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Wales’s Future Fuels: Powering industrial vehicles and plant in a net zero Wales 

In November 2025, Cynnal Cymru convened a roundtable on behalf of our member, Wales & West Utilities, to explore the challenges of decarbonising vehicles and plant currently unsuitable for electrification.

We welcomed multi-sector stakeholders comprising fleet managers, policy and sector specialists, industry experts and alternative fuel providers to discuss policy, investment, impact on workforce, public perception and driver experience of different fuels.

There was consensus that for many fleet operators, a transition to current battery-electric technology and infrastructure alone will not be viable without significant change or compromise of services. The emerging insights centred on an urgent need for enhanced data, mapping, fleet manager support and recognition of current user-experience to build confidence in transitioning away from diesel.

Citing uncertainty as a prime reason for delays in decarbonisation, stakeholders also called for equitable investment in alternative fuels such as compressed natural gas, hydrogen and HVO and opportunities for those on the ground to access and trial these alternatives.

Read the Wales’s Future Fuels Roundtable Report.

If you are interested in Cynnal Cymru’s facilitation or convening services, please get in touch!

Wales’s Future Fuels: Powering industrial vehicles and plant in a net zero Wales  Read More »

Living Wage Week 2025 – the difference it makes

This month, the Fair Economy team at Cynnal Cymru look back at the highlights from this year’s Living Wage Week – an annual celebration of the Living Wage movement in the UK.

Cynnal Cymru are the Living Wage Foundation’s accreditation partner for Wales and have been championing the Living Wage movement in Wales since 2016.

During this time, around 20,869 additional people in Wales have been uplifted to the Real Living Wage, adding £141m in additional income for low-wage earners, with almost 600 employers including Principality, Coaltown Coffee, Fabulous Welshcakes and Ogi becoming accredited. 

Living Wage Week highlights

We kicked off Living Wage Week in Wales with our annual national event held at the beautiful Norwegian Church in Cardiff Bay.

Together, we celebrated the real impact of the Living Wage, Living Hours, and Living Pensions, and looked ahead to new developments across the Living Wage in Wales.

We heard talks from Leaders of local authorities, talking about why they have made their local authorities Living Wage Employers – we were delighted that Vale of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire both took the final step in accreditation to mark this Living Wage Week.

The Future Generations Commissioner Derek Walker spoke about why they’ve asked all public bodies in Wales to make a plan to become Living Wage Employers by 2027.

“The Future Generations Commissioner, Derek Walker, has asked all councils to commit to paying their staff a Real Living Wage, in his Future Generations Report, 2025, published ahead of May’s Senedd elections. Each of Wales’ 56 public bodies, he says, should have a plan for accreditation within two years in a critical step towards tackling poverty.” 

And it was also great to have a video from the First Minister, Eluned Morgan talking about the Welsh Government’s commitment to the Living Wage.

On Wednesday of Living Wage Week, we attended the Well-being Economy – Festival of Ideas event, held in Swansea arena. Here we had some great conversations around the Living Wage, with already accredited organisations and organisations who wanted to hear more about it.

We ended the week in Wrexham. We were delighted to attend the Living Wage North Wales event, hosted by the Future Generations Commissioner. Bringing together partners from across the public, private and voluntary sectors to discuss how we can promote the Living Wage and tackle in-work poverty across the region.

A big thank you to everyone who joined the conversation and shared insights, experiences and ideas.

If you’re interested in joining the Living Wage, Living Hours, and Living Pensions movement, please contact the Living Wage Wales team.

Living Wage Week 2025 – the difference it makes Read More »

Building a movement for change – Cynnal Cymru celebrates 2002 learners on Carbon Literacy Action Day and COP30!

On 13 November, we’re celebrating an important milestone during the fifth annual global Carbon Literacy Action Day, as we reach 2002 Carbon Literacy learners who have successfully completed our training. On the day we are excited to be working with Natural Resources Wales (NRW) focusing on how their staff connect with the communities they serve to create more opportunities for positive action on climate and nature. 

