Ecological Economic Accounts: Towards Intemerate Values
Maxim: GDP is not healthy for people and planet!
Arrow: Changes to National Accounts must include a robust revision of our Wellbeing and Ecological Biodiversity.
The United Nations, has recently announced a draft proposal to replace GDP with a System of Environmental-Economic Accounts and will include ecosystem services into the national accounting system.
We have nearly 50 years of evidence that our national accounting system has been grossly unjust, enforcing immense disparities between the so-called advanced economies and the rest of the world.
How our countries account for economic growth has put our environments at risk. The aggregates for GDP, or our Gross Domestic Product, are built upon the eroding pillars of Production, Consumption, Distribution and Exchange of Goods and Services, with no accounting of our Wellbeing or Ecological Biodiversity.
A revised United Nations environmental accounting system, provides a tremendous opportunity for developing countries, indigenous peoples, and interfaith groups to mandate wellbeing and sound ecological priorities that could set a new just, fair, and equitable path forward in how we measure our interactions with the global economy.