15. Innovation for Social and Environmental Justice: A Way Forward?

This is a point made by Stiglitz et al. (2010) who stress the importance of supporting a raft of measures to support so-called wellbeing stocks for future generations. This theme was elaborated in Transformation from Wall Street to Wellbeing in which Janet makes the case for a new way to address cascade economics by valuing the fabric of life appropriately. Small pilot projects were undertaken to evaluate alternative ways of engaging the community to think about the social, economic and environmental indicators of wellbeing were tested by means of a prototype. The rationale for a more ethical form of representation and accountability to support cosmopolitan transdisciplinary approach is detailed in ‘Systemic Ethics’ (2014). Then in Planetary Passport (McIntyre-Mills 2017), Janet suggested ways in which the commons could be protected through working across conceptual and spatial boundaries to enable low-carbon, virtuous living in which resources are saved and regenerated to protect current and future generations of living systems. Planetary Passport forRe-generation: Knowing Our Place Through Recognizing Our Hybridity (McIntyre-Mills 2017) responds to the 2030 Development Agenda and suggests a way to enhance representation and accountability by extending the Millennium Goals and UN Sustainable Development Agenda. It reflects on studies of alternative architectures for democracy and governance and suggests a way to extend local engagement in social, economic and environmental decision-making. The book conceptualizes new architectures for democracy and better governance through:

Blockchain 101 - Part 1 - A Visual Demo web address https://​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​_​160oMzblY8&​t=​2s by Anders Anders Brownworth, Published on Nov 5, 2016. Accessed 12/06/2018.

This scenario approach was inspired by the Mont Fleur scenarios (see https://​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​f92RYCZMwEk).

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) formula, namely, E (Emissions) = Population × Consumption per person × Energy Efficiency × Energy Emissions, suggests that the privileged urban lives of some could lead to ‘existential risk’ for people and the planet (Bostrom 2011) which is why it is necessary to enhance our understanding of consumption. Nussbaum discusses the essential capabilities that are needed by sentient beings to live a life worth living. She takes the initiative to design and construct the essential conditions. She is not suggesting that people should be limited, she is making a case for extending rights beyond the human in ‘Frontiers of Justice’ in which she discusses the current limitations of social contract theory to protect those who fall outside the boundaries of the nation state or outside the parameters of state protection as they are non-citizens. These include asylum seekers, those who have lost citizenship (because they are labelled criminal) and the disabled, She then extends protection to all sentient beings and the need to protect the environmenton which we all depend. In this way she also introduces protection of habitat for all living systems, although she does not specifically spell out our hybrid inter dependency. Andrea Nightingale has developed an intersectional study on access to land in Nepal that is shaped by caste and gender. Thus intersectional analyses need to take categories as just one dimension of more comprehensive analyses to support social and environmental justice.

‘1 Material living standards (income, consumption and wealth), 2. Health, 3. Education, 4. Personal activities including work, 5. Political voice and governance, 6. Social connections and relationships, 7. Environment (present and future conditions), 8. Insecurity, of an economy as well as a physical nature’.

All life is interdependent and vulnerable, but as human beings, we need to act as stewards as we are responsible for achieving Boulding’s notion of transformative culture (Boulding 1956). The authors draw on Butler and Athanasiou (2013) to stress the need for performative agency to protect the commons and the need to concentrate on dynamic ways of working with others. McIntyre-Mills, (2017) expands the concept of ‘wellbeing stocks’ developed by Stiglitz et al. (2010) to take on board the points made by Nussbaum (2011) about the need to appreciate the ‘determinants of a life worth living’. The capabilities approach needs to draw on both Amartya Sen’s functionality and Nussbaum’s a priori idealism. In reworking the capabilities approach, McIntyre-Mills (2014 in Systemic Ethics, 2017 in Planetary Passport)  make a case for both rights and stewardship to protect living systems and sentient beings, simply because it is the right thing to do.