The European Sustainable Development Network (ESDN) convened a workshop on "Reforms for Measuring Welfare and Wealth in the Context of Sustainable Development" in Berlin on 2 and 3 December 2010. R. Andreas Kraemer of Ecologic Institute moderated the event discussing "Beyond GDP", which was hosted by the German Federal Ministry of Environment (BMU) and the German Bank for Reconstruction (KfW).

The workshop strengthened the momentum of the EU initiative “Beyond GDP – Measuring progress, true wealth and the well-being of nations”, the work of the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress established by the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, and led by the Nobel laurate Joseph Stiglitz, as well as the global project on “Measuring the Progress of Societies” hosted by the OECD and involving a number of international partners.

The European Sustainable Development Network (ESDN) is an informal network of public administrators and other experts dealing with sustainable development (SD) strategies in Europe. Since 2007, the ESDN organises thematic workshops to facilitate informal exchange of views and experiences among its members. The Berlin workshop on reforms for measuring welfare was the 6th ESDN workshop.

The workshop report [pdf, 1 MB, English] is available for download.

Further Links:

• Ecologic Institute Project and Conference: Beyond GDP – Measuring progress, true wealth, and the well-being of nations and web site of the EU Initiative "Beyond GDP"
• Ecologic Institute Project: Integrating Mainstream Economic Indicators with Sustainable Development Objectives (IN-STREAM) and IN-STREAM web site
• Ecologic Institute Project: One Planet Economy Network: Europe (OPEN:EU) and OPEN:EU web site
• Ecologic Institute Project: Potential of the Ecological Footprint for monitoring environmental impact from natural resource use
• Ecologic Institute Project: Establishing threshholds for environmental sustainability and a related set of indicators
• Ecologic Institute Project: EU Arctic Footprint and Policy Assessment and EU Arctic Footprint and Policy Assessment web site
• Dinner Dialogue: Mathis Wackernagel on The Ecological Footprint: How should we define prosperity in a world of scarce resources?
• Eurostat Publication (supported by Ecologic Institute): "Sustainable development in the European Union. 2009 monitoring report of the EU sustainable development strategy"