Beyond GDP: delivering sustainable and inclusive wellbeing

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the standard measure of a country’s economic performance. However, it doesn’t capture all aspects of societal wellbeing. 

'Beyond GDP' initiatives seek to develop more comprehensive metrics that reflect prosperity and wellbeing, considering environmental sustainability, social inclusion, quality of life and intergenerational fairness. 

The European Commission is working on developing sustainable and inclusive wellbeing metrics to progressively complement the use of GDP with wellbeing indicators in EU policymaking. 

This work was announced in the Strategic Foresight Report 2023: Sustainability and people’s wellbeing at the heart of Europe’s Open Strategy Autonomy. The 8th Environment Action Programme also called for the development of a summary dashboard that measures economic, social and environmental progress ‘beyond GDP’. 

Such metrics and dashboards will help monitor progress towards the wellbeing of current and future generations, better tracking the EU's sustainability transition in a global comparison. They also facilitate the communication of political challenges, and the design of strategies to address them in a people and planet-centred manner, ensuring sustainable prosperity. 

Wellbeing is enshrined as a core concept in one of the treaties of the EU, ‘The Union’s aim is to promote peace, its values and the wellbeing of its people,’ Treaty on European Union, Article 3(1).