New indicators to measure wellbeing are necessary for economic systems change, says Katherine Trebeck – but faced with a host of challenges to the wellbeing economy, we must ensure that they are meaningful to the communities that stand to benefit.

People have different ‘doorways’ into the economic systems change movement – making it a wonderful, pluralistic mosaic of people and organisations each focusing on different changes needed to build an economy that works better for people and planet. 

I stepped in through the Beyond-GDP doorway. In late 2009 I took a job with Oxfam Scotland, and inspired by both the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (the “Sarkozy Commission”) and also the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach Oxfam utilised, and staggered at the huge health inequalities in my-new-ish home town of Glasgow, I started questioning the disproportionate influence on policy of GDP. I began working on a tentative offering to Scottish policy makers that better reflected what most mattered to Scottish people (spending most of our tiny budget to ask them). 

In devising an index that sought to complement or replace GDP, I of course joined thousands and thousands of people who have come up with indices that, to varying degrees, seek to broaden the gaze of economic decision-making – from the Happy Planet Index to the Citizens Prosperity Index; from the OECD’s Better Life Index to the World Economic Forum’s Inclusive Development Index. This rich array of indices suggests that there is no shortage of recognition of the problems of too-narrow focus on GDP and no shortage of folks willing to have a go at devising a replacement. 

But it is hard not to notice this plethora and ask if they have had any impact. Most haven’t been taken up by governments. And when governments develop their own dashboards (over two thirds of the OECD governments have multidimensional wellbeing frameworks these days), they tend to sit on the shelf or in appendices of budget statements, being obsessed over by some policy wonks, but not changing the political decisions that they are, presumably, intended to inform. Despite there being more measures and indicators and dashboards than ever, “business as usual” policy-making seems to carry on. 

So it seems time to ask, “are measures enough?” And would replacing GDP with different measures of progress automatically lead to transformation of policy and more success in the building of wellbeing economies? 

My take is that measures and indicators are a necessary, but not sufficient ingredient in the task of system change.  

They can inform, awaken, and focus attention. They have potential to generate a more accurate picture of the circumstances of a locality, and how far this is from what is sought. In turn, that could lead to better analysis of this gap – what are the root causes of inadequate progress and why different groups might be struggling, for example? With that better analysis could come, in theory, better policy proposals and more informed evidence-based decisions with which to proceed. Get that all motoring, and the prize is better outcomes for people and planet. 

Except…that such a linear theoretical scenario gets a little messy when it comes to the reality of policy-making.  

Earlier this year, I published a paper that revealed what the economic change movement is up against in terms of getting wellbeing economy ideas onto the policy table, and specifically in relation to indicators. It revealed:  

• System inertia: existing metrics that governments use are found in explicit laws and regulations and in implicit practices in governance systems. Media are accustomed to reporting and questioning governments on the movement of GDP and opposition parties use it as a rod to hit their government opponents. 

• Lack of bandwidth: in times of crisis, civil servants can dismiss the metric debate as something for easier times, not when governments are rushing from one crisis response to the next. 

• Deliberate blockers: despite widespread recognition of the flaws of GDP among economists and civil servants, those who defend GDP on the assertion that it tracks important goals such as jobs and living standards often hold powerful influence in or on government. 

• Weak implementation and co-option: despite the construction of multi-dimensional dashboards, beyond-GDP metrics are not accorded influence in policymaking on a par with GDP. A cynical reading is that this is about deliberate placation to quell discussion of paradigm change; a more sympathetic reading would allow for the time and challenges inherent in making the measures matter. 

• Confusion: the plethora of beyond-GDP measures and related initiatives being proffered to governments all have their strengths and weaknesses. It is understandable that government officials are confused and unsure of which ones to embrace. 

• Not giving politicians what they want: politicians are unlikely to hear about beyond-GDP indicators from their constituents. Indicators do not offer politicians the newsletter-fodder or ribbon-cutting moments they often seek in their political careers. 

• Inadequate support base: the way advocacy, media and movement-building work in practice means indicators are not likely candidates to be front and centre of campaigns. 

• Friendly fire: each new indicator or index adds to an already crowded space where proponents of the most recent entrant to the field implicitly claim it is the one to solve things. 

So what is to be done? 

1. Consistent critique: to build consensus that the noise around quarterly GDP-reporting is focused on an outdated measure, point to what the GDP figures don’t cover and the economic roots of why things are the way they are each time they are published.  

2. Build a broad base: link with other groups whose goals are hampered by GDP-dominated policy making​ and undertake comprehensive visioning exercises (see Wales’s efforts) to ensure the policy agenda reflects the views and visions of everyday people and communities, not least to build engagement, momentum, political agitation, and legitimacy. 

3. Invest in intrapreneurs: many in government proudly declare they understand the flaws of GDP; they need support in moving beyond that recognition to incorporating alternative indicators in policymaking and understandings of economic progress and government success.  

Finally, those of us working in this space need to remember that most people, when they are talking about dashboards and indicators, are talking about their cars, not their quality of life. Indicator projects that too quickly drift into the terrain of geeky metrics will become removed from the folks they are purporting to benefit and thus will not generate the clamour needed to push politicians to take them up. 

Imagine instead what I have long been calling ‘cornerstone indicators’: simple indicators of progress that are co-produced with the community. They measure progress on those aspects of collective wellbeing most important to the community, but critically do so in a way that intuitively speaks to things going well. The example I often give to illustrate the idea is the number of girls who ride their bikes to school: a simple measure, but indicative of a healthy context more broadly, because a lot of things have to go right in the wider context to enable girls to do this. These are the sort of indicators that will help chart the journey to a better world. 

Read Getting wellbeing ideas on the policy table: theory, reality, pushback and next steps, by Katherine Trebeck, published by The Club of Rome and Earth4All.