专业戏剧作品接触到更广泛的观众。我们的繁荣对话的性质，由前坎特伯雷大主教罗文威廉姆斯博士主持，已涉及数百人在严格的辩论对我们这个时代的关键挑战。我们的网站和社交媒体平台每月覆盖150多个国家的150，000多人。随着我们第一阶段的资助即将结束，该提案为我们未来四年制定了雄心勃勃且令人兴奋的工作计划。在这个“过渡阶段”，我们希望进一步开展突破性的研究，并通过提供六个相关的工作流程来最大限度地发挥我们的社会影响力。其中三个工作流将扩大我们的开拓性研究组合。我们将更深入地研究生活在限制之内的社会和心理层面：我们将探索商业模式的变化如何促进这种转变;我们将研究这些变化对国家和国际层面的经济意味着什么。人们需要什么才能以最可持续的方式充分发挥其潜力？如何满足绿色初创公司和社会企业的投资需求？在这个新的、可持续的、福祉的经济中，组织工作、财务和提供福利的最佳方式是什么？这些是我们将要解决的一些研究问题。与此同时，我们希望巩固我们的研究产生的经济和社会影响。另外三个工作流将有助于我们向更广泛的受众传达我们的调查结果，并使他们积极参与这些重要的辩论。我们将继续与政策制定者和议员开展重要工作，为他们提供实现可持续繁荣的激进和务实的建议。我们将与艺术界建立新的伙伴关系，例如与一家戏剧制作公司密切合作，尝试各种不同的方式，让创造力帮助我们找到一条通往可持续繁荣的道路。最后，我们将扩大我们高效的传播战略，通过我们的活动，我们的出版物，我们的网站，我们流行和充满活力的博客系列以及我们的社交媒体平台，接触更广泛和更多样化的受众。到2025年1月，CUSP将进入另一个完全资助的研究阶段，或者巩固其研究成果，建立其遗产，并安全地将其成果存档，以造福子孙后代。

What can prosperity possibly mean on a finite planet? Conventional models assume that being better off means a continual expansion of material wants and needs. That vision has defined the last one hundred and fifty years of human progress. But it has also led to unsustainable impacts on the earth's biosphere: climate change, the loss of biodiversity, the degradation of soils, rivers and oceans. Further development is clearly essential in the poorest countries in the world, where basic needs still go unmet. But the idea that prosperity can only be achieved through continued expansion, even in the richest countries, is no longer credible. As the damage becomes more and more obvious, it is clear that we need a better vision for a fairer, more inclusive, more sustainable prosperity. That is the challenge that the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP) was set up in January 2016 to address. During our first five years, we have explored how living within limits can offer people better and more fulfilling lives. But we have also discovered that the potential for this to happen depends crucially on how society is organised. We have examined the implications of these findings for households, for business, and for government and we have worked closely with each of these sectors to understand their needs. We have developed our ideas in the form of academic papers and reports for government and we have also reached out to wider audiences through photographic exhibitions, essay writing competitions and professional theatre productions. Our Nature of Prosperity dialogue, hosted by the former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, has involved hundreds of people in rigorous debates about key challenges of our time. Our website and social media platforms reach over 150,000 people every month across more than 150 countries. As our first phase of funding comes to an end, this proposal sets out an ambitious and exciting programme of work for our next four years. During this 'transition phase', we want to pursue our ground-breaking research further and maximise our societal impact by delivering six related work-streams. Three of these work-streams will expand our pioneering research portfolio. We will delve more deeply into the social and psychological dimensions of living within limits: we will explore how changes in our business models can facilitate this shift; and we will examine what these changes mean for the economy at the national and international level. What is that people need in order to achieve their full potential in the most sustainable way? How can we meet the investment needs of green start-up companies and social enterprises? What is the best way to organise work, finance and the provision of welfare in this new, sustainable, wellbeing economy? These are some of the research questions that we will address. At the same time, we want to consolidate the economic and social impacts that flow from our research. Three further work-streams will help us to communicate our findings to a wider audience and engage them actively in these vital debates. We will continue our vital work with policy-makers and parliamentarians, offering them radical and pragmatic proposals for achieving sustainable prosperity. We will develop new partnerships with the arts, working closely with a theatrical production company, for example, to experiment with different ways in which creativity can help us find a path towards sustainable prosperity. Finally, we will expand our highly effective communications strategy to reach even wider and more diverse audiences, through our events, our publications, our website, our popular and vibrant blog series, and our social media platforms. By January 2025, CUSP will either have moved on to another fully-funded phase of research or else consolidated its research outputs, established its legacy, and safely archived its outputs for the benefit of future generations.