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Built Environment through a Well-being Lens

image of Built Environment through a Well-being Lens

The report explores how the built environment (i.e. housing, transport, infrastructure and urban design/land use) interacts with people’s lives and affects their well-being and its sustainability. It primarily draws on the OECD’s Well-being Framework to highlight the many inter-relationships between the built environment and both material and non-material aspects of people’s life, focusing on some key well-being dimensions (e.g. health, safety and social connections). It defines the built environment through a well-being lens and outlines implications for its measurement, leveraging literature, current practice and official data. It then describes the state of the built environment and its components in OECD countries and their inter-relationships with well-being and sustainability. Policy examples of an integrated well-being policy approach in the built environment context are also highlighted. This report is intended to "scope" relevant data and existing research in order to lay ground for further work on this issue.

English Also available in: Korean

Next steps: Towards an integrated policy approach

This chapter begins by examining how the built environment is reflected in OECD countries’ national well-being frameworks and indicators. The chapter then applies a well-being lens aimed at refocusing, redesigning, realigning and reconnecting (4Rs) built environment policies. Well-being evidence can support policy makers in refocusing built environment policies towards the outcomes that matter most to people and help redesign policy content from a more multidimensional perspective. A well-being lens can also help realign the interests of different stakeholders and reconnect government with the communities they serve as well as the private sector actors who play a major role in shaping the built environment. Built environment policy examples such as New Zealand’s housing and urban policies for well-being and Ireland’s sustainable mobility strategy are introduced to highlight how these 4Rs can be instrumental in promoting an integrated policy approach for the built environment, well-being and sustainability.

English Also available in: Korean

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