The Carbon Literacy Project’s Action Day is a movement that sees the largest number of people, from all corners of the globe, simultaneously complete Carbon Literacy training in a single day. It is the world’s largest climate education and action training event. Carbon Literacy training was recognised in 2021 by the United Nations as one of the top 100 global transformative action programs with the potential for significant impact. 

In Wales, we’re working towards a positive ‘tipping point’ of over 25% of organisations having Carbon Literate staff with their individual pledges causing ripples of influence across workplaces, communities, and supply chains.

We became the official partner for the Carbon Literacy Project in Wales in 2017, when we delivered our first Carbon Literacy course. Since then, we have trained over 354 organisations across the private, public and voluntary sectors in Carbon Literacy, with 4004 individual pledges for action. 

The headline result of this is an *estimated average carbon reduction of 3.6 tonnes of CO2 per learner and £1,000 of cost savings per year. For our programme to date this is now 7,207 tonnes of CO2 and £4 million of cost savings, all helping our planet and our pockets during these tough times. There are also many more impacts around improved health, employability, cross-team working, and service improvements.

Louise Cartwright, Head of Training and Advice said: 

“We’re delighted to announce that we have surpassed the ‘2000 certified’ in Carbon Literacy mark. Congratulations to the most recent graduates and many thanks to all learners and the Natural Resource Wales and Trivallis Housing Association Training Team, for helping us to reach our certified learners’ target!” 

Taking part in Carbon Literacy Action Day 2025 reflects Cynnal Cymru’s commitment to global climate responsibility. We view Carbon Literacy as an essential step toward embedding climate education and action throughout organisations in Wales as we all seek to deliver a fairer and greener future for current and future generations 

Find out more about our training where we’ll help you to understand what you can do to take action on climate change. 

*Estimations are based on figures from the Carbon Literacy Project.

Building a movement for change – Cynnal Cymru celebrates 2002 learners on Carbon Literacy Action Day and COP30! Read More »

Cynnal Cymru’s 2026 Senedd Election Living Wage Policies

The Living Wage has been one of the most successful civic campaigns seen in the UK.

In less than 15 years, over 16,000 employers across the UK have accredited as a Living Wage Employer – with around 12% of the workforce now working for one. Hundreds of thousands of people have received a pay rise directly at the point of accreditation.

In Wales, we now have over 600 Living Wage Employers, covering nearly 12% of the workforce.

This growth has continued despite cost of living challenges in recent years, with the real Living Wage rising by 41% since 2020.

Cynnal Cymru – Sustain Wales – started working with the Living Wage Foundation in 2016, as the accreditation partner for Wales. We work on a ‘franchise’ model, in essence hosting Living Wage Wales in-house. We are a sustainability charity, who work for the benefit of future generations. The UN’s 8th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) is Decent Work and Economic Growth, with a Living Wage a core component of this, and other, SDGs. Working on the Living Wage is therefore a perfect fit for our charitable objectives.

In the nine years we have been working on the Living Wage, our work with the Living Wage Foundation has seen 21,000 people getting a pay rise directly at the point of their employer’s accreditation. However, we know the actual impact is even bigger than this. Academics at Cardiff Business School have identified a ‘shadow Living Wage’, with thousands of workers having their pay pegged to the Living Wage without accreditation. This is due to the strength of the Living Wage brand, and the work of other organisations such as trade unions calling for the Living Wage as a minimum in collective bargaining agreements.

We have made great progress on the Living Wage in Wales. Our employer network is growing, our network of steering groups to organise on the Living Wage across Wales are growing, and more and more organisations are joining the campaign.

We were delighted earlier this year to see the Future Generations Commissioner ask all public bodies in Wales to make a plan to accredit as a Living Wage Employer by 2027.

However, there is still more to do.

