Samhällskontraktet X Dark Matter Labs: The Cornerstone Indicators

In this second blog in a 3-part series we are expanding on the reasons behind the Cornerstone Indicator initiative. We are also grounding the concept in the results from the first prototype process, that was developed and run in tri-partnership with Samhällskontraktet and the citizens of Västerås, Sweden.

* Throughout these blogs we are using the word citizen to represent the people who live in a country, rather than as a statement of nationality or legal status.

Blog 2 (of 3) Going deeper: why are we calling for a global movement of citizen empowerment and what could it look like?

In our introductory blog we made some bold statements about the need for widespread citizen involvement to drive the critical transitions ahead. Unfortunately the practices of community engagement and citizen participation are often viewed as soft options; a ‘nice to have’ in confirmation of existing policy initiatives or to inform small local decisions. We fundamentally reject this view for a number of reasons:

Firstly, our current power and governance dynamics are not working. Despite the numerous frameworks that set out aspirational aims (such as the UN SDGs), the unifying goal in our current system is still financial profit. Whilst on a personal level we might intrinsically consider factors such as health to be more important than financial profits, the political landscape has barely evolved to embed alternative metrics into critical decision making structures¹.

Secondly, many people are struggling to connect the challenges that they face in their daily lives to the structural issues that underpin them. This appears to be leading to increased levels of distrust and social fragmentation and consequently to previously unthinkable outcomes. For example, German polls are showing that the neofascists of the AfD are the second most popular party in the country, whilst the corrosive effects of the Brexit vote continue to unfold across Europe. Despite Sweden being a country which still has high levels of trust in its government² and a strong welfare system, they too have recently elected a right wing government. People are looking for something different and a lack of viable alternatives is opening the door to widespread authoritarianism.

Thirdly, a clear observation is that prevalent wellbeing policy initiatives such as Scotland’s National Performance Framework, New Zealand’s Wellbeing Budget and Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Index have been designed using a top down approach. Experts have defined the dimensions of wellbeing (e.g. life satisfaction, access to green spaces and education) and these factors are then measured using standardised and universally applied metrics. If the people with the lived experience of the policy decisions being made on their behalf have no say in how they are measured and interpreted, then it is hardly surprising that shock election results continue to roll in.

These issues are complex, but one way to understand the situation is to view it as an imbalance in the democratic triangle:

• The Market: markets create many positive outcomes (for example, innovation and employment) but business leaders are not voted in to make decisions on behalf of the citizens;
• The Nation State: a country’s Government has the authority to make and enforce laws and this authority is granted by the citizens. It can therefore direct the market towards things that society needs but would not otherwise be profitable (such as subsidies for green energy or the development of new medicines) and away from undesirable outcomes (e.g. fines for pollution or abusing employment rights);
• The Citizens: the people have the power to tell the government what they need to create a thriving society and thus how to use its authority to check and guide the market.

There is an urgent need to displace the current extractive and exploitive GDP paradigm. In our view, this will only be achieved if the next generation policy instruments are anchored in the third, citizen based leg of the triangle. We hope that the Cornerstone Process can therefore provide a scalable stepping stone towards a civic-centred, ecologically viable and just economy.

What happened in Västerås

The Swedish prototype was run over a period of 9 months with the citizens of Skultana, which is a sub-district within the city of Västerås. The overall goal was to co-design simple, intuitively understandable indicators that encapsulate what thriving means to the people of Skultana. As is the case with any work centred on people, this process was both intensely rewarding and emotionally demanding. We will expand on some of the challenges that we faced (together with lessons for the future) in the final blog of this series. In summary the key steps were as follows:

• Statistical analysis: we used Exploratory Factor Analysis to explore data from existing wellbeing indexes such as the OECD Wellbeing Framework. This analysis highlighted a set of factors³ that have the greatest impact on wellbeing in Sweden (for example, safety and security, access to nature and good infrastructure).
• Participatory insights: in parallel, we used an online survey and held a series of in-depth workshops to understand local priorities and views on the factors underpinning wellbeing. Findings included feeling safe, spending time with friends, family and animals and having the freedom to choose.
• Thematic sensemaking: the outcomes of these two processes were combined to define clusters of wellbeing dimensions. Using these as a basis, we were then able to identify everyday experiences that could represent the complexity of the data points underpinning the different clusters.
• Iteration: we used stories and visualisations to communicate these findings to the citizens. This allowed us to include their feedback and to adjust the suggested measures until we arrived at the final set of cornerstone indicators.

