"Ron Colman, executive director of GPI Atlantic, also said that the province is well-positioned to cut back on consumption and become a model for sustainable development. "
June 17, 2007, The Chronicle-Herald ~ Alex Roberts
"Economists are now looking at more comprehensive ways of measuring well-being, with the idea of producing a Genuine Progress Indicator. This measure includes not only GDP, but also factors in leisure time and life expectancy, for example, and subtracts for pollution, overcrowding and other issues. "
"We have homegrown examples of what can and should be done. The sustainability of rural economic initiatives should be assessed using the full-cost accounting methods being developed by Nova Scotia's GPI Atlantic. "
March 9, 2006, The Chronicle-Herald, Opinion, Halifax, Nova Scotia ~ Jim Meek
“In short, GDP measures growth grossly, and doesn't give a hoot if economic activity is produced by (non-Iraqi) terrorists developing weapons of mass destruction - or Girl Guides selling cookies. Thus the new attempt to measure well-being. Well, it's actually not new. Atlantic Canada has long had its own Genuine Progress Index, produced by the good people at GPI Atlantic.”
May 29, 2005, The Halifax Herald ~ Silver Donald Cameron
“ Can't we find a better measurement? ¶ Since 1997, a small organization based in St. Margarets Bay has been using Nova Scotia as its laboratory in developing a genuine progress index based not just on economics, but also on sustainability, well-being and quality of life. GPI Atlantic (www.gpiatlantic.org) has issued numerous carefully researched and thought-provoking reports on aspects of Nova Scotians' well-being, including recent reports on air quality, solid waste and working time. ¶ And now the work is going national. ”
“ Ron Colman is a numbers cruncher. A policy wonk. Heck, he even brought a suit and tie to a meeting in Whitehorse. ¶ But he knows his numbers so well, he can paint vivid pictures of what we are doing wrong and show audiences how much better off this country could be if we changed our thinking. ¶ Colman is the founder and executive director of GPI Atlantic, a non-profit research organization that is trying to change how Canadians measure their progress. ”
“ ...we understand that our success and our quality of life are increasingly tied to our relationship with our environment. The decisions we make now have profound implications for the future. ”
— Prime Minister Paul Martin
November 2004, The New Zealand Herald ~ Ronald Colman
“ New Zealand has gone much further than most other countries in trying to account fully and accurately for its real wealth as a nation. Its excellent social reports, municipal quality of life indicators and sustainable development measures recognise that New Zealand's assets go far beyond the economic resources generally measured to assess prosperity, and include its abundant natural wealth and the health and wellbeing of its people. ¶ But have New Zealand's new social and environmental measures changed policy in fundamental ways? Have they pushed New Zealanders to consider the trade-offs between today's income and the wellbeing of future generations? ”
September 20, 2004, CBC Radio Alberta ~ Wild Rose Forum
How do you measure progress?
An interview and phone in show with Ronald Colman discussing the Genuine Progress Index in 4 parts (2.5MB - 1.7MB MP3 audio): Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
“ Not everyone is waiting for the government to move. GPI Atlantic, a non-profit research group based in Halifax, has been developing since 1997 an index of sustainable development and well-being for Nova Scotia. So far, it has completed indicators for 16 of the 22 areas it set out to measure. In another 18 months, says the group's founder, Ron Colman, it hopes to have all 22 indicators finished. ¶ Yet the index's work-in-progress status hasn't stopped the group from grabbing headlines in Halifax papers over the past few years with reports that put a dollar value on things not usually measured monetarily; costs such as crime, clear-cutting, and smoking, and benefits like volunteer work and childcare. ”
June 3, 2004, The Georgia Straight, Vancouver ~ Alicia Priest
In The Shadow of Generation X and The Seniors Tsunami, How Can Today's Youth Plot Their Own Course to Happiness? “ Seventy years ago, Simon Kuznets, the Russia-born U.S. economics professor who was an architect of the GDP, warned against equating national welfare with economic growth. Since then, people have urged governments to use other yardsticks to measure progress. Ronald Colman is one of them. A political scientist and executive director of Genuine Progress Index Atlantic, a Halifax-based nonprofit group, Colman is developing an index of well-being and sustainable development for Nova Scotia that he hopes will become a model for the nation. ”
2004 ~ Nordregio in Sweden
Tools for Sustainable Regional Development
206 page report sites the work of GPIAtlantic1.9MB PDF
September 22, 2003, News@UNB, Saint John ~ Gina Wilkins
“ Renowned sustainable development thinker Ron Colman will give a presentation at the University of New Brunswick Saint John next week that will address some of the other assets, besides money, that should be measured in order to get a real sense of progress in society. Mr. Colman is founder and executive officer of GPI Atlantic, a non-profit research group that is constructing an index of sustainable development and well-being for Nova Scotia as a pilot project for Canada. ”
June 2003, Gage Learning Corporation
Canada's History: Voices and Visions
A description of GPI Atlantic and the GPI, plus sections from the GPI Ecological Footprint and Forest reports, occupy two pages in this new high school textbook, Chapter 11: Future Issues and Challenges in the Canadian Economy (pages 136-137).