The Welsh Government’s annual Wellbeing of Wales report found this year that only 67% of people in Wales earn more than the Living Wage. This is an increase from 64% the year before, but we will only ensure we are a nation that provides a Living Wage for everyone if we double-down on our public policy efforts to support a Living Wage.

We believe that the following proposals are credible, evidence-based asks for all parties to include in their manifestos for the 2026 Senedd elections, and would represent a strong step towards tackling the cost of living crisis and in-work poverty in Wales.

Cynnal Cymru’s 2026 Senedd Election Living Wage Policies

1. Living Wage First: publicly funded organisations should pay a Living Wage

The Welsh Government should require any public sector grant recipient to demonstrate that it is paying at least the real Living Wage before it can access a grant. This policy exists in Scotland, where their ‘Fair Work First’ policy requires a number of Fair Work conditions to be met before a public sector grant can be given, including evidence of payment of the real Living Wage.

We support a version of this being introduced in Wales, with three non-negotiables: payment of a real Living Wage, provision of access to trade unions, and provision of contracts with guaranteed working hours (with the Living Hours accreditation providing a potential basis for this).

The Welsh Government should not be providing financial support to organisations who are not paying a Living Wage – the 2026 Senedd election should mark the end of this practice. We call on all parties to specifically adopt this policy in their manifestos.

2. Strengthen and protect the Living Wage for Social Care Workers

The policy of a real Living Wage for social care workers has made a big difference in the lives of many social care workers. However, there is clear evidence that cracks have started to emerge in the policy.

The current system sees Welsh Government pass the funding for the real Living Wage down to local authorities, who are then expected to pass it on to care providers, who are then expected to finally pass it on to the social care workers themselves.

We have seen the different entities in this chain claim that the system is not working as it should be. The Welsh Government’s own research shows that only 84% of care workers are being paid a Living Wage. Although this is considerably higher than the estimated 44% that were being paid a Living Wage before the last Senedd election, there is still work to do to ensure that all care workers are being paid a minimum of a real Living Wage. Care work is skilled, demanding work and people in the sector deserve to have a Living Wage as a pay floor.

We are calling on all parties to sign up to guaranteeing that a Welsh Government led by their party will ensure all social care workers receive the real Living Wage, using the new Fair Pay Agreement mechanism to ensure that the real Living Wage is the minimum wage rate for social care in Wales. This should be backed up by adequate funding from the next Welsh Government to realise this policy, with the funding ring-fenced if necessary.

3. All public bodies in Wales should be accredited Living Wage Employers

Paying the real Living Wage to all directly employed staff is a good start, but there is more for employers to do. Some employers may pay their directly employed staff a real Living Wage, but also outsource contracts such as cleaning and security services for their premises to companies who do not pay a real Living Wage. This means that there is essentially a loophole where employers can avoid paying the Living Wage to some of their lowest paid staff.

The Living Wage Employer accreditation requires payment of the Living Wage to all of these staff members, giving confidence that all who should be paid a Living Wage, are being paid a Living Wage.

Mark Drakeford and Eluned Morgan have both written in their capacity as First Minister to all public bodies in Wales asking them to become accredited Living Wage Employers, and the Future Generations Commissioner has recommended that all public bodies become accredited Living Wage Employers by 2027.

However, it is still only a small minority of public bodies who have done this. We are asking all political parties to state in their manifestos that all public bodies (as defined by the Well-being of Future Generations Act) will be mandated to become accredited Living Wage Employers. This can be done by mechanisms such as remit letters, or instructions by the relevant Cabinet Secretary.

Cynnal Cymru’s 2026 Senedd Election Living Wage Policies Read More »

The potential for the Living Wage in Wales

At Cynnal Cymru, we are getting ourselves ready for Living Wage Week – always one of the busiest times in our Fair Economy team’s calendar.

