News
Blogpost: Beyond GDP (Dragon Tales, 2 Aug 2010)
At the Trilogue – a meeting of EU parliamentarians, academics, civil society, the arts and independent organizations – a debate that took place within the discussion of re-thinking growth/development was that of “Moving Beyond GDP” as a measure for social and economic progress.
“We are not throwing out GDP,” said Jerome C Glenn, Executive Director of the Millennium Project in Washington. “It is only recently that governments are beginning to think about it and so it is important to have this discussion.”
In many arguments on moving Beyond GDP, it has been seen as creating a false image of progress, or excluding the social wellbeing of a nation. What it did do, however, was show that if a country produced, consumed, and wasted more – irrespective of its implications on the environment and social wellbeing – its GDP went up.