Beyond GDP – Rethinking Economic Success for a Sustainable Future 

Beyond GDP – Rethinking Economic Success for a Sustainable Future (Press Briefing)

For decades, economic success has been measured by a single number—Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Financial institutions like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and central banks have used GDP as a primary indicator of a country’s progress. 

However, growing evidence indicates that GDP fails to capture essential factors like environmental degradation, social inequality, and overall wellbeing. The root cause of our worsening environment and climate change is an economic system which seeks constant material growth on a finite planet with GDP as the sole measure of success. This narrow focus drives unsustainable economic practices that harm our planet, and are detrimental to Future Generations. 

The UN Summit of the Future, described by Guterres as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to revitalize global action,” is a key moment to move beyond growth and GDP and to advocate for their implementation on a global scale. The UN Summit of the Future has officially embraced the need to move beyond GDP-centric growth in the UN Pact for the Future, marking a pivotal moment to reset global goals and shift to an economic system that prioritizes people and the planet, over economic growth at any cost. By adopting Beyond Growth principles, we can create a more equitable, healthy, and sustainable world. Let’s champion a future that values true wellbeing. 

WHY GDP ISN’T WORKING 

Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a measure of economic output, only became the dominant way of measuring the success of a country in the 1950s with the first systems of national accounts. In the last 60 years, GDP and its yearly growth have become a key policy objective, and economic thinking started to dominate many aspects of society. 

Historically, GDP and wellbeing have been very closely correlated. In low-income regions, rises in GDP have been connected with increased wellbeing. 

However, empirical evidence has shown that beyond a certain threshold the level of a country’s GDP does not lead to an increase in the wellbeing of its people. 

GDP isn’t able to measure the wellbeing of people, nor does it say anything about the way that welfare is distributed and how this might develop towards the future. It also doesn’t account for the costs that were incurred to create this growth, which might involve ecological destruction and human rights violations. This framework also reflects a Eurocentric bias that equates success with growth and capital accumulation, rather than the health and wellbeing of people and the planet. In order to address 21st-century challenges like environmental degradation, poverty and growing inequalities it is imperative that we develop new measures of welfare. We need to move “Beyond-GDP”.

BEYOND GDP: Prioritize wellbeing of our planet for future generations over growth. 

The concept of a wellbeing economy offers a solution. Instead of chasing endless economic growth, ensure that every person has a livable income, access to health and education, and an environment that can support future generations. 

Change is already happening. Around the world, governments and institutions are exploring alternative indicators of progress that go beyond GDP. These alternatives emphasize health, environmental sustainability, equality, and quality of life. You can see the various actual cases here.

There are numerous methodologies used to measure wellbeing, which use more progressive indicators of progress. Examples include the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), which adjusts for social and environmental costs, the UN’s Human Development Index (HDI), which focuses on health, education, and income, and the Life Evaluation Index (LEI), which captures people’s overall life satisfaction. In addition, governments such as those in the Wellbeing Economy Governments (WEGo) partnership—like Iceland, Finland, Scotland, and Wales—are collaborating to create frameworks that redefine success by prioritizing environmental sustainability, social equity, and overall human flourishing, moving beyond GDP as the sole measure of progress. 

WHATS HAPPENING AT THE UN SUMMIT OF THE FUTURE 

While the The UN Summit of the Future has officially embraced the need to move beyond GDP, it’s important this isn’t just lip service and that the UN system and member states move quickly to adopt and implement new measures that go beyond economic growth and prioritize social and environmental wellbeing now and for future generations. 

AMBASSADORS THAT ENDORSE GOING BEYOND GDP

Kate Pickett OBE is Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Health Sciences, University of York and an academic director of Health Equity North. Kate is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, the UK Faculty of Public Health and the British Academy of Social Sciences.

“GDP can no longer be the compass guiding global policy. To solve urgent issues like environmental degradation and inequality, we must place beyond-GDP frameworks at the core of our strategies. Wellbeing economies, which emphasize human and planetary health, offer the systemic change needed for a sustainable and equitable future.”

Robert Costanza is a Professor of Ecological Economics at UCL’s Institute for Global Prosperity. He is also currently an Honorary Professor at the Australian National University, an Affiliate Fellow at the Gund Institute at the University of Vermont, a deTao Master of Ecological Economics at the deTao Masters Academy in Shanghai, China and an Ambassador of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance . Costanza’s specialties include ecological economics, systems ecology, ecosystem services, and integrated socio-ecological modeling. He co-founded the International Society for Ecological Economics, was the founding editor of Ecological Economics, and won the 2024 Blue Planet Prize. His recent books include:  Addicted to Growth: Societal Therapy for a Sustainable Wellbeing Future, and Toward an Integrated Science of Wellbeing.