May 15, 2003, The New Zealand Herald ~ Simon Collins
“ Nineteen years after bringing down the Muldoon Government, former MP Marilyn Waring has become a big name in Canada through her work on a new measure of wellbeing. ¶ Dr Waring, now an associate professor of public policy at Massey University, Albany, drew a crowd of 1800 last time she was in the Nova Scotia capital of Halifax, the base of an institute which promotes the "global progress index" (GPI). ”
“ OTTAWA—A federal advisory panel wants Canada to become the first country to adopt a new way of measuring overall economic development and prosperity. ¶ The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) plans to release its proposal on Monday. CBC obtained a copy of the report on the weekend. ¶ Instead of relying solely on standard indicators, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the group is suggesting six new numbers be added to the mix. ¶ These include measurements of: forest cover; freshwater; greenhouse gas emissions; wetlands; and workforce education. ”
“ We currently measure our progress and gauge our well-being according to a narrow set of indicators -- our economic growth rates. "The more the economy grows, the better off we are" or so the theory goes. Yet vital social and environmental factors remain invisible in these measures. ”
“ Colman isn't the first guy to look askance at the GDP. Groups all over North America and Europe are trying to develop a comprehensive wellness index of one sort or another. Colman's group is a little different in two ways. One is that he attaches dollar figures to his calculations, the second is that he isn't driven by a political agenda. He has used research from both the far right Fraser Institute and the union-funded Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in his work. He has looked at costs of crime, which is a hot-button issue for the Canadian Alliance, and the depletion of natural resources, which is an issue dear to the NDP. ”
“ When you think about your well-being, the national gross domestic product is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. But politicians, industry and the mainstream media regularly use the GDP, and other measures of economic activity, to indicate social progress. Ron Colman says we value what we measure. So in 1997 he founded Genuine Progress Index Atlantic, a non-profit research group in Nova Scotia, to develop a more holistic measure of progress. By next year, Colman hopes to be able to paint a picture of Nova Scotia's progress that places economic activity alongside the environmental and social factors that shape community and well-being. Last month, Colman and I met in a Buddhist community center in Tantallon, Nova Scotia. Sitting with his arm thrown over the back of the couch, glancing out at the spring woods beyond the open window, Colman's eyes grew wider when he talked about how the GPI can help create a better world. ”
Fall, 2001, Alternatives Journal ~ Jen McKay and Liann Bobechko
“ The Nova Scotia project was inspired by the first GPI, produced, in the US in 1995 by the Redefining Progress group. GPI Atlantic hopes that their efforts in Nova Scotia will someday be adopted as the official method of measuring well-being, not only in their own province, but also across the country. ¶ In this they are encouraged by Liberal MP Marlene Jennings, who introduced a private member's bill in Parliament last year. Bill C-268, the Canadian Well-Being Measurement Act, calls for "development and periodic publication of a set of indicators of the economic, social and environmental well-being of people, communities and ecosystems in Canada." ”
Wednesday, July 18, 2001, The Daily News, Halifax ~ David Swick
In fact, tonight StatsCan director will be GPI's guest “ When Hans Messinger crunches numbers, people listen. Government and business need to know if our national production is growing, or slowing down, and by how much. Messinger is the director of the 50-person Statistics Canada department that calculates the gross domestic product (GDP). ¶ Today, he will be in French Village on St. Margarets Bay, the guest of honour at a party hosted by Ron Colman, head of GPI Atlantic. That's the non-profit research group working to develop a Genuine Progress Index for Nova Scotia, whose number crunching has calculated the value of volunteer work, the cost of crime and the money wasted on unwanted Christmas presents. ¶ Huh? I might have expected Statistics Canada to regard GPI Atlantic as the enemy, as the anti-Statscan. Nothing could be farther from the truth. ”
Wednesday, May 2, 2001, The Daily News, Halifax ~ David Swick
In fact, tonight StatsCan director will be GPI's guest “ GPI Atlantic, the folks giving all our heads a shake by creating a Genuine Progress Index for Nova Scotia, may soon have a new way to get its message across. ¶ GPI Atlantic has joined forces with one of Toronto's best-known non-profits, the Atkinson Charitable Foundation, to create a prototype publication: Reality Check: The Canadian Review of Well-being. ”
