In 2015, the Welsh Parliament passed the Well-being of Future Generations Act, a world first. It legally requires public bodies to act in the interests of people not yet born. The Act sets out seven national well-being goals, from prosperity and health to resilient ecosystems and global responsibility, and obliges agencies to plan long-term, work preventively, and integrate across sectors. An independent Future Generations Commissioner was created to hold government accountable.
Nearly a decade later, the Act has reshaped governance in Wales. Public bodies publish well-being objectives and reports. Local Public Services Boards prepare collective well-being plans. High-profile decisions, such as cancelling a billion-dollar motorway, have been justified on long-term grounds. Since the Act came into force, Wales has climbed to one of the highest recycling rates in the world, now over 66%, a tangible sign of how future-focused governance can deliver measurable results. The framework is not flawless since environmental goals lag behind social ones, and fiscal constraints often pull leaders back toward short-term fixes, but it has embedded the idea that future generations have legal standing in policy.
A Global Trend
Wales is not alone.
• New Zealand has built a “Well-being Budget” process into fiscal policy, linking expenditure to long-term social and intergenerational outcomes. It is also considering adopting a similar law. , an effort headed by the Tomorrow Together Aotearoa coalition.
• Australia has adopted a national “Measuring What Matters” framework to track progress beyond GDP, and is evaluating the Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill 2025.
• International organisations such as the OECD and United Nations now cite Wales as a model for embedding intergenerational justice into governance.
The message is clear: governments are beginning to realise that GDP growth alone cannot safeguard the future.
Why California Should Pay Attention
California faces many of the same intergenerational challenges: climate risk, water scarcity, biodiversity loss, housing stress, and persistent inequality. These cannot be solved in a single budget cycle. And yet the state’s politics, like most democracies, remain dominated by short-term pressures.
A California Future Generations Act could change that. It would oblige agencies, from Caltrans to the Department of Water Resources, to demonstrate how policies align with the well-being of Californians decades into the future. A Future Generations Commissioner could scrutinise budgets and infrastructure projects through a 30- or 50-year lens, providing an independent check on short-termism.
More Than Symbolism
Critics dismiss such frameworks as symbolic. Wales shows that they can be more. While the Act has not solved all structural problems, it has influenced concrete decisions, elevated long-term thinking, and created a culture of accountability. Symbolism, when embedded in law and supported by oversight, becomes substance.
For California, the question is not whether such an Act would be a silver bullet. It would not. The question is whether the state is willing to institutionalise a duty to look beyond the next election or budget cycle, to align today’s decisions with tomorrow’s needs.
A Call to Lead
California prides itself on leadership, from climate policy to consumer rights, it has often set the pace for the nation. Learning from Wales, New Zealand, and Australia, it could do the same for future generations.
The alternative is to continue governing crisis by crisis, year by year. But for a state that calls itself the innovation capital of the world, is that really enough?