UPDATE: Presentations now available! 

At a special conference in the Scottish Parliament on Thursday July 7th, hosted by Green MSPs to coincide with the G8 summit, economic experts from leading think tanks, said that real action to tackle poverty, trade injustice and climate change will only succeed if politicians and commentators radically change their thinking on economic policy.

Speakers at the event, entitled ‘Measuring what matters: justice and well-being in a one-world economy’ and co-organised with the Centre for Human Ecology and the New Economics Foundation, called upon the G8 to focus their efforts on human well-being by ‘measuring what matters’, and denounced the current economic mantra of ‘GDP growth above all else’. High profile speakers included Alan AtKisson, a founding member of the international Consultative Group on Sustainable Development Indicators and the International Sustainability Indicators Network.

Nic Marks, head of well-being research at nef, said: "Our obsession with expanding the economy has not resulted in higher levels of well-being. GDP has nearly doubled in the last 30 years but people’s well-being has remained static. Our increased wealth has been paid for by increased poverty and degradation of the global environment, and as nef's research shows its not even making us any happier. We need to 'measure what matters' if we are to create a global system that is rooted in social justice and environmental sustainability."

Osbert Lancaster, Executive Director of CHE, said: "Everyone knows in their heart of hearts, that 'more' is not the same as 'better'. Whatever warm words G8 leaders come out with, until they dump their obsession with GDP and focus on true quality of life for all, G8 policies will continue to benefit the few at the expense of the many. This event is therefore even more timely, since it sends the crucial message that unless we focus on what really matters, then we cannot create the climate for change."

A series of recommendations for change were set out including moves to ban advertising targeted at children, and for developing countries to be recompensed for the huge 'ecological debts' they are owed for rich nations over-use of the earth's finite resources.

Mark Ballard MSP, who introduced and hosted the conference on behalf of the Greens, said:  “This is an important debate. So far the Greens are the only Scottish political party that seriously questions the mantra of ‘GDP growth is all’ - but more and more people are seeing the folly of cash first, people and the environment later. nef and CHE are both practical and visionary in their work on developing an environmentally sustainable and socially just economy and we are delighted to welcome their ideas into the parliament.

“The predominant economic school of thought by G8 countries, including our own, is fundamentally flawed and out-of-date. More car accidents, more fuel burning, more cigarette advertising, more pollution, unsustainable consumption of natural resources – all these things add to GDP.

“In other words, maximizing GDP is short hand for maximizing short term benefits and opportunities for shareholders, not to benefit the vast majority of people or care for the environment. And even when people do increase their material wealth and consumption levels, they’re not necessarily happier."

Copies of main presentations: 

Nic Marks & Hetan Shah, New Economics Foundation

Alan AtKisson, Atkisson Inc.

Links:

New Economics Foundation

Alan AtKisson

Scottish Green Party