Summary: Wales is pioneering a legally mandated, future-focused model of systemic risk governance through its Well-being of Future Generations Act (2015). Drawing on its parliamentary legacy and industrial past, the Act requires all public bodies to balance current needs with the rights of future generations, embedding long-term, integrated decision-making across sectors. Wales’ model promotes criteria related to Universal Responsibility, Complexity-informed governance, Cross-Scale alignment—from local councils to international forums like the U.N. While implementation challenges remain, especially in measuring long-term outcomes, the Act offers a globally relevant framework for institutionalizing Transformation, resilience, and equity across generations.
Case Study: Wales Well-being of Future Generations Act
Wales, drawing on a long parliamentary tradition and shaped by the environmental and health costs of early industrialization, became the first country to legislate a framework guiding public services on sustainable development1. In 2015, Wales enacted the Well-being of Future Generations Act, requiring public bodies to act in ways that meet present needs without compromising future generations. The Act defines: seven national well-being goals that span economic resilience, environmental sustainability, public health, governance, and social cohesion2.
The Future Generations Commissioner for Wales ensures implementation, holding public bodies to account through advice, research, interviews, progress reports, and recommendations. The Act is a model for systemic risk governance, legally mandating that public institutions embed future-focused, integrated, and participatory approaches in their decisions.
Highlights in Systemic Risk Response
A systemic risk response encompasses any action that mitigates, prepares for, adapts to, and transforms away from the harms of systemic risks.
Universal Responsibility
The Act affirms a legal and moral duty to intergenerational fairness, as well as to the planet. It holds public bodies accountable for actions that respect shared global responsibilities, as part of its ‘Globally Responsible Wales’ goal. As noted in the Future Generations Commissioner’s Policy Leader’s Toolkit, “a globally responsible nation is one that, when doing anything to improve the economic, social, environmental, and cultural well-being, also takes account of whether doing such a thing may make a positive contribution to global well-being”3. By law, each public body must publish well-being objectives aligned with the Act’s seven goals, and take all reasonable steps to achieve them4. This ensures that responsibility is not abstract but operationalized through measurable commitments, legal obligations, and cross-generational accountability.
Complexity
The Future Generations Commissioner for Wales defines systemic risk and polycrisis as “a period of multiple, interconnected crises. These disruptive events—be they health crises, climate change, financial downturns, or conflicts—also tend to exacerbate one another, creating a self-perpetuating system of destabilization”5. The Act responds to this complexity through the seven well-being goals. The Cymru Can strategy (Wales 2030) deepens this approach by outlining interventions across each goal6. Described as the “greatest cultural change program the Welsh public sector has ever gone through”7, the Act imposes a statutory duty on public bodies to adopt and report on the Five Ways of Working8. It also highlights key leverage points, what the Commissioner calls the "machinery" required to realize the Act’s vision, fostering continuous learning and adaptive governance across systems9.
Cross-Scale
The Act demonstrates how systemic risk governance can be coordinated across local, national, and global levels. It applies to all Welsh public bodies, from local authorities to national institutions, and holds Welsh Ministers to account. Its influence extends beyond Wales, inspiring collaboration with governments in Scotland, Ireland, Canada, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Japan, and New Zealand. The Future Generations Commissioner has also advised the U.N. on integrating future generations into global governance frameworks. These engagements create feedback loops that enable the co-design of scale-appropriate strategies by linking local actions to global goals and reinforcing systemic resilience across jurisdictions.
The Act serves as a cross-scale mechanism to embed systemic approaches to well-being and risk management across the Welsh public sector. The Future Generations Commissioner mainstreams impact by developing tools, training, and resources to institutionalize long-term thinking. Key initiatives include the Three Horizons Toolkit10 for strategic foresight, the Future Generations Policy Leader’s Toolkit11 to support systems-based policymaking, and the Future Generations Leadership Accelerator12 to empower youth as future generations advocates. Additional resources such as the Communities and Climate Change Storybook & Toolkit13, How to Apply Long-term Thinking to Reduce Health Inequalities14; and a Maturity matrix15, support implementation and deepen integration of the Act’s principles.
Transformation
The Act mandates all Welsh public bodies to implement and report on policies, practices, and resource allocations aligned with its seven well-being goals. Relationally, it reshapes how power and responsibility are shared by engaging both local and national authorities through legal obligations and recommendations issued by the Future Generations Commission. At its core, the Act introduces a new mental model of well-being by legislating future-focused, integrated thinking as part of the public sector’s culture. By embedding this shift in law, governance, and institutional norms, Wales is actively confronting historic patterns of exploitation—of people and planet—and steering toward more equitable, resilient systems.
