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Prosperity Matters | Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity

Article in Impact · November 2017

DOI: 10.21820/23987073.2017.9.33

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Impact Objectives
• Explore the economic, ecological,
social and governance dimensions of
sustainable prosperity and make concrete
recommendations to government, business
and civil society in pursuit of it
• Work with a range of academic and non-
academic partners to establish a rich
international network of collaborative research
Prosperity matters
Tim Jackson, Professor of Sustainable Development at the University of Surrey and director of
the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP) explains how their work on
sustainable prosperity aims to offer society a credible and inclusive vision of social progress
What are the aims
of the Centre for
the Understanding
of Sustainable
Prosperity (CUSP)
and what does it
hope to achieve?
The aim of CUSP is to explore what
prosperity means in a world of social and
environmental limits. Our guiding vision for
sustainable prosperity is one in which people
everywhere have the capability to flourish as
human beings – within the limits of a finite
planet. Prosperity, in this sense, goes beyond
material concerns. It is also concerned with
the health of our families, the love of our
friends, the strength of our communities.
Prosperity is as much about meaning,
identity and purpose as it is about material
accumulation. Prosperity consists of our
ability to participate meaningfully in the life
of society. We pay attention to the pragmatic
steps that need to be taken to achieve a
sustainable prosperity. In this way, we hope
to influence policy makers, businesses and
the lay public, as well as furthering academic
understanding of prosperity.
Can you tell me what the international
Nature of Prosperity Dialogue hopes
to achieve?
The task of achieving a sustainable
prosperity is essentially a social project. It
cannot be settled by research carried out
behind the walls of universities. A part of
our aim is to engage widely with a variety
of stakeholders. We have initiated some
wide ranging international dialogues on
‘The Nature of Prosperity’. This process
aims to engage civil society, policy makers
and business in understanding and
articulating sustainable prosperity. Chaired
by former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr
Rowan Williams, this is a series of public
discussions over a period of five years aimed
at understanding what it means to flourish
and to thrive as human beings.
Can you tell me about the partners in this
project and their contributions?
CUSP takes the form of a rich international
network, drawing together expert partners
from academic and non-academic
institutions as co-producers of the work
programme. Hosted by the University of
Surrey, our academic partners include Anglia
Ruskin University, Goldsmiths College
London, Keele University, the University of
Leeds, Middlesex University, York University
(Canada) and the University of Canterbury
(Christchurch, New Zealand). These
institutions share the leadership and delivery
of the MAPSS framework programme.
We have established a vital link to policy,
business and civil society by including as
co-investigators the Aldersgate Group – an
alliance of leaders from industry, politics and
society that drives action for a sustainable
economy – and the World Future Council. In
addition, CUSP provides the secretariat for
the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Limits
to Growth.
The centre is funded until January 2021.
What do you expect to happen after that
date given that this is an ongoing topic that
will certainly require future research?
(CC BY-NC 2.0) Geraint Rowland / Flickr
Clearly, we can’t expect to have definitively
answered such complex questions in the
space of a five year project. But we certainly
hope that we will have created a space for
a wide conversation, a new and ongoing
dialogue about the nature of prosperity.
We will also have built a vital new capacity
for research on prosperity amongst a new
generation of students and researchers. We
would certainly hope to be able to fund the
continuation of this work after January 2021,
and are actively seeking funding for this
future work.
How will the results of the project be
communicated?
Our communication routes are wide and
innovative. Conventional communication
through academic papers is of course vital
for a research organisation. But we want
our impact to be wider than the academic
community. Consequently, we have
commissioned a dedicated communications
programme, which has already established
a highly active web presence (www.cusp.
ac.uk) and a strong following in social
media. In addition, we distribute a regular
CUSP newsletter to highlight our activities
and achievements and a bulletin which
summarises related activities from our
own and other institutions. Finally, we have
commissioned a series of working papers
and policy briefings to develop our ideas
and reach a wider audience.
www.impact.pub 33
Redefining prosperity
The Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity is addressing the implications of sustainable
prosperity at the level of households and firms and exploring sector-level and macro-economic implications
of different pathways to prosperity
In his groundbreaking book on ecological
economics ‘Prosperity without Growth –
Foundations for the Economy of Tomorrow’,
Professor Tim Jackson issues a piercing
challenge to conventional economics by
openly questioning the most highly prized
goal of politicians and economists alike: the
continued pursuit of exponential economic
growth. This is a theme that is being
explored further through the Centre for the
Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity
(CUSP), which was set up in January 2016
and funded for five years through the UK’s
Economic and Social Research Council.
