Beyond GDP Newsletter November 2019

Jay OwenSustainability News, Beyond GDP

Intro:

“Ethical Markets highly recommends this Newsletter from the European Commission still tracking all the changes to  update  GDP, that were first pointed out at the original Beyond GDP conference in 2007, on which I served as advisor and on the EU Commission’s organizing committee!  Ethical Markets funded three surveys of public opinion in 12 countries with  GlobeScan, in 2007 for this conference and two more in 2009 and 2013, which found large majorities in all these countries favoring expanding GDP to include statistics on health, education, environment and poverty gaps.  These 3 original surveys are on our Beyond GDP page at www.ethicalmarkets.com.  Today GDP is fast being replaced by the

United Nation‘s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the more holistic systems approach to steering societies to more inclusive, sustainable futures.

~”Hazel Henderson, Editor”

In the spotlight

Accounting for natural capital – recognising the contribution of nature to human welfare and well-being

The contribution and value of nature to human welfare and well-being – in other words, our natural capital – tends to be overlooked in many policy decisions and business choices. As a result, ecosystems are being degraded and natural resources are being used in an unsustainable way. Accounting for natural capital allows us to collect and systematise information on the stocks and flows of natural resources and trends over time. In doing so, natural capital accounting informs sustainable policy decision making and business choices. The concept of natural capital includes non-renewable resource stocks (e.g. fossil fuels, minerals and metals), renewable natural resource flows (e.g. solar and wind energy) and the ecosystems that provide humans with vital ecosystem services (e.g. water, forests, wetlands and grasslands).

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Interviews

Lars Hein introduces the MAIA project and draws on its experience with the UN SEEA-EEA Framework Lars Hein is Professor in Ecosystem Services and Environmental Change and deputy chair of the Environmental Systems Analysis Group at Wageningen University. He is one of the main contributing authors of the UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting Experimental Ecosystem Accounting Framework. He is currently coordinating the H2020 project MAIA (Mapping and Assessment for Integrated Ecosystem Accounting).

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Lisa Waselikowsi explains the INCA project and discusses the importance of natural capital and ecosystem services accounting Lisa Waselikowski is a Statistical and Scientific Analyst at Eurostat. She works for the European Commission INCA (Integrated Natural Capital and ecosystem services Accounting) project and is also part of the team responsible for Eurostat’s annual monitoring on the EU’s progress towards achieving the SDGs.Read more…

In brief

The Good Life – Measuring inclusive growth across countries The Centre for Progressive Policy (CPP), a UK-based think tank, has published a report introducing the new CPP Inclusive Growth (IG) Country Index, the first major output of its recent partnership with the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APP) on Inclusive Growth.

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Monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs in the EU context 2019 Eurostat published the 2019 Report on “Sustainable Development in the EU”. The report monitors the EU’s progress towards the SDGs. The analysis builds on the EU SDG indicator set which comprises 100 indicators across all 17 SDGs.

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Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2019: Ambitions beyond growth The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) released the 2019 Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific, published annually since 1947. The 2019 Survey consists of four chapters.

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New Zealand’s Living Standards Framework Dashboard

The Living Standards Framework (LSF) is a wellbeing framework developed by the New Zealand (NZ) Treasury since 2011. In 2018, the Treasury released the LSF Dashboard, a tool to measure and track changes in well-being outcomes based on three sections: ‘our people’, ‘our country’, and ‘our future’.

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Global Sustainable Development Report 2019 The Global Sustainable Development Report 2019 “Future is Now: Science for Achieving Sustainable Development”, was prepared by an independent group of scientists appointed by the United Nations. The report was commissioned by the Member States of the United Nations in 2016 and will be officially launched at the UN SDGs Summit.Read more…