Progress Indicators
A New Economy based on the principles of sustainable development will require new indicators of progress. We need to replace Gross Domestic Product and related macro economic indicators of overall economic activity with measures of how well we are meeting society’s needs for material goods and services, health, freedom, dignity, and knowledge. We also need to replace indicators used at the micro level of businesses, schools, and other institutions so that these institutions are not judged by how well they compete or extract profits but by how well they advance society’s well being. With its partner organizations, CSE develops and applies new indicators of progress that meet these objectives.
Some recent examples of our progress indicators work include:
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Beyond GDP: The Need for New Measures of Progress – Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer Range Future
The paper was co-authored by Robert Costanza, the Gordon and Lulie Gund Professor of Ecological Economics and Director of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont; Maureen Hart, Acting Executive Director of the Community Indicators Consortium and president of the consulting firm Sustainable Measures; Stephen Posner, a graduate student and research assistant at the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics; and John Talberth, Senior Economist at the Center for Sustainable Economy. The paper reviews the history of how and why the gross domestic product (GDP), a measure of economic activity, has become a widely accepted standard for measuring a country's perceived overall progress in human development when that was never its intended purpose. The authors review other measurement methods that try to capture environmental and societal well-being in addition to economic growth and argue that a new indicator or set of indictors for measuring true human progress is urgently needed. Read:
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Program on Genuine Progress Accounts for the European Union
In response to the EU’s call for alternatives or complements to GDP, CSE is building a coalition of non-governmental organizations and academic institutions to implement a comprehensive Program on Genuine Progress Accounts. Key elements of the PGPA will include national and sub-national Genuine Progress Indicator accounts, application of the GPI in policy debates, non-market studies to improve GPI accounts over time, and a popularization campaign that includes an on-line MyGPI calculator. Look here for details of the PGPA as it develops. Read:
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A New Bottom Line for Progress
CSE President John Talberth prepared Chapter 2 in Worldwatch Institute's State of the World 2008. The Chapter, entitled "A New Bottom Line for Progress," calls for a new set of economic indicators that measure progress towards economic, environmental, and social sustainability and phasing out of the current set of indicators based on growth and globalization. A new set of indicators such as the Genuine Progress Indicator, indicators of eco-efficiency, and indicators of equity are needed to speed the transition towards a sustainable society based on renewable energy, diverse, local economies, protected natural capital, and growth in the quality of our lives not the amount of material goods and services we consume. Read:
