Media Clipping — September 22, 2003, News@UNB

Renowned Sustainable Development Thinker Visits UNB Saint John

By Gina Wilkins

We measure that which we value. But in this profit-driven, bottom-line world, are we really measuring the right things? Those involved with the Genuine Progress Index (GPI) for Atlantic Canada think not.

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.

Mr. Colman will speak on the GPI Atlantic project on Monday, Sept. 29 at 7 pm in the Ganong Hall Lecture Theatre at UNB Saint John. His talk is part of a special curriculum for participants in a CIDA program in which UNB Saint John is a partner.

According to the GPI Atlantic website, the need for better measures of progress is universally acknowledged.

"The current reliance on economic growth statistics alone as the basic measure of prosperity and progress implicitly devalues the importance of our natural and social capital, including natural resource wealth and environmental quality, unpaid voluntary and household work, leisure time, health and knowledge," says GPI Atlantic. "This practice also fails to distinguish economic activities that contribute to well-being from those, like crime and pollution, that cause harm."

The Genuine Progress Index, initiated in 1997, is meant to identify a better means of measuring progress using various social, economic and environmental components under the following headings: time use, natural capital, environmental quality, socioeconomic measures and social capital.

GPI Atlantic has produced a number of accounts that can be used as annual benchmarks to measure progress. Some of these include forest and fisheries accounts, greenhouse gas accounts, air quality accounts, views of other components such as sustainable transportation and the value of leisure time, and reports on working time and the costs of underemployment.

According to the GPI Atlantic website: "By valuing a wide range of social, economic and environmental assets, and recording any depletion or depreciation in their value, the GPI is intended to provide policy makers with accurate information on provincial strengths and early warning signals of potential weaknesses that can allow timely and rational responses to emerging needs."

Dr. Ron Colman has researched and written many reports on indicators of population health, community well-being, natural resource health, and environmental quality for the Genuine Progress Index. He advises governments and communities on indicator work, and regularly speaks on the subject to government, university and community groups.

Dr. Colman sits on the sustainable development indicators steering committee of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy and is editor of Reality Check: The Canadian Review of Wellbeing. He taught for 20 years at the university level before forming GPI Atlantic, and was a researcher and speech-writer at the United Nations.

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