A new index, based on measures of so-called resilience, is needed to help gauge the success of policies aimed at preserving humanity's ability to live within Earth's resources, finds a new study involving a UCL researcher.
In a paper published in the journal One Earth, researchers from UCL, the University of Southampton and the University of East Anglia outlined the case for moving towards an 'holistic' approach to gauging policy success which incorporates environmental and societal wellbeing measures in addition to economic ones. This involves moving away from a strict policy focus on a country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) - the monetary value of all the final goods and services produced by a country over a period of time - which has been the dominant metric since the 1930s' Great Depression. Last year, the UK's GDP was around £2,274 billion.
In the paper, the researchers argue that this way of measuring the success of resource-preserving policies is outdated and a better measure would be a broader, multifaceted one focused on resilience. A country's resilience is the extent to which it can prepare, manage and recover from a crisis, relative to the severity of that crisis.
The reason for this is that such as measure would look at both human and natural components of complex systems that cover various different areas including the environment, society and the economy. Measures such as employment rates, levels of life satisfaction and life expectancy are commonly used in such indexes.
The researchers are calling for more research to suggest the set of measures a resilience index for this purpose could be based on.
Lead author Professor Ian Townend from the University of Southampton said: "Resilience is about the ability of a system to prepare for, resist, recover and adapt to disturbances in order to function successfully.
"This invites us to take a more holistic view, accommodating both human and natural components of complex systems that extend across environmental, social and economic domains."
There is increasing concern about humanity's use of the planet's finite resources and the growing and interacting pressures of pollution, biodiversity loss and climate change.
This has prompted scientists to consider what the researchers describe as a "safe operating space" of resources. It represents a degree of consumption that ensures humanity has a minimal level of equitable economic human development, which they refer to as an "adequate social foundation", while remaining within sustainable environmental and ecological limits, which are sometimes referred to as planetary boundaries.
Professor Townend said: "As we encroach on planetary boundaries, the number of organisms an ecosystem can support is reduced. Similarly, if we don't fail to address inequality, or if we embark on conflict, or suffer major disasters, our social foundations are diminished."
The researchers believe that a resilience index that potentially incorporates a range of environmental, social and economic factors and metrics can help policy makers to steer a course through this safe operating space.
Co-author Professor Jon French (UCL Geography) said: "Often what we can measure is what gets done, so it's important to provide a quantitative measure of resilience at local, national and global scales.
"Necessarily, such a measure will incorporate value judgements. Rather than seeing this as a drawback, this can allow differing views within a society to be captured.
"It also helps decision-makers to consider the inherent trade-offs when dealing with systems that extend across social, environment and economic domains."
In the paper, the researchers provide two examples of how a resilience index might be used at both national and global scales.
The University of Southampton developed a model to index the resilience of England's coastal communities. The model allows decision makers to adjust the relative weight given to different priorities, such as human health, economic damage or habitat loss.
This means stakeholders, such as local government, businesses or communities, can influence how resilience is quantified based on their specific needