Centre for Development and Environment (CDE)

Research

Well-being

Playing children in Laos. Photo: Julie Zähringer


Human well-being encompasses much more than material prosperity: It is an overarching goal of sustainable development. While countries in the global South must strive to reduce poverty and improve quality of life across the board, wealthy industrialized countries in the global North must make the prosperity they have already achieved much more environmentally and socially sustainable.

Based on a multidimensional understanding of well-being and life quality, CDE develops concepts and indicators that make it possible to measure sustainable quality of life and well-being, including economic prosperity. In addition, our research teams investigate what a good and simultaneously low-impact life might look like at an individual level.