Make students more aware of the tension between the universally present tendency to want to constantly increase our consumption level versus personal well-being. Students explore alternative ways to measure our well-being, such as the Happy Planet Index and Gross National Happiness and more. They then explore and try out alternative lifestyles such as the 4-day work week and zero-waste, off-grid and slow motion living.

• Do high levels of consumption improve human well-being?
• Fair purchases
• Happy Life
• Alternative indicators at the national and international level
• Values and ethics in economic life
• Investment choices
  

Learning outcomes

Head:

• Describes motivations behind livelihood expectations
• Identifies & explains alternative welfare measures used around the world
• Debates new welfare measures for community, regional & global level that support happiness & sustainability
• Describes examples & outcomes of 4 day working week experiments / cases in different countries
• Names collaborative consumption projects
• Explains principles of ‘slow movement’
• Describes concepts of zero waste and off-grid lifestyles
• Understands principles of participatory budgeting
  

Heart:

• Visualizes & describes a world where cooperation, friendship, joy & living with nature are the main underlying values
• Develops a personal vision for the balance of personal/professional life
• Participates in group design process for a collaborative consumption project
  

Hands:

• Creates a list of personal welfare measures for own life
• Identifies collaborate consumption & peer-to-peer networks in home region
• Calculates an ecological footprint of his / her diet
• Conducts an experiment of zero waste lifestyle for a period of time and reports to class / group