The publication of the latest EU Transitions Performance Index (TPI) provides an important opportunity to assess how countries are progressing towards fair and prosperous sustainability beyond headline growth figures.
For over 70 years, one figure has trumped all others when it comes to measuring a country’s success: Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It is used as the key indicator to measure the size and strength of economies, and rising GDP has traditionally been equated with rising prosperity; a goal prized by politicians, policymakers, and economists the world over.
But what have been the actual costs of this quest for perpetual growth, and might there be a better way of assessing a country’s progress?
Take climate change, a crisis fuelled by rising emissions and over-consumption, which both contribute to rising GDP. A reliance on one headline indicator, which is unable to distinguish between “beneficial” and “harmful” economic activities, or inequalities in society, means we may be missing much of what matters for measuring and promoting wellbeing and sustainability.
A more holistic view of progress
Measuring what matters is behind the development of a new composite indicator, the Transitions Performance Index (TPI), by the European Commission. TPI is both a scoreboard and a composite indicator that monitors and ranks countries based on their transitions towards fair and prosperous sustainability. Its aim is to offer a more holistic view of a country’s progress.
Speaking at its launch event in 2020, Commission Research and Innovation Director-General, Jean Eric Paquet, explained the importance of developing new indicators to drive forward the ambitious policies that are required post-pandemic. His comments echoed those of Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, whose State of the Union Address described how Covid-19 had ‘laid bare…the limits of a model that values wealth above…