We’re the Living Wage Foundation’s accreditation partner for Wales – in essence, that means we host Living Wage Wales in-house. Our Fair Economy team supports employers across Wales to become accredited Living Wage Employers. We also work with the Welsh Government on their Foundational Economy agenda – and there is an interlink between these two programmes. One of the Welsh Government’s objectives on the Foundational Economy is to help facilitate rising wages in the ‘foundational’ sectors, including through promoting the real Living Wage.

The Living Wage campaign is one of the most successful campaigns of the past quarter of a century. The campaign for a Living Wage has cross party political support and is a movement of independent businesses, organisations and citizens who believe a hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay.

The movement began at a meeting in East London, when the grassroots organisation Citizens UK – the home of community organising – brought together churches, mosques, schools and other local institutions to talk about the issues affecting their communities. One issue came up again and again – low pay.

The Living Wage campaign was launched, and also called on employers to pay their outsourced cleaners, caterers and security guards working a wage that met their everyday needs.

Supporters held rallies and charity music gigs. A big march down the Mile End road called for all staff working in East London hospitals to be paid a Living Wage. These hospitals were among the first employers to join our movement – followed by local schools and big City firms.

In 2011, the UK Living Wage rate was launched. And in 2016, Cynnal Cymru became the accreditation partner in Wales. We have worked with a range of employers and individuals who have been willing to go above and beyond to support the Living Wage in Wales. Cardiff Council, Cardiff Business School, Welsh Government, Citizens UK, and too many other partners to name on our steering groups have donated time and effort to supporting the movement.

So where are we on the Living Wage in Wales, and how much more potential is there in this programme?

For starters – we have nearly 600 accredited Living Wage Employers in Wales now, who collectively employ 160,000 employees. This is rising all the time. We’ve supported leading lights from the private, public, and third sectors to accredit – for example, Admiral, Principality Building Society, and Cardiff, Rhondda Cynon Taf, and Bridgend local authorities.

We often talk about a ‘delivery gap’ in devolution – how do well-meaning frameworks and strategies become on-the-ground delivery? We’re very happy to say that we are playing a role in bridging this gap.

To date, our running total is 21,000 ‘uplifts’ to the real Living Wage directly at the point of accreditation from still-accredited employers – that is, as a direct result of this programme employers have lifted over 21,000 workers off the statutory minimums and on to a wage floor that is based on independent research into the real cost of living. These 21,000 workers receive a pay rise each year, also based on the cost of living.

In times when we talk about a cost of living crisis, this is really important. We know that the costs of essentials such as food and housing have increased significantly over recent years. Living Wage Employers are doing their part to ensure wages keep pace with the cost of living, even in challenging times.

Living Wage Employers don’t just take care of their directly employed workers, either. Our accreditations require in-scope contractors to be paid the real Living Wage. Security and cleaning staff are often outsourced – but our accreditations don’t allow them to be left behind. The movement started with these workers asking for fair pay, and every Living Wage Employer ensures these workers receive the Living Wage, too. This requirement also allows accreditations at major employers like local authorities to have an impact down their supply chains, across the local economy.

The Living Wage movement’s impact is even further than this. Academics at Cardiff Business School have uncovered a phenomenon called the ‘Shadow Living Wage’. This is where major employers peg their minimum pay rates to the real Living Wage, but don’t accredit. They won’t show up in our impact statistics, but it’s not a coincidence the minimum pay rates at supermarkets often very closely mirror the real Living Wage. This is often as a result of trade unions demanding – and winning – the Living Wage as a minimum in negotiations with these employers.

Behind every one of these rises to the Living Wage is a human being and a human story. One typical story that always stays with me is the impact on working parents. One social care worker in Wales told us that he previously had to work multiple jobs – leaving the house before his children had gotten up in the morning, and coming back after they had gone to bed. The introduction of the Living Wage at one of his employers had allowed him to only work one job, and to spend time with his children in the evenings. Another worker in Powys told us that the introduction of the Living Wage had allowed her to save and buy a house, something she would not have otherwise been able to do – transforming her future. There are now more than 21,000 of these stories across Wales.