Jackson, who is a director of CUSP, argues
that a prosperous society is concerned not
only with income and financial wealth, but
also with the health and wellbeing of its
citizens, with their access to good quality
education, and with their prospects for
decent and rewarding work. ‘Prosperity
enables basic individual rights and
freedoms,’ he says. ‘But it must also
deliver the ability for people to participate
meaningfully in common projects.
Ultimately, prosperity must offer society
a credible and inclusive vision of social
progress. The overarching goal of CUSP is to
contribute to that essential task.’
THE MEANING OF WELLBEING
When it comes to defining the meaning
of prosperity, it calls for a range of
approaches and disciplines. The work
at CUSP explores not just the economic
aspects of prosperity, but also its social,
cultural and even philosophical dimensions.
‘Our research programme is inherently
multidisciplinary, because the subject itself
is multidisciplinary,’ Jackson explains.
‘Understanding prosperity is in part an
34 www.impact.pub
economic project, but it also clearly has
philosophical, social, psychological, cultural
and political dimensions. Sustainability
itself is often conceived as a predominantly
technical or economic concern. Our
approach departs from this framing. We even
explore the role of art and culture – not as an
instrumental way of delivering sustainability,
but as an integral part of prosperity itself.’
This is at the core of the centre’s ambitions,
this desire to draw together all the complex
strands of prosperity thinking and weave
them into a coherent meaning. ‘Prosperity
clearly means different things to different
people,’ Jackson continues. ‘Understanding
these meanings is a vital pre-requisite for
understanding what sustainable prosperity
might mean. That’s why we’ve established a
variety of projects that aim to elicit people’s
understandings of the good life. What does
it mean to live well? What do people tell
us about prosperity? How does this differ
in different places, or occupations, or
social contexts?’
These are vital questions and the work in this
area proceeds in various ways. Literatures
on utopia are interrogated to find out how
people in different ages have expressed their
vision of the good life. In addition, people
in business, in policy and most importantly
in society, are spoken to in order to find out
what prosperity means for them. ‘It does not
follow that these visions can be thought of as
sustainable, but understanding what people
aspire to and how they articulate their vision
of the good life is a vital starting point,’
Jackson adds.
IMPACT ON POLICY
The work at CUSP is organised under five
themes: meanings and moral framings
(the M Theme); art and culture (the A
Theme); politics and institutions (the P
Theme); societal understandings (the
S1 Theme); and, system dynamics (the
S2 Theme). These five themes form the
MAPSS Framework. The challenge of
achieving sustainable and equitable forms of
prosperity has enormous economic, social
and political significance for society.
In the aftermath of the financial crisis, and
faced with the combined challenges of
climate change, constrained resources and
widening inequalities, there is an urgent
need for creative, open dialogue to inform
our visions of social progress. ‘Research
cannot be conceived in isolation from this
dialogue, but must interact closely with
it to promote a deeper understanding of
the issues and to develop viable proposals
for change. Our proposals for CUSP are
designed with this challenge in mind,’
explains Jackson.
The Centre plans not only to contribute
to academic research on sustainable
prosperity but also impact on government
policy, business practice, civil society
organisations and the lay public. They
are already working closely with social
enterprises and social enterprise lobby
organisations to develop new business
models for sustainable prosperity. They are
also working with investment organisations
at a range of different levels, from the small
scale to large scale institutional investors,
to develop new patterns of investment that
support sustainability and contribute to
a wider prosperity. ‘A key impact to date
has been our work in parliament, where
we provide the secretariat for the All Party

We consider the role of culture not just in
communicating sustainability, but as an
inherent component of prosperity
Parliamentary Group on Limits to Growth,’
Jackson says. ‘Our work on the Nature of
Prosperity has been widely reported. We are
working closely with several international
businesses, including Aviva, Unilever
and IKEA, to develop their own thinking
around sustainable prosperity. We are also
collaborating with the Bank of England and
the United Nations to develop economic
models to understand the impact of resource
limits on the economy.’
