EVENT GREENING FORUM
Why we should take the leap into a wellbeing economy On 15 April, the Event Greening Forum (EGF) and the SA Events Council (SAEC) held a joint webinar with guest speaker Professor Lorenzo Fioramonti. Prof Fioramonti is a distinguished economics academic at the University of Pretoria who believes that the learnings from academia should be applied to real life, to benefit humanity.
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onsequently, he has become a world-renowned proponent of the wellbeing economy and has entered politics to influence policy. He became a Member of Parliament in Italy in March 2018, which was followed by his appointment as Italy’s Minister of Education, University and Research in September 2019. What is the wellbeing economy? During his packed presentation, Prof Fioramonti explained that economic 30 Business Events Africa May 2021
growth was initially pursued to improve the wellbeing of humanity. However, at some point we lost sight of this goal, and economic growth became the goal in and of itself. Paradoxically, a consequence of this is that our wellbeing is often sacrificed at the cost of short-term economic growth. And, he adds, sometimes this also jeopardises our long-term economic growth, as we tend to defer costs forward, even if it means they will increase. One example he cited was that congested traffic is seen as an indicator of
By Greg MacManus, chairperson of EGF.
positive economic activity. However, heavy and slow-moving traffic is also associated with air pollution, and the World Health Organisation has estimated 4.2 million people die each year from poor quality air. Congestion also reduces the amount of time people are able to spend with their families, which may have other negative health and social impacts. These in turn have costs, while also reducing the quality of our lives. And yet, globally, we have become obsessed with economic growth at the www.businesseventsafrica.com
