What if we measured
what actually matters?
GDP tells us how much an economy produces. It says nothing about whether people are happy, healthy, or whether the planet can sustain it. Explore the alternatives.
What GDP doesn't tell you
Childcare, eldercare, volunteering — invisible to GDP
Cleaning up an oil spill raises GDP. That's a design flaw.
An economy can grow while most people get poorer
Deforestation and resource depletion don't reduce GDP
Six ways to measure
what GDP misses
Human Development Index
People over production
Gross National Happiness
Bhutan's philosophy of flourishing
Genuine Progress Indicator
Growth that counts the costs
Doughnut Economics
Thrive within planetary limits
Happy Planet Index
Long, happy lives — lightly
Wellbeing Economy
Governments rethinking the goal of growth
Countries already
measuring differently
These aren't theoretical frameworks. Nations and cities are putting alternative measures at the heart of how they govern.
The only country in the world to use happiness as an official development framework since the 1970s.
Co-founder of the WEGo alliance, embedding wellbeing goals across all government policy.
The first city to officially adopt Doughnut Economics as a guiding policy framework in 2020.
Introduced the world's first Wellbeing Budget in 2019, prioritising mental health and child poverty.
"The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income."
The man who invented GDP warned us not to use it as a measure of welfare. Ninety years later, we're still catching up to his warning.
Explore all alternatives