April 4, 2001, The Halifax Herald ~ Silver Donald Cameron
“ Our present economy, says Amory Lovins, evolved when resources were plentiful but workers were scarce. It extracts the maximum output from workers by mechanizing and minimizing their work, but it is wasteful of resources. Today, however, workers are plentiful but resources are becoming scarce. We need to seek more productivity from resources, not people. We need new instruments, like the Genuine Progress Index, the guaranteed annual income and the various alternative government budgets proposed by non-profit organizations. ”
"Dr. Ron Coleman believes that the many Canadians who are working themselves into burn-out cases in order to pay for their flashy cars and expensive homes could learn a lesson or two from easygoing Islanders. Coleman is a director of GPI Atlantic, a non-profit research group that is constructing an index of well-being and sustainable development for Nova Scotia. He was brought to Charlottetown by the Cooper Institute on Wednesday to give a presentation on the true measures of poverty, progress and prosperity."
December 1, 2000, Government of Canada, Depository Services Program
Counting the things that really count “ A Halifax research group reported last week that the quality of Nova Scotia's drinking water is improving even as our rivers, lakes, and wetlands are degrading. ¶ Yawn. A mundane, unsurprising conclusion about a resource so commonplace we all take it for granted. ¶ Except that the 230-page study by GPI Atlantic, first in a series of natural resource accounts the nonprofit group plans to release this year, poses a fundamental challenge to the way our society makes decisions. ”
“ Until we explicitly value our free time, voluntary community service, parental time with children, and natural resource wealth, they will never receive adequate attention on the public policy agenda. Similarly, until we assign explicit value to equity in our growth measures, we will continue to give little policy attention to the fact that here in Nova Scotia the poorest 20% of the population has lost 29% of its real income after taxes and transfers since 1990. ¶ The obsession with growth and its confusion with genuine development and quality of life have led us down a dangerous and self-destructive path. It is doubtful that we will leave our children a better legacy until we cut through the myth that "more" means "better," until we stop gauging our well being and prosperity by how fast the economy is growing, and until we stop misusing the GDP as a measure of progress. ”
Traducido del Shambhala Sun de Noviembre de 1999 ~ Ronald Colman
Genuine Progress Index can tell us more than Gross Domestic Product “ Yet, as environmental preservation generates little or no immediate growth, and the market statistics are centred around the products, there is little pressure for policymakers to oppose the current economic system of values. ¶ So, just how serious is the problem in Nova Scotia? In 1958, one quarter of the province's trees were 80 years and older, with eight percent of the total tree population over the 100 year mark. In 1998, only two percent of Nova Scotia's trees are older than 80 years, and less than one percent are over a 100. This means a profound loss of forest canopy and species diversity, which increases the likelihood of disease and parasite destruction to the province's forests, and thereby lowers or threatens to lower Nova Scotia's overall timber value. ”
June 19, 1999, The Daily News, Halifax ~ Ronald Colman — Second of two parts
Genuine Progress Index can tell us more than Gross Domestic Product “ First, we now know, through hard experience in the ground fishery, that depleting our natural resources in the name of economic growth does not produce more jobs in the long run, but massive unemployment. The national round table on environment and economy recently warned we face a similar prospect in our Maritime forest industry ¶ Secondly growth is increasingly capital driven rather than labourdriven. We have seen continuous and rapid economic growth since the Second World War and a steady increase in Canadian unemployment rates. In Nova Scotia, we have gone from less than 5 per cent unemployment in the late 1960s to an average of 8 per cent in the 1970s, and 12 per cent in the 1980s and 1990s. "Normal" and even "good" employment rates today were completely unacceptable 30 years ago. ¶ And yet, we still link "more jobs" with "more growth." "If" we forgive loans to Michelin, "if" we bring in casinos, "if" we cut a new deal with China, "if" we entice another corporation with a tax break or subsidy, it is said, "then" perhaps we can create (or more likely save) jobs. ”
June 18,1999, The Daily News, Halifax ~ Ronald Colman — First of two parts
