Challenges of wealth-based sustainability metrics : A critical appraisal
McLaughlin, Eoin ; Ducoing, Cristián LU
and Hanley, Nick
(2024)
In Ecological Economics
224.
- Abstract
There has been widespread debate about whether the way in which we measure economic activity is fit for purpose in the twenty-first century. One aspect of this debate is to move away from measuring a nation's income (GDP) towards monitoring a nation's assets (their inclusive wealth), as a better indicator of sustainable economic development. We provide the first critical comparison of the approaches of leading international organisations – the World Bank and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) – to estimating changes in wealth. Our paper reveals important inconsistencies in how these organisations measure sustainability and the conflicting messages that policy makers receive, despite a common underlying conceptual framework... (More)
There has been widespread debate about whether the way in which we measure economic activity is fit for purpose in the twenty-first century. One aspect of this debate is to move away from measuring a nation's income (GDP) towards monitoring a nation's assets (their inclusive wealth), as a better indicator of sustainable economic development. We provide the first critical comparison of the approaches of leading international organisations – the World Bank and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) – to estimating changes in wealth. Our paper reveals important inconsistencies in how these organisations measure sustainability and the conflicting messages that policy makers receive, despite a common underlying conceptual framework linking changes in a nation's wealth to future well-being. We attribute these differences to methodological (applied theory) choices made by researchers at the respective institutions. These choices matter. At the most extreme, countries that perform the worst according to the UNEP are shown to perform well according to the World Bank. This confusion in signals makes better policy making more difficult.
(Less)
- author
- McLaughlin, Eoin
; Ducoing, Cristián
LU
and Hanley, Nick
- organization
- publishing date
- 2024-10
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Natural capital, Sustainability, Sustainable development, Wealth
- in
- Ecological Economics
- volume
- 224
- article number
- 108308
- publisher
- Elsevier
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85199964648
- ISSN
- 0921-8009
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108308
- project
- Genuine Savings as a measure of sustainable development. Towards a GDP replacement.
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- additional info
- Publisher Copyright: © 2024 The Authors
- id
- e9ea196f-7114-48fc-bc6c-3151e918cb60
- date added to LUP
- 2024-08-06 16:09:21
- date last changed
- 2025-04-04 13:59:10
@article{e9ea196f-7114-48fc-bc6c-3151e918cb60,
abstract = {{<p>There has been widespread debate about whether the way in which we measure economic activity is fit for purpose in the twenty-first century. One aspect of this debate is to move away from measuring a nation's income (GDP) towards monitoring a nation's assets (their inclusive wealth), as a better indicator of sustainable economic development. We provide the first critical comparison of the approaches of leading international organisations – the World Bank and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) – to estimating changes in wealth. Our paper reveals important inconsistencies in how these organisations measure sustainability and the conflicting messages that policy makers receive, despite a common underlying conceptual framework linking changes in a nation's wealth to future well-being. We attribute these differences to methodological (applied theory) choices made by researchers at the respective institutions. These choices matter. At the most extreme, countries that perform the worst according to the UNEP are shown to perform well according to the World Bank. This confusion in signals makes better policy making more difficult.</p>}},
author = {{McLaughlin, Eoin and Ducoing, Cristián and Hanley, Nick}},
issn = {{0921-8009}},
keywords = {{Natural capital; Sustainability; Sustainable development; Wealth}},
language = {{eng}},
publisher = {{Elsevier}},
series = {{Ecological Economics}},
title = {{Challenges of wealth-based sustainability metrics : A critical appraisal}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108308}},
doi = {{10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108308}},
volume = {{224}},
year = {{2024}},
}