Review: This paper describes the necessity of having new measures for progress on the society level. This discussion is not really new; but it is new that a jurisdiction (Nova Scotia) will soon have a detailed and policy-relevant measure of wellbeing and sustainable development available and ready for actual application in practice, and that a national statistical agency (Statistics Canada) has been interested in and supportive of the work. On the one hand we have the same problem in industry because all traditional accounting systems are obsolete. We are trying to solve this problem with the use of excellence models like the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award or the Balanced Score Card for the deployment process. Some of us know that we need stakeholder approaches instead of simple shareholder-value concepts. Colman is describing the same problem on a society level. The old measure is leading to wrong goals. Growth per se cannot be a value worth living for. The use of a Genuine Progress Index (or the use of a Society Excellence Model) is a measure we owe to our children.
Measuring Sustainable Development: A Nova Scotia Pilot Study
Authors: Hans Messinger, Director of Industry Measures and Analysis, Statistics Canada and Ronald Colman, Ph.D
Abstract: Paper presented to the Centre for the Study of Living Standards Conference on the State of Living Standards and the Quality of Life in Canada, Ottawa, October 31, 1998
Overview of the Nova Scotia GPI study for an academic and policy audience.
The background and purpose of the genuine progress index, its 22 components, data sources and methods, and case studies and samples of results produced to date, particularly on unpaid work.
Application of the Genuine Progress Index to Nova Scotia: Progress Report & Future Directions
Author: Ronald Colman, Ph.D
Background Documentation for Inter-Departmental Consultation on the proposed Nova Scotia Index of Sustainable Development, co-sponsored by Statistics Canada, Nova Scotia Department of Economic Development and Tourism, Nova Scotia Department of the Environment, A.C.O.A. and GPI Atlantic.
Measuring Sustainable Development: The Nova Scotia Genuine Progress Index: Framework, Indicators and Methodologies
Author: Ronald Colman, Ph.D
Abstract: This document is the original project plan for the Nova Scotia Genuine Progress Index (GPI), and details the proposed goals, framework, principles, components, indicators, methodologies and data sources for the index. It summarizes the limitations of the GDP, gives a short history of the development of expanded social-economic-environmental accounts, defines sustainability as the integrating theme, and examines the difference between investment-oriented accounting and the current accounting methods used in the GDP.
The document defines defensive expenditures and other key terms in the new index, and discusses the challenges of measuring non-market values. It describes advances in natural resource accounting and full-cost accounting methods that will be used in the Nova Scotia GPI, and also makes explicit the values and assumptions underlying this and other indicators of "progress." The plan also describes the strategic partnerships and working relationships that are key to development of the index.
Finally, the proposal outlines the policy relevance and potential policy uses of the new index, including:
the provision of better information through benefit-cost analysis,
the identification of investment strategies that carry minimal social and environmental costs and that can assist in long-term sustainable planning,
the provision of early warning systems of potential resource depletion that allow timely remedial action,
greater clarity of purpose, vision and direction through benchmarking and comparability,
the potential for regional economic benefit from adoption of the new index.