As proud as we are of this work, there is still so much more to do. The Wellbeing of Wales report published this month found that 33% of workers in Wales are still paid less than a Living Wage.

Welsh Government support is essential to what we do, and has been instrumental in delivering these pay rises for low paid workers. There is still more we can do in the public policy space, though.

The Scottish Government’s ‘Fair Work First’ policy requires everyone in receipt of public sector grants to pay the Living Wage. We should look at emulating this in Wales. After all, there is only so much money to go around – why should we use it supporting low pay, instead of encouraging pay rises for workers?
Similarly, we should examine how they have encouraged the Living Wage through procurement contracts in Scotland. There are now around 4,000 Living Wage Employers in Scotland, and they operate in a very similar devolved context to Wales. We should be looking at the trail they have blazed and be seeking to do the same.

Supporting the Living Wage is something that all of us can do. We have steering groups across Wales – including a Cardiff group and a South West Wales group. We’re looking to support people to establish groups in other areas, too. We have major organisations such as local authorities, universities and the Future Generations Commissioner’s Office represented on these groups. However, we also have bakeries, markets, and other small employers on board – the only real qualification is for you to be enthusiastic about the campaign and be willing to give up your time.

So, as we look towards Living Wage Week – the Living Wage movement in Wales has achieved a huge amount, and Wales is a better place for it. But with a third of people in Wales earning less than a Living Wage, there is so much more to do. Get in touch and be a part of it.

The potential for the Living Wage in Wales Read More »

Reflections on 10 years since the Wales We Want National Conversation 

Over 10 years ago, I worked as part of the team leading on The Wales We Want National Conversation that helped to shape the Well-being of Future Generations Act for Wales. The idea of a national conversation wasn’t new, we were following in the footsteps of the United Nations’ global conversation on ‘The World We Want’, with the aim of replicating this conversation across Wales. For over two years Cynnal Cymru worked with the Welsh Government and the former Commissioner for Future Generations, Peter Davies, to ask the Welsh public to respond to the question ‘I want a Wales where…’ 

In the first year we held three launch events (including one with Michael Sheen ), organised 20 events, recruited 150 Futures Champions that helped to bring together 6474 individuals, who took part in over 100 conversations across Wales resulting in almost 1000 responses in the form or reports, videos, postcards, drawings and surveys.

 

The Wales We Want, National Conversation Report cover to illustrate some of the conversations held by our network of Futures Champions.

But how did we ensure we captured every conversation? 

It certainly wasn’t easy, and my challenge was to figure how we ensured every voice, every conversation and every individual was accounted for. As well as the more formal conversations, we even counted and categorised a huge bag of handwritten wishes on paper leaves! 

So, what did I learn from the conversation: 

  • Placing people at the heart of the conversation was key – from the branding to featuring real people from across Wales, to the recruitment of a community of Futures Champions holding conversation in their own communities, people were at the heart of the conversation.  
  • 6474 individuals, every voice matters – real numbers were key to demonstrating we were listening to everyone who responded. From a handwritten wish on a postcard to more traditional round table discussion, every response was captured and recorded. Throughout the campaign we shared as many of the responses we could in real time to bring the conversation to life. 
  • The Wales We Want brand belonged to everyone – an unexpected outcome of the conversation was when individual communities began to take ownership of the logo and branding, evolving the conversation into ‘The Llanelli We Want’ or The Wales Woman Want’ – this was exciting! 
  • It needed champions! – we knew early on that something this big needed trusted individuals from within the community and this is where our network of Futures Champions came in. We started the conversations, but the real magic happened when people signed up as champions and held conversations of their own in the local community centre or place of work. 
  • People need a conversation starter – Asking people what kind of Wales they want is a big question, and while some had clear ideas, we learnt early on that people needed prompts and inspiration to start their own conversations. The ‘I want a Wales where… / Hoffwn weld Cymru lle…’ video was played at every event and luckily our community of Futures Champions were already starting to show the way, so we simply shared these ideas and encouraged people to hold a conversation in a way that was important to them. 
  • You need to be flexible and take a risk – This wasn’t a traditional consultation and from the start the team at Welsh Government gave us the freedom and flexibility to take a less conventional path. My favourite unconventional conversation was the ‘stand up for the Wales you Want’ comedy gig for young people at Bridgend College. Which leads onto the next point…. 
  • You need to dig deeper and actively listen – One young person wanted a Wales where Bridgend attracted world class DJs. On face value this may seem frivolous, but what would it take to create a place that could do this and how does that fit in with the Well-being goals? How might we create a place with a rich Welsh culture and what would it look like? What would the community benefits be? And how might this lead to other positive changes….including more local jobs perhaps? Or young people feeling more connected and involved with their local community?  

