Green, Fair, and Caring

A deeper dive into the importance of care and carers to our communities, to our economy, and to all of us as individuals

This podcast grew out of a discussion paper funded by Oxfam Cymru and researched and written by Dr Alison Parken and Professor Sara MacBride-Stewart of Cardiff University.We would like to thank all contributors who shared their time, insights and expertise in shaping this work and contributing to the podcast.About the Authors of the paper:Dr Alison Parken Alison is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Cardiff Business School.Her research and policy analysis work includes leading the development of the unique ‘gender pay differences’ Welsh Specific Equality Duty and creating an equality mainstreaming model to embed intersectional approaches to equality in public policy.Professor Sara MacBride-Stewart Sara is a multidisciplinary academic at Cardiff University working at the intersection of equity, climate, and health. Her work focuses on addressing and preventing emerging inequalities across social, cultural, and economic life.She specialises in place-based, collaborative approaches that promote environmental and social justice that lead to actionable solutions. At Oxfam Cymru, we believe that poverty and inequality cannot be tackled in isolation from the fight for gender and climate justice. Across the world, those who contribute least to the climate crisis - particularly women, people living in poverty, and communities marginalised based on gender, race, class, disability, or migration status - are the ones who bear its greatest costs.That is why Oxfam’s global strategy commits us to advancing feminist, decolonial alternatives that place care for people and planet at the heart of economic transformation. This report offers a feminist green new deal for Wales, contributing to a global vision 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. Our 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.We hope this podcast series helps to spark that conversation.For further information or to provide feedback on this paper, please contact: [email protected]