“Our traditional economic concepts and global financial architecture were developed around the end of WWII when infrastructure destroyed by the war needed to be rebuilt and when natural capital was still abundant. GDP growth was agreed to be a suitable proxy for improving social welfare and at the time, it was. It became the standard yardstick of progress and was measured in all UN countries. But things have changed.The way we are growing is now causing serious problems that are quickly becoming a threat to our survival. For example, the climate is changing faster than expected and we have already breached 6 out of 9 sustainable planetary boundaries, including biodiversity loss, climate disruption, freshwater and land systems change, biogeochemical flows, and novel entities .” 

Rhea Jane Mallari is campaign lead of Greenpeace International’s Wellbeing Economy campaign.

“While we are busy measuring success with money and economic growth, important values such as care, love and time are not being accounted for. Such narrow measures drive unsustainable practices that harm our planet and jeopardise future generations while pushing this generation to the edge of feeling undervalued and unrecognised. It’s time to rethink how we measure progress. It is crucial for our world leaders to adopt policies that prioritise wellbeing for our people and the planet.”

David Korten is an American author, former professor of the Harvard Business School, political activist, prominent critic of corporate globalization, and “by training and inclination a student of psychology and behavioral systems 

“GDP tells us nothing about whether the basic needs of the world’s people are being met. Whether we have the equitable distribution of wealth and power essential to a functioning democracy. Or whether we are maintaining the health of the living Earth commons on which our existence depends. Most economies are failing to achieve all three of these essential outcomes. We prioritize what we measure. Therefore, we must learn to measure what we really want.” 

Sophie Howe is the world’s first Future Generations Commissioner and for the last seven years has held a legal mandate to be the ‘guardian of the interests of the future generations of Wales.’ She has served as an Adviser to two of Wales First Ministers as an adviser to the UN Secretary General on governance for intergenerational equity and has influenced the development of similar legislation in Scotland and Ireland and a UK Future Generations Bill. 

“Relying on GDP as the sole measure of success has driven us to an unsustainable brink. Our economy, focused on endless growth on a finite planet, is failing our environment, our communities, and future generations. Now, as the UN Summit of the Future presents a once-in-a-generation chance to rethink our global priorities, we must seize this moment to move beyond GDP. Success must be measured by the richness of human experience, health of our people, the resilience of our ecosystems, and the fairness of our opportunities—not by profit. It’s time to build an economy that values true wellbeing over material wealth, for the sake of both current and future generations.” 

Lebohang Liepollo Pheko is a senior research fellow and political economist at a think tank called Trade Collective. She an activist scholar, public intellectual, international movement builder and Afrikan feminist theoretician. Liepollo has lived and worked across 42 countries including South Africa, Zambia, Lesotho, Ethiopia, the United Kingdom, Senegal, Brazil and China giving political and technical solidarity to various institutions, social movements and organisations. She has published extensively inter alia on international trade, feminist political economy, decolonising higher education and regional integration. Her work has an intersectional approach. 

“GDP reflects a specific Eurocentric development model, disregarding the validity of alternative civilizational possibilities. It invalidates the experiences, aspirations, and wellbeing of communities that do not conform to this model. By clinging to the GDP framework, we reinforce this podium of hierarchy that elevates those who have “become” and positions the rest of the world as mere participants by invitation.” 

Amanda Janoo Amanda is an economic policy expert at the Wellbeing Economy Alliance with over a decade of experience working with governments and international development institutions around the world. Her work aims to build just and sustainable economies through goal-oriented and participatory policy design processes. Prior to joining WEAll, Amanda worked for the United Nations and the African Development Bank as an industrial policy and structural transformation expert. As a Fulbright researcher, she explored the relationship between international trade and informal employment. She graduated from Cambridge University with an MPhil in Development Studies 

“Now more than ever, we need to remember that we are the economy. The economy is just a word for the way that we produce and provide for one another, and we are lost if we forget that everything we produce comes first and foremost from the earth and everything we provide is valuable in so far as it contributes to our collective wellbeing. For too long, we’ve been evaluating not only our economy but our society’s success by our level of GDP growth and designing systems that treat people and nature as inputs into this production and growth process. But winds are shifting, and people are recognizing that if we hope to survive, let alone thrive, we have to stop treating people and the planet like they are here to serve the economy and start treating the economy like it’s here to serve us. This requires establishing new metrics of progress and development centered on social and ecological wellbeing so that we can begin evaluating our economy’s success by its capacity to support the flourishing of all life.” 

[APPENDIX 1]UN SUMMIT OF THE FUTURE – BEYOND GDP

Press Briefing: Beyond GDP – Rethinking Economic Success for a Sustainable Future 

Resources from the Wellbeing Economy Alliance 

• This is the Moment to Go Beyond GDP
• Wellbeing Economy Design Guide
• Measuring the Wellbeing Economy

[APPENDIX 2]Reference 

• Greenpeace, Growing Alternatives Reports
•  An alternative political and economic landscape
• Market facing alternatives
• System change from the ground up 

Contact: 

• Kate Petriw, Communications and Narratives Co-Lead, Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll), kate@weall.org
• Rim Kim, Comms Lead Beyond GDP, Greenpeace, rikim@greenpeace.org