Beyond GDP Followup: Exciting News!

Those of you who have been following this blog for a while remember this series of articles I wrote from a hotel room in Belgium in Fall 2007 at the Beyond GDP conference. Now there's really good news about the results of the work launched at that conference. Let me share that with you:

B E Y O N D G D P N E W S L E T T E R
4 September 2009

European Commission adopts Communication "GDP and beyond"

At the closing of the Beyond GDP conference, Commissioner Dimas announced that the European Commission will present a policy paper that takes the ideas presented at the conference and moulds them into a road map for action. On 20 August 2009, the European Commission released its Communication “GDP and beyond: Measuring progress in a changing world”.

The Communication outlines an EU roadmap with five key actions to be undertaken now and in the near term. The text of the Communication is available in 22 languages.

The five key actions support the Commission’s aims to develop indicators relevant to the challenges of today—ones that provide an improved basis for public discussion and policy-making. The five key actions are:

* Complementing GDP with environmental and social indicators
* Near real-time information for decision-making
* More accurate reporting on distribution and inequalities
* Developing a European Sustainable Development Scoreboard
* Extending National Accounts to environmental and social issues

Live online video of presentation event for Communication “GDP and beyond”

The adopted Communication “GDP and beyond” will be presented and discussed with key stakeholders at an event on 8 September 2009 and will be streamed live online in 6 languages from 14:30 to 17:00 CET. Confirmed speakers include: Stavros Dimas (European Commission); Elisabet Falemo (Swedish EU Presidency); Aart de Geus (OECD); Pedro Diaz Muñoz (Eurostat); and Enrico Giovannini (Italian Statistical Institute). Speaker presentations will be followed by a discussion session with the stakeholders in attendance.

More information about this communication, including how to be involved in the live conference, is available at www.beyond-gdp.eu.