So, 10 years later – how have we applied these lessons at Cynnal Cymru? 

  • We are people centred – as a sustainable development charity we are curious about what people need to thrive in a better future, try and start from where people are at, and provide the tools and support for people to create and own the future they want. 
  • We help start meaningful conversations – we still use conversation starters, such as postcards from the future, pictures, animations, videos, poetry, a story, speakers, or warm up questions. 
  • We create champions – through our training and accreditation programmes, members and partners we have created thousands of champions in their workplaces, communities and homes promoting carbon reduction, nature creation, fairer working practices, and other more sustainable future solutions. 
  • We view culture and heritage as part of a sustainable future – the resulting legislation from the national conversation included having culture as part of the seven well-being goals. That young person from Bridgend was on to something. 

If you want to find out more about how to work with us for the next 10 years, please email shwmae@cynnalcymru.com (or send us a leaf). 

Lynsey Jackson, Head of Communications and Membership

Reflections on 10 years since the Wales We Want National Conversation  Read More »

Cynnal Cymru | Sustain Wales is looking for new trustees

We are the leading organisation for sustainable development in Wales, supporting change for a sustainable future. Our mission is to accelerate progress towards a low carbon economy, a fair and just society and a thriving natural environment. 

As a not-for-profit charity we have a small, expanding, creative and dedicated team and a supportive board of volunteer trustees.  

As several of our trustees come to the end of their terms of office we are looking for new trustees.

What we are looking for from new trustees

We are looking for a mixture of experienced and new trustees from all walks of life and experience, in Wales and beyond. As a trustee you will be supporting the team by providing guidance, challenge and leadership at our quarterly board meetings as well as being encouraged to lead on specific agendas.

To extend our skills and expertise, we are ideally looking for support in any of the following areas:

  • Financial expertise
  • Human resources and people management, culture, values
  • Legal expertise
  • Marketing, use of Artificial Intelligence or other tools
  • Welsh Language and Culture
  • Income generation from tradable activities or foundations and trusts
  • Geographic or sector networks – improve our connections in Mid and North Wales, and the health and business support sectors

If you have experience of being a trustee or are eager to step up to your first role as a trustee and want to contribute to our team, we would love to hear from you.

If you think you could join us to promote a more sustainable future in Wales, then find out more from our Trustee Recruitment Pack.

If you have any issues accessing the Recruitment Pack please contact Simon@cynnalcymru.com and we will directly provide the relevant documents.

Deadline for applications midnight Monday 15th September 2025

Cynnal Cymru | Sustain Wales is looking for new trustees Read More »

Celebrating Welsh food initiatives

On April 28th, 2025, Cynnal Cymru hosted the Foundational Economy Celebration event in partnership with the Welsh Government’s Foundational Economy team. The event showcased over 15 projects that had been funded and supported by the Foundational Economy Welsh Government Grants, such as The Backing Local Firms fund. These projects all worked to connect Welsh Businesses to the public sector with the aim of delivering more products and services into the public sector and boosting local jobs.

