The European Commission released a Communication on 20 August, which states that in future a country’s progress needs to be have additional indicators and data to complement GDP (Gross Domestic Product), the standard benchmark used by policy-makers. The paper names environmental and social indicators specifically as being important new additions, which the Commission believes need to be incorporated into such measurements in future.

While GDP gives an accurate analysis of economic progress, with indicators such as unemployment and inflation rates also playing important roles, a corresponding recognised indicator does not exist for environmental standards, meaning that a key feature of a country’s development, namely environmental sustainability is not measured.

In the Communication the Commission has proposed a new index for the EU which will take environmental concerns such as climate change and energy use, nature and biodiversity and air pollution and health impacts into consideration. A fall in the value of the index will represent an improvement in environmental protection efforts, with the EU’s medium and longer term plan being to have these figures published along side GDP every year.

These plans were however attacked by WWF last week when the Commission presented the policy paper to stakeholders last Tuesday. The NGO has accused the Commission of lacking urgency in its plans to develop the initiative, saying that appropriate indicators already exist, citing the ecological footprint as an obvious candidate. A commission set up by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and chaired by US economist Joseph Stiglitz, is similarly expected to recommend using the ecological footprint to supplement GDP.

This criticism has been refuted by environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas, who has said that such an index is too narrow in scope, whilst the head of DG environment at the Commission, Karl Falkenberg, has indicated the body has ‘every intention’ of using the instruments it is going to develop.