Green, Fair, and Caring

This report contributes to a global vision for a green new deal by grounding it in the Welsh context. It recognises that the economic and climate crises are deeply interconnected as interlocking consequences of unjust systems—patriarchy, neoliberalism, and extractive economics—that exploit people while degrading the environment. Within this, the undervaluing of care—both paid and unpaid—illustrates how these systems rely on exploitation while failing to sustain the very foundations of our societies. A just transition must therefore be feminist: tackling inequality at its roots, revaluing care as essential social infrastructure, and ensuring no one is left behind.

Grounded in Wales’s own context, including the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and the momentum toward a wellbeing economy, this discussion paper sets out practical proposals across four key areas—social care, work, transport, and energy. These recommendations call on government, public services, and civil society to act now to shape a fairer, greener future. This paper envisions an economy that nurtures both people and planet: where care is recognised as a human right and public good, and where decisions are guided not by short-term profit for the few but by long-term wellbeing for everyone. We hope it sparks the urgent conversations and political action needed to build a fairer, greener, and more caring Wales—whilst standing in solidarity with global struggles for justice across the Global South and beyond