Towards a unified framework for measuring sustainable and inclusive wellbeing in the EU

Abstract There is a growing recognition that relying on traditional economic indicators such as GDP and its growth, is inadequate for tackling the current and emerging global societal challenges. Beyond better measurement, there is a need for policy objectives that can address these fundamental issues in a different way. A shift is underway towards wellbeing as an explicit policy objective. To enable the existing multitude of beyond GDP measurement frameworks to support such a shift, the notion of sustainable and inclusive wellbeing is emerging as a new consensus term and approach. In this context, this paper presents the main ingredients of the European Commission’s related initiative, which aims to develop sustainable and inclusive wellbeing metrics, to progressively complement GDP with wellbeing indicators in EU policymaking. Our conceptual and measurement framework builds on the multidimensional approach of the first Stiglitz report and the OECD wellbeing framework, integrating the key dimensions of current and future wellbeing, inclusion, and sustainability. To make it useful for policies and align with EU political priorities and processes, we made three important contributions. (1) We implemented several refinements in the OECD approach: most importantly, we strengthened the role of resilience and redefined the treatment of nature. Rather than classifying this latter solely as one of the four capitals, we assigned it a transversal role. (2) We designed the conceptual structure in a way that it enables us to ‘catalogue’ existing EU frameworks, working towards their streamlining, identifying gaps in their coverage and arriving at a lean yet comprehensive indicator set. (3) We followed a consensus-based expert selection method for the indicators, ensuring that the eventual list is comprehensive, aligned with political priorities, and balanced in terms of size and scope. An important application of our framework is to introduce ‘directionality’ into the competitiveness discourse: to use resources efficiently in order to deliver wellbeing to people in a sustainable and inclusive way. If a country allocates a greater share of its resources to dimensions of societal wellbeing not reflected in GDP than another one, then a purely GDP-based comparison may provide a misleading picture. It is therefore essential to systematically identify and appropriately value these dimensions, enabling countries to make informed choices and to address current challenges more effectively.