THE ART OF PROSPERITY
Sustainability has conventionally been
conceived as predominantly a technical or
economic concern. The CUSP approach
departs from this framing and explores
the role of art and culture in delivering
prosperity. The argument is that art and
culture can help to develop visions of the
good life beyond consumerism. ‘We consider
the role of culture not just in communicating
sustainability, but as an inherent component
of prosperity,’ Jackson says. ‘Our work
develops the conceptual framework for
this approach and explores the complex
interactions between prosperity, place, work,
leisure and the right to self-expression. Our
empirical research engages directly with
cultural activities in practice.’
An example of the approach is work
undertaken with organisations like B Arts
who themselves work in some of the
poorest communities in the UK to foster
artistic creativity and to strengthen local
culture. The research suggests that both of
these activities are important elements in
prosperity. ‘In other words, we don’t just
want to use the arts to tell people what to
think; we believe that art and creativity is
a fundamental part of prosperity itself,’
Jackson adds.
However, no vision of prosperity, sustainable
or otherwise, can be effective without the
support of political institutions and of policy
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(CC.0) Josh Howard / Unsplash.com
itself. According to Jackson, the conventional
view of prosperity as an ever-expanding
cornucopia of material possessions comes
unstuck for all sorts of reasons. First of all, it
is fundamentally unsustainable in ecological
terms. But perhaps more importantly, it
fails to capture the depth and richness of
prosperity as it is expressed by people.
‘Sometimes, this idea of having more
simply undermines human happiness and
leads to continual dissatisfaction,’ Jackson
concludes. ‘At the same time, of course,
governments are committed to ensuring
economic stability, for some rather obvious
reasons: our jobs and our livelihoods depend
on the economy’. Resolving the conflicts
that arise from this are a key priority for
sustainable prosperity, and CUSP takes
these conflicts seriously. ‘We are working
not just to understand these problems
where they arise but to develop solutions:
new business models, new social visions
and new portfolios of investment. We’re
also asking critical questions about work,
employment and economic stability in a
‘post-crisis world’.
(CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Igor Cvetkovic / Flickr
Satish Kumar and Rowan Williams at the CUSP
launch event, May 2016 © Dean Whiting
Project Insights
FUNDING
Economic and Social Research Council
PROJECT PARTNERS
University of Surrey (Lead Research
Organisation) • Action for Happiness
• Aldersgate Group • Anglia Ruskin
University • B arts • Green Economy
Coalition • Happiness Works • Institute
and Faculty of Actuaries • Junction Arts
• Keele University • Middlesex University
• Monty Funk Productions • Sainsbury
Family Charitable Trust • Social
Enterprise UK • The Finance Innovation
Lab • The Guardian • Unilever UK
• United Nations Environment
Programme • University of Canterbury,
NZ • University of Leeds • Goldsmiths,
University of London • World Future
Council • York University, Canada
CO-INVESTIGATORS
Kate Burningham • Phil Catney •
Brian Doherty • Angela Druckman •
Ian Christie • Will Davies • Birgitta
Gatersleben • Marit Hammond •
Bronwyn Hayward • Aled Jones • Fergus
Lyon • Nick Molho • Kate Oakley •
Charles Seaford • Peter Victor
CONTACT
E: info@cusp.ac.uk
W: cusp.ac.uk
T: twitter.com/cusp_uk
F: facebook.com/CUSP.ac.uk
L: linkedin.com/company/centre-for-
the-understanding-of-sustainable-
prosperity
I: instagram.com/cusp_uk
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR BIO
Tim Jackson is Professor of Sustainable
Development at the University of
Surrey. His vision for CUSP builds on
30 years of multidisciplinary research
on economics and sustainability,
and decades of policy experience,
in particular his work as Economics
Commissioner for the UK Sustainable
Development Commission. He is also
an award-winning playwright with
numerous radio-writing credits for
the BBC.
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