By Sally Nicholson, Head of Development Policy & Finance at WWF European Policy Office. Follow Sally: @SalWWF
How do you feel if a newsreader tells you over your morning coffee that GDP has increased? Do you feel that the outlook is bright? Or, if GDP has dropped, does it put a black cloud on your week and your future plans? In fact GDP is not a measure of well-being and never has been. Yet, it is used as a daily shorthand for the quality of our lives and prospects for future. It is the yardstick politicians use to provide a snapshot of the state of our economy — but does it really measure what matters?
No it does not.
Gross Domestic Product — or GDP — measures production and consumption. Therefore the more that is produced and consumed in terms of material goods, the better for GDP. More cars on the road, more traffic jams using more petrol, more military weapons produced, more goods in the shops, more fish on our plates, more forests cut down for paper and timber, all the better for GDP. When the next generation has to clean up pollution from the factories of previous generations, this is good for GDP.
A positive GDP does not tell us anything about equality within society; it is gender blind, it hides the environmental degradation and the loss of natural resources that is the inevitable cost of endless unsustainable consumption. There’s a reason why Robert Kennedy said that GDP “measures everything except that which is worthwhile”.
It is time to rethink our measures of progress. If we really want a society that ‘leaves no one behind’ — one of the aims of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which the EU signed up to in 2015, then we need to look beyond our current economic model.
Sustainable development is the kind of development where the economy builds prosperity based on social justice and respect for our planet. The new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a powerful tool to make this transformation happen, but already seems to have faded from the minds of our politicians who applauded its adoption just over two years ago.
The 2030 Agenda puts people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership in the core of every important decision. What does this mean in practice? Having safe food, for example, means looking at what is produced as well as how. What good are healthy vegetables and fruits if the pesticides used to grow them pollute the soil and water? Farmers that provide us with healthy and nutritious food must also make a decent living. In short, sustainable development means looking at all dimensions — social, environmental and economic — simultaneously.
Policy makers and decision makers need to assess and account for the real costs and impact on our lives, health and the planet. In the broader sense this means looking at our planet as a whole. When we do, we quickly find out that right now Europe is using the resources of the equivalent of 2.6 planets, much more than our fair share.
For example, did you know that every European eats about 61 kg of soy per year? Not by gobbling soy burgers, but in other ways, for example eating meat from animals reared on soy. The EU’s consumption of imported products like palm oil and soy is responsible for 36% of global deforestation. This doesn’t mean we have to stop buying toothpaste, shampoo or washing powder that contains palm oil. It does mean we need to consume differently, e.g. buy more products made from sustainable soy and palm oil. Our planet has limits and it’s only fair that we respect them.
How, you might ask? By demanding that our governments do more for the planet and by changing how we consume. You can find some inspiration for this in our Eco-guide.
Do you have a good example or idea on how to walk the talk on sustainable development? Do share!