In terms of achieved transformation to date, here are some notable examples:
“A question I’m often asked is how can you tell that Wales is governed differently because of the Act? There are now many individual policy examples which are very different from England: ending physical punishment for children for example, or the Universal Basic Income pilot for care-leavers; introduction of voting at the age of 16, the elected Wales Youth Parliament; accelerating action on climate change through the Wales Net Zero 2035 Challenge Group and nature positive action; its focus on social enterprises including for its main water company Dwr Cymru; its new schools curriculum from 3-18 which aims to create ‘ethical informed citizens of Wales and the world’; ….These are examples that clearly show that Wales is already beginning to be governed differently because of the Act.” -- Jane Davidson, Welsh Minister who proposed the Act, in Davidson, 2023.16
“The Future Generations Act has allowed us to put sustainability at the heart of our curriculum and allowed our pupils to become change makers.” Lucy Lock, Year 3 Teacher at Ysgol Bro Banw, in Wales, 2023.17
Key Insights and Lessons Learned
The Well-being of Future Generations Act is an example of exemplary systemic risk response, integrating criteria related to Universal Responsibility, Complexity, and Cross-Scale, and represents one of the most Transformative responses to systemic risk in public policy globally, revealing key insights:
- Public policy is a powerful vehicle for transformation: Wales’ Well-being of Future Generations Act is the first national legislation to embed sustainable development into the core of public governance. It offers a practical roadmap for how governments can operationalize long-term, integrated decision-making. Its design, particularly the Five Ways of Working, embodies many of the Principles of systemic risk, making it a relevant model for navigating today’s complex and uncertain challenges.18
- The importance of mainstreaming: lessons learned, toolkits and frameworks that have beendeveloped as a result of implementing the Act are shared and discussed in the public domain.These activities and materials provide inspiration to a range of different audiences andgovernments in other countries and sectors.
- The need to establish mechanisms to learn and measure progress: As the Act matures, there is a pressing need to strengthen mechanisms for learning, including learning from failure, measuring progress, and auditing resources to ensure they support the intended transformation.19
1 Jane Davidson, “#FutureGen – Lessons from a Small Country?,” Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique. French Journal of British Studies XXVIII, no. 3 (December 2023), doi.org/10.4000/rfcb.11321.
2 “Well-Being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015,” Text, Statute Law Database, accessed June 5, 2024, www.legislation.gov.uk/anaw/2015/2/section/5; “Well-Being of Future Generations Act 2015,” Future Generations Wales, n.d., accessed June 5, 2024, https://futuregenerations.wales/discover/about-future-generations-commissioner/future-generations-act-2015/; Davidson, “#FutureGen – Lessons from a Small Country?”
3 “The Future Generations Policy Leader Toolkit,” Foundations for Tomorrow, accessed June 5, 2024, https://foundations-for-tomorrow.thinkific.com/courses/the-future-generations-policy-leader-toolkit.
4 “Well-Being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015,” King’s Printer of Acts of Parliament, accessed September 21, 2025, www.legislation.gov.uk/anaw/2015/2/section/3.
5 Foundations for Tomorrow, “The Future Generations Policy Leader Toolkit.”
6 “Cymru Can,” Future Generations Wales, n.d., accessed September 21, 2025, https://futuregenerations.wales/discover/cymru-can/.
7 Future Generations Report 2020 (Future Generations Comissioner for Wales, 2020), www.futuregenerations.wales/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/FGC-Eng-Exec-Summary.pdf.
8 Future Generations Report 2020.
9 A Government Fit for Future Generations (Future Generations Comissioner for Wales, 2022),
www.futuregenerations.wales/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/C28299-FG-Section-20-Review-ENG.pdf.
10 “Three Horizons Toolkit,” Future Generations Wales, n.d., accessed September 21, 2025, https://futuregenerations.wales/resources/three-horizons-toolkit/.
11 Foundations for Tomorrow, “The Future Generations Policy Leader Toolkit.”
12 “The Future Generations Leadership Accelerator,” Foundations for Tomorrow, accessed September 21, 2025, https://foundations-for-tomorrow.thinkific.com/courses/the-future-generations-leadership-accelerator.
13 “Communities and Climate Change in a Future Wales,” Future Generations Wales, n.d., accessed September 21, 2025, https://futuregenerations.wales/resources/communities-and-climate-change-in-a-future-wales/.
14 Petranka Malcheva, Louisa Petchey, and Sara Elias, Beyond the Present: How to Apply Long-Term Thinking to Reduce Health Inequalities (Future Generations Comissioner for Wales, 2024), www.futuregenerations.wales/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Beyond-the-present_long-term-thinking-to-reduce-health-inequalities-1.pdf.
15 Maturity Matrix for the Implementation of the Well-Being Future Generations Act (Future Generations Comissioner for Wales, 2022), www.futuregenerations.wales/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/S.20-Maturity-Matrix-English.pdf.
16 Davidson, “#FutureGen – Lessons from a Small Country?”
17 Future Generations Commissioner for Wales Annual Report 2022-2023 (Future Generations Comissioner for Wales, 2023), www.futuregenerations.wales/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/FG-AR-2023.pdf.
18 “Well-Being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.”
19 Davidson, “#FutureGen – Lessons from a Small Country?”