The lives of citizens not yet born need more consideration in the decision-making of today, says Sophie Howe, the world's first-ever Future Generations Commissioner.
"This is not our planet to trash and destroy, this is our planet to pass on to the next generation," she tells Kathryn Ryan.
Sophie Howe Photo: supplied
Sophie Howe served as the Welsh Future Generations Commissioner until January 2023. She is giving talks around New Zealand as a guest of Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures.
Watch Sophie Howe's webinar on intergenerational stewardship for Aotearoa NZ here.
It was forward-thinking and "particularly sassy" Welsh environment minister Jane Davidson who led the charge for future-proofing the country's public institutions, Howe says.
In 2015, Wales' "revolutionary" Well-being of Future Generations Act laid out seven long-term well-being goals as a kind of "vision for the country".
The following year, Howe was appointed as Future Generations Commissioner, and tasked with ensuring the Welsh government and other institutions were meeting the current population's needs without compromising the ability of future generations to do the same.
Her "first big test" in the job was requesting the government justify its decision to spend NZ$2.9 billion on a new 13-mile stretch of motorway in response to traffic congestion.
"To cut a long story short, they struggled to provide that justification. And following that intervention, they changed their mind. And it didn't stop there. What we then did was to transform the whole transport strategy for the entire of Wales. So we put private car use at the bottom of the list of priorities, if you like, and put public transport and infrastructure for walking, cycling and, you know, connecting communities in that way, at the top of our priority list.
"Show me how building roads makes sense to meeting the goal of a healthier Wales. We've got an obesity problem and we've got an air pollution problem ... we know that lower-income families, many don't own a car. Actually, public transport investments are the sort of investments which are much better to tackle those inequalities."
With most countries, including New Zealand, working on short-term political cycles it's no wonder governments don't get around to contemplating how decision-making affects the future health, Howe says.
"If we think about those health care systems across the world, it would be the fifth biggest emitter of carbon in the world. So on the one hand, we've got that, on the other hand, they're trying to keep people well and treat them when they're ill, but they're actually causing some of the problems that are going to make people ill in the first place. So we have to recognise everything is connected to everything that's not always easy to navigate. But this is why it requires this whole-system thinking and a set of aspirations that you're working towards.
"For a long time, governments have focused on what's immediately in front of them - how long has it taken you to get an ambulance, how long does it take to get health care, treatment, and so on? Of course, that's important. But actually, it's the wider things, perhaps the things that governments haven't prioritised, like creating cohesive communities in the way we plan, design and build cities, like preparing for the older population and who is going to meet those care needs in the future. It's those things which are in many cases more important than what the healthcare system itself does.
"The system is constructed against doing all of this, it's constructed to deal with the short term ... Even the performance measures that our health service or our local authorities would have, they're all short-term measures. The system isn't joined up, it doesn't work together across departments or across organisations.
"So I spent a lot of my time as commissioner, introducing civil servants in one department or to civil servants in another department, sometimes banging heads together, people who weren't working together, posing those questions - show me the long-term trends you've used in this policy development, show me how you're joining the dots between different areas."
No matter how well-intentioned a government is, Howe says, they require an external challenge to become "brave".
"When you set a vision of where you want to be, it's easier to work out what steps you can take to get towards that. It's much more difficult when you're sort of trying to inspire people to take action or sometimes to do difficult things when they're just trying to avoid catastrophe. And I think that that's a lot of the narrative internationally - 'How do we avoid this catastrophic event?'"
The UN's recent creation of a Special Envoy for Future Generations - a multi-national equivalent of Howe's former role - shows that a small nation change can influence policy at a global scale, she says.
New Zealand could join Wales as part of "a league of small and awesome nations" that are forward-thinking in their governance.
"There are some interesting things going on in New Zealand in terms of the adoption of a Wellbeing Budget. Why shouldn't the government be mandated to focus on spending money for the well-being of its citizens, rather than just focusing on economic growth?"
A Future Generations Commissioner here could be help protect Aotearoa's natural assets, Howe says, but also Māori language, culture and heritage.
"[Wales] put some big investments into our language, and it's now one of the fastest-growing minority languages because we've taken the decision. That's an important thing to pass on to the next generation."