There is a lot of detail behind the steps outlined above that we hope will be of use to others working in this area. A full report of the prototype project that was run in Västerås, Sweden can be downloaded here.

Unpacking the indicators

The Cornerstone Indicators provide an interface and balance point between scientific measurements and our human lived experience. They are not intended to be used as hard evidence. Similarly, we do not claim that each individual indicator will accurately represent the multiple factors included within it. To do so would be missing the point; the indicators exist to help us think, listen, reflect and learn. Ultimately they are a medium to help us understand our relationship with the world and thus to make better decisions.

The indicators have been designed to have a strong visual identity that can be understood across diverse contexts. Each indicator consists of an outer informatic frame and an inner intuitive visual:

Outer frame: the wheel shown below visualises the factors that were drawn from the different parts of the process. The spokes shaded in blue represent factors from the statistical analysis, those in green are from the citizen engagement and red shows the overlaps. The wheel is used as an outer frame in each indicator to allow a quick visual comparison.

Inner visual: we have then added playful drawings in the centre to express the experiences and feelings that the indicator encapsulates. For example, when you look at the following pictures, what is your instinctive response? How do they make you feel?

The full picture: when the outer frame and visual are combined, we can quickly get a sense of what is happening and which factors are included. Crucially, they create a quantitative definition to the full lived experience including latent, unmeasurable factors such as how people feel about the indicator itself.

Example 1: The number of households who enjoy not owning a car

The narrative here is inclusive climate action: people feel safe to mix, confident in public transport services, physically able to use active transport and empowered to act on the climate emergency.

Underpinning the story are multiple factors (for example, safety and security and a good work life balance) which can be further broken down into measurable data points such as crime rates and life expectancy.

Example 2: Regularly doing a leisure activity with people you don’t cohabit with.

In this example the theme is a balanced life: people feel empowered to enjoy their free time, to mix with others in the community and try new things.

Beneath the narrative we can identify factors such as a sense of belonging to place, health and wellbeing and personal autonomy. The measurable dimensions include metrics such as people having free time, the availability of cultural activities and life expectancy rates.

Our next steps

We are incredibly proud that the first Cornerstone Indicators are now being used in the city of Västerås. However, it is important to state that whilst the community indicators are an important element of the Cornerstone aspiration, they are not the end goal. Instead they are part of a longer journey to build the everyday politics of the future⁴. With this in mind we have started working in two additional international contexts, to expand and develop the wider civic Cornerstone Movement:

• In Scotland we have partnered with Carnegie UK to develop an online playbook which enables diverse communities to run their own conversational workshops. This is currently being used in the Scottish Government’s call for evidence as part of their review of the National Outcomes.
• In Canada we are collaborating with the David Suzuki Foundation to design a multi-site, multi-year Cornerstone process across a diverse set of communities.

The shared experience of working in partnership with the citizens of Västerås has been an incredibly rich experience. We have been inspired and humbled by the depth and generosity of people’s engagement with the project, and we will work hard to ensure that the final indicators become widely used.

We hope that this first step might inspire others to join us in playfully fighting for the future we will be proud to leave behind. In our next and final blog in this series we will share our key learning points and areas that we hope to build on in the future.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you would like more information, or if you have any comments or suggestions on the process so far.

This blog was co-authored by Emily Harris (emily@darkmatterlabs.org) and Linnea Rönnquist (linnea.ronnquist@mdu.se)

References:

1. In Scotland for example, the Government introduced the National Performance Framework in 2009 to set out its ambitions for society and the values that guide its approach. Despite this outcomes based framework being enshrined in legislation, a review in 2022 concluded that ‘the status of accountability against the NPF is at best “patchy” and that the NPF is not always actively used to shape scrutiny, funding decisions, and commissioning’ (Scottish Leaders Forum)
2. https://www.gu.se/sites/default/files/2023-03/3.%20Svenska%20f%C3%B6rtroendetrender%201986-2022_0.pdf
3. In this blog we are using the terms Factors and Dimensions to mean the following: Factors are things that contribute to wellbeing; for example good health, life satisfaction. Dimensions are elements that can be directly measured and contribute to the factors; e.g. levels of depression or mortality rates.
4. The term everyday politics refers to community centred activities that reconnect citizens with public life.