Being, having,doing and interacting: towards ethical democracy, governance and stewardship

The presentation of the attached user guide aims to address the conference themes by considering the challenge posed by Stiglitz (2010) to the Australian Productivity Commission, namely to foster an understanding that the wellbeing of humanity is dependent on the global commons. The focus of the research is on addressing social, economic and environmental factors that help to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Joseph Stiglitz past president of the World Bank has stressed (at the invitation of the Australian Productivity Commission) that the bottom line is wellbeing - this requires building stocks for the future (Stiglitz, et al, 2010). Wellbeing is crucial to re-designing economics. It explores the potential for participatory democracy and governance to a) monitor, b) match services to need and c) mitigate risk and adapt to climate change. This is vital for ethics and stewardship on behalf of future generations. According to Barbara Dickens from the Urban Renewal Department: Pathways to Wellbeing software offer a unique avenue for ongoing, long-term engagement between local residents and local government. It facilitates considering the consequences of our choices for ourselves, others and the environment. These considerations are used to shape evidenced-based policy to inform decision making at the local level. By asking residents to make choices from Pathways to Wellbeing scenarios, participants are invited to make changes in their lives. It aims to help them think through the implications and consequences of their choices for themselves and future generations. The choices relate to sustainable living and the extent to which people are prepared to adapt their lives to mitigate the effects of climate change. It is hoped that this will help people to adapt to the convergent challenges and that they will be able to change their socio-economic choices through adapting their culture. Thus the research is about cultural transformation. While enabling individual citizens to manage their pathways, the software enables analysis of the responses to inform and assist local government in matching service outcomes to the perceived needs of service users. It provides a means to work out where to 'draw the line' based on inclusive testing of ideas with those who are to be affected by the decisions.It also enables comparisons across the different pathways to establish not only how the pathways differ, but also how they overlap - and therefore to find common ground with regard to their views - their concerns, values, priorities and approaches to how they want to live their lives. The paper considers the potential for a digital score card to address social, economic and environmental factors that support or undermine adaptation to the challenges and mitigation of the effects of climate change. It evaluates the extent to which the approach enables the community to consider their perceived assets and risks and the implications of their consumption choices for developing wellbeing stocks.