We’ve got it all wrong “ There is no more pervasive and dangerous illusion in our society than the equation of economic growth with well being and prosperity all of us—politicians, economists, journalists, the general public—are hooked on the materialist myth "more is better." ”
May 30, 1999, The Sunday Herald, Halifax ~ Silver Donald Cameron
New measuring tool takes deeper look at economy “ IF ECONOMIC statistics had been kept in 1918 as they are today, Halifax would have looked wonderful. Sales of almost everything were at record highs; construction was booming; everyone was working. The gross domestic product was soaring. ¶ Were Haligonians happy? Hardly: the city was literally a disaster area, having been levelled by the Halifax Explosion in December 1917. That wouldn't have mattered to the GDP calculation. Because the GDP simply tots up all the activities which can be measured in money, it is equally happy about crime, crumpets and Christmas trees. Crime generates prison construction, expands police forces, improves sales of security equipment. Up goes the GDP. ”
March 15, 1999, The Globe and Mail ~ Silver Donald Cameron
“ The GPI pilot project is directed by economist Ronald Colman. Its approach is "fullcost accounting," which translates social and environmental benefits and costs into monetary terms, and assigns negative value to negative things. The GPI recognises four forms of capital: natural, human, social and "produced" capital. "A depletion of any form of capital," says Dr. Colman, "imperils the future flow of services, and reinvestment in all four forms of capital is necessary for economic health." ”
28 February 1999, Catholic New Times ~ Blayne Haggart
“ Since its creation some 60 years ago (though it's hard to imagine a time before it), the GDP has become the universal benchmark for societal progress. A rising GDP means that the economy is growing; growth defined by a rising GDP is progress; and progress is good. ¶ Now, however, a rising chorus is wondering what kind of progress the GDP is moving us toward, and whether what it's measuring is progress at all.s ”
July 29, 1998, New Brunswick Telegraph Journal ~ Graeme Hamilton, Southam News
Research group pioneers new test to see how well the country is really doing “ And Statistics Canada hopes the Nova Scotia model will eventually be used across the country. ¶ "We always tend to think that when GDP rises, it's better for everybody," Hans Messinger, director of industry measures and analysis for Statistics Canada, said. "It's not necessarily better for everybody, and GDP gives no consideration of how well we can maintain that kind of development in the future. " ”
Research group publishes pioneering study using new gauge “ A Nova Scotia research group has just published the results of a pioneering effort to provide a better gauge. By including such things as the value of unpaid work and the costs of crime and naturalresource depletion, the Genuine Progress Index delves beyond the GDP's calculation of goods and services exchanged in the marketplace. And Statistics Canada hopes the Nova Scotia model will eventually be used across the country. ”
The issue: GPI an answer to GDP. “ THE GENUINE PROGRESS Index (GPI) has a quaint, 19th century ring to it. But it's actually an alternative to the notion of "progress" measured by economic growth, capital, technology, the exploitation of resources and similar material gains. The nonprofit group GPI Atlantic has released the first in a series of 20 studies aimed at defining a GPI for Nova Scotia, a pilot project which could become a model for the country. ”
July 21, 1998, The Mail Star, Halifax ~ Michael Lightstone
Research project introduces genuine progress index “ Hans Messinger, an assistant director at Statistics Canada in Ottawa who's assisting Mr. Colman, says the GDP can increase while a society's quality of life declines. ¶ "The whole sustainable dimension is a very critical one," he says. "The GDP just tells you about the current time period how your economy is doing now, what you're producing now. ¶ "It doesn't really say how much you have to invest to ensure that you keep producing or expanding in the future." ¶ Mr. Messinger concedes the GPI is more of a subjective indicator but says it brings together economic, social and environmental elements to better measure progress. ”
November 16, 1997, The Sunday Daily News, Halifax ~ Stephen Bornais
Former SMU prof tries to find a better way “ The GDP is a leftover from the Second World War. Even when it was first introduced by Allied war planners, it was thought to be a crude indicator of a nation's welfare. But given that most of the activity it was designed to measure was being channelled in one direction— winning the war—it was sufficient, perhaps even vital, in the final victory over the Axis powers. ¶ Over the last five decades however, it has become an end unto itself. Conventional wisdom holds that if GDP grows, we all should benefit. ”
GPIAtlantic
535 Indian Point Road
Glen Haven, NS
Canada B3Z 2T5
Phone: (902) 489-2524
Fax: (902) 826-7088 info@gpiatlantic.org