Projects showcased such as Welsh Veg in Schools with Food Sense Wales and Castell Howell, Cardiff Food Hour, Larder Cymru with Menter Môn, Cook Along Clwb, Well-being of Future Generations menu pilot with Carmarthenshire County Council, Welsh food index with BIC Innovation, and Future Farms with Social Farms and Gardens.

A group of school children holding up badges

The projects emphasise the importance of providing healthy, fresh, seasonal, local, and affordable meals. They also work to develop the Welsh supply chain to ensure the commercial viability of Welsh-grown vegetables and meat products, thereby supporting local farmers, reducing carbon emissions, and promoting sustainability. The promotion of local and seasonal foods plays a vital role in advancing sustainable practices across the sector.

This event also launched the Foundational Economy Mission statement, developed in association with Cynnal Cymru, which sets out the Welsh Governments strategic aims and objectives to building the Foundational Economy.

Celebrating Welsh food initiatives Read More »

Cynnal Cymru Response to the 2025 Future Generations Report

All 56 public sector bodies in Wales to be real Living Wage employers in the next five years

As the Living Wage Foundation’s accreditation partner for Wales we host Living Wage Wales in-house, and are funded by Welsh Government to support any employer who wants to commit to this proven method of poverty alleviation. We will be following up with the public bodies to support them in fulfilling their new obligation.

Supercharge actions with multiple benefits

We will continue to provide the tools and support to 100s of organisations and 1,000s of individuals within Wales through our training programmes in areas such as Carbon Literacy and Nature Wise. We will improve how we report on our multiple impacts as a charity on areas such as cost, jobs, carbon, and healthy life expectancy.

No more short-term fixes

There is a wealth of strategies, evidence and plans for a better future for Wales. Building on our work on the Well-being of Future Generations Act Business Toolkit, we will work with partners to distil key ‘no-regrets’ actions different size organisations can take for improving the future now. This will help support a movement of change, rather than a reliance on help that may never come.

A national food resilience plan

We will continue to promote good practice with our members and networks around the procurement and supply of local food for schools, the NHS, local authorities. Our recent celebration event with the Welsh Government Foundational Economy team and pioneering individuals and organisations showed what is happening now, and what is possible in the future.

Simplify partnerships and funding

We will continue to challenge public sector grant funding to be multiple years, and continue to challenge ourselves in working with the right partners or supporting others who are better placed to deliver.

Review and strengthen the Well-being and Future Generations Act

We will help use our history, and current experience and networks to help inform the future review. We were the lead partner of the previous ‘The Wales We Want’ National Conversation’ which helped inform the Act, and many of our staff helped set up the Future Generations Commissioner’s Office. We are proud of our history and want to continue to help others shape a better future for us all.

We want to make Ameerah proud!

Simon Slater, CEO

The 29th April marked the 10th anniversary of the Well-being of Future Generations Act becoming law in Wales. The Future Generations Report 2025 — is a statutory publication released every five years by the Future Generations Commissioner to track progress and guide the steps public bodies should take.

Find out more about 2025 Future Generations Report

Cynnal Cymru Response to the 2025 Future Generations Report Read More »

Should we chase wellbeing over growth? 

The theme of this month’s Cynnal Cymru newsletter is ‘growth’ in its broadest sense. It’s a word that is often associated with positivity. I’m writing this on the first working day of British Summer Time, although it is still very much spring. Growth is in the air – with the daffodils having sprouted and blossom season in full swing. Growth in this context is very much welcome, even to hay fever sufferers like myself. But there are some debates where the concept of growth is more contentious. 

