Reimagining Societal Well-being for the Future (Part 1)
Care to imagine what the world would look like in 2060? A report called “Global Material Resources Outlook to 2060”, released by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), provides us with a glimpse into that future. The report states that between 2017 and 2060, the global gross domestic product is projected to more than triple. As defined by FocusEconomics, the gross domestic product (GDP) is “the total market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period”. Other findings from the report include global materials use being projected to jump from 89 gigatonnes (Gt) in 2017 to 167 Gt in 2060 and projections for total greenhouse gas emissions reaching 75 Gt CO2 –equivalents in 2060, up from 41 Gt CO2 –equivalents in 2011.
The projections here suggest that economic growth is linked with a rise in greenhouse gas emissions globally. There is a prevalent opinion that environmental stewardship can be achieved alongside economic growth. However, considering that economic growth is typically measured with the real gross domestic product, with the word “real” adjusting for inflation, the critique of economic growth lies within the fact that increasing GDP begets consumption which in turn drives climate change. In this sense, economic growth is really just a sugar-coated veil that masks the underlying problem of GDP and consumption.
Excessive consumption is the result of heightened demand for resources. Demand drives economic growth in the conventional GDP sense, because extracting and consuming resources results in a higher GDP. Therein lies the current conundrum of addressing climate change while promoting economic growth. If a society is earnest about climate change action, is it being responsible by simultaneously continuing to drive demand for resources to allow economic growth knowing the impact it has climate change?
Perhaps, it is necessary to reimagine economic growth to better both society and nature. The issue is that GDP is also commonly used to measure standard of living, which is why conventional thought points to higher GDP translating into economic growth and improvement to peoples lives. However, GDP fails to capture many qualities that contribute to standard of living, including “leisure time, environmental quality, levels of health and education, activities conducted outside the market, changes in inequality of income, increases in variety, increase in technology, or the —positive or negative— value that society may place on certain types of output.” Qualities such as fairness, health, and well-being are much better indicators of how a society is flourishing. Alternatives have been developed to try and capture what the GDP misses, and although there is no global consensus, “there is growing agreement that the continued use of GDP as a proxy for overall well-being is not appropriate.”
If society as a whole is to decide that its well-being is fundamentally the most important quality, then an indicator like GDP and a word like economic growth becomes less important. As a result of a less obsessive nature to increase GDP as it stands in the present, there should naturally be less of a demand for resources which will decrease consumption and therefore mitigate climate change. By definition, this would lower 2060 projections for global GDP and total greenhouse gas emissions. In essence, focusing on societal well-being is much better for society and nature than focusing on economic growth through GDP, a statement that sounds like common sense but challenges what is currently being practiced.