Sustainable Pathways Objective 3 - Indicators of Progress
Objective Leader: Prof Murray Patterson
Overall measures of sustainability performance are being derived and advocated. The role of this research is to support and complement the indicator programmes of the Ministry for the Environment, Statistics New Zealand and the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. Research will be undertaken in close collaboration with these agencies.
For an update on Regional Ecological Footprints
The New Zealand Genuine Progress Indicator
A 'genuine progress indicator' (GPI) has been developed, and is soon to be publicly launched. The project amends New Zealand's measurement of economic growth - GDP - adjusting the current estimated growth rate used in New Zealand (i.e. Gross Domestic Product - GDP) to include environmental and social costs such as soil erosion, air pollution, crime and traffic congestion. A list of all the components included in the New Zealand GPI is below, with a brief description of what that component measures.
An improvement in well-being for a nation can be interpreted as genuine progress. Traditionally, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been used to measure progress but there is increasing demand for indicators that take into account a broader range of factors than national income. It was never intended GDP be used as a measure of welfare for a nation, but it has assumed this role by default. Simon Kuznets, the inventor of GDP is reported as saying “The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income as defined (by the GDP) …. Goals for ‘more’ growth should specify of what, and for what” (Kuznets, 1934). The need for a meaningful measure of national well-being has led many countries to construct indicators such as the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) or the Index of Social and Economic Welfare (ISEW). With these measures, well-being is seen to consist of both economic and non-economic factors.
A regional GPI has been calculated for the Auckland Region.
More information and the summary report can be found here
Below is a description of the components included in the NZ GPI:
|
 Air Quality
Loss of air quality - calcuated by weighing the cost of loss of life years and reduced activity days for 2004 by an air pollution index. |
 Climate Change
Covers all greenhouse gas emissions (GGE) from NZ, calculated by multiplying annual GGE by an estimate of the marginal social cost of emitting an additional tonne of CO2 into the atmosphere. |
 Commuting
Incorporates the direct (e.g. vehicle purchase, bus/train fares) and time costs of commuting to work. |
 Crime
Private-sector property loss, property damage, and preventive expenditure including associated administration costs borne by insurance companies. |
 Household & Community Work
Non-leisure time spent on household and community work; time-series estimates converted to dollars using median wage rate. |
 Health
Cost of private defensive expenditure on health, from Statistics New Zealand time series data. |
 Noise Pollution
Increase in number vehicle kilometers travelled and associated noise used as proxy for loss of amenity from noise exposure. |
 Non-Renewable
Loss of non-renewable resources - calculated using El Safary method. |
 Overwork
Loss of leisure time - calculated as hours overworked per week multiplied by total employment and average wage rate. |
 Ozone Depletion
Loss of life years from death from melanoma cancer (due to higher exposure New Zealanders have to impact of damage in ozone layer). |
 Personal Consumption
Personal consumption (household spending on consumer goods and services, and non-capital items by private non-profit organisations serving households), adjusted for income inequality. |
 Public Capital
Services rendered by government-owned capital stocks, with allowances for non-defensive and non-market services. Estimated as depreciation of capital stocks and opportunity cost of such investment. |
 Public Consumption
Non-defensive public expenditure - using a time series of input-output tables to establish public consumption by category. |
 Soil
Tonnes of annual soil loss (mainly from erosion), valued at 1998 costing. |
 Solid Waste & Contaminated Sites
Based on estimated costs of remediation of contaminated sites in NZ and tonnes of waste going to landfills. |
 Terrestrial
Loss and damage to terrestrial ecosystems, which is mainly caused by invasive pests. |
 Underemployment
Indirectly values involuntary leisure time that underemployment brings. Total part-time employees seeking full time jobs, x average hours wanted to work per work, x average hourly rate. |
 Unemployment
Indirectly values involuntary leisure time that unemployment brings. Total unemployed hours per week, x cost per hour (min wage rate \ 40 hours). Allowances made for full and part-time employment. |
 Water Quality
Loss of water quality calculated by cost of riparian planting lowland river margins and planned restorative work on eutrophic lakes. |
 Wetlands
Estimating number of hectares of wetlands drained and the ecosystem services value per hectare of wetland.
|
For more information about the New Zealand GPI, please contact Vicky Forgie. |
|