Our role as Cynnal Cymru’s Fair Economy team is to make a contribution towards a fairer economy for Wales. Our two core work strands are partnering with the Living Wage Foundation in Wales – hosting Living Wage Wales in-house – and working with the Welsh Government to support their ambitions for Wales’ foundational economy. For those of you who don’t know, that’s the ‘mundane’ areas of the economy that are nonetheless incredibly important in underpinning everyday life – think care and health services, food, utilities, and similar. They haven’t always got the attention from economic policy makers that advanced manufacturing or cutting-edge technology have, but they make up a huge section of the economy – with 51% of Welsh employees working in the foundational economy. Their working lives and the contributions they make deserve attention too. 

It’s predominantly through these living wage and foundational economy workstreams that we engage with the concept of growth – the narrower idea of economic growth. Far from springtime flowers to some this concept evokes thoughts of industrialisation and environmental harm. The public policy debate in Wales – particularly where it intersects with the third sector – has seen a debate around whether economic growth is a desirable goal, with efforts to move towards a ‘wellbeing’ approach instead. 

Whereas in years past many would look to settle the inherent tensions between development and sustainability via an ambition for ‘sustainable growth’, some in the Welsh policy space are now looking to other concepts, such as ‘degrowth’, or asking for a ‘wellbeing economy’ to replace efforts to increase GDP. 

To me, a wellbeing economy is clearly a highly desirable aim. Focusing on a broader set of metrics than simply growth makes a huge amount of sense. We know that a rising tide doesn’t always lift all boats. The gap between the rich and the rest is growing. There is increasing evidence that, to some extent, pay has partly decoupled from productivity. The labour share of national income in the UK has fallen in recent decades, as a greater share goes to those who own, rather than those who work. 

Source: Our World in Data

But does that mean we should eschew the quest for economic growth in favour of a wellbeing economy? The chart above – which maps life satisfaction and GDP per capita – suggests this may be a false dichotomy. There is a clear correlation between reported life satisfaction (which I would suggest is fairly synonymous with wellbeing) and GDP per capita. It follows that a growth in GDP per capita – economic growth – is very likely to correspond to a growth in wellbeing. 

It’s right that we look to a broad set of measures when trying to create a fairer economy for Wales. It is fairly unsurprising that the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland find themselves at the top right of the graph – with some of the highest GDP per capita and life satisfaction in the world. 

The Nordic model of strong trade union rights and mass union membership to protect worker incomes is a successful one. It rebalances economies away from the ultra-rich having a unilateral say over how much they pay their workers and how much they keep in their own pockets. Wales would be sensible to emulate it as much as it can. But we shouldn’t forget that this model does include having amongst the highest GDP per capita in the world. 

And whilst there is some evidence of productivity growth (which tracks pretty consistently with GDP growth) and pay decoupling, there is no evidence of a total decoupling. Strong growth in GDP still means rising wages – for people of all income brackets. When we talk about how we can tackle poverty in Wales, economic growth is a tried-and-tested method. 

Economic growth is good for the rights of workers, too. Harvard University’s Dani Rodrik found in his paper ‘An Industrial Policy for Good Jobs’ that the ‘sine qua non’ (for fellow non-Latin speakers, that’s ‘without which, not’ – an indispensable ingredient) of good jobs is a high enough level of labour productivity. That is, increasing productivity (doing more with less), a key component of economic growth, results in jobs that ‘provide a middle-class living standard, adequate benefits, reasonable levels of personal autonomy, economic security, and career ladders’. 

The trade-offs between measures to support economic development and considerations such as equity and environmental protection are complex and multi-faceted. But Wales is one of the poorest areas of Western Europe on many measures. This results in human misery – including child poverty and people trapped in work where they are paid and respected too little. We should be hesitant about well-meaning calls to eschew economic growth. 

The ambition of many to become a wellbeing economy is a welcome one. But the increasingly common refrain of ‘wellbeing or growth’ is looking at the issue the wrong way around. We should instead consider how we can continue to decouple growth from carbon emissions and utilise economic growth in Wales to reduce poverty and increase wellbeing. 

Should we chase wellbeing over growth?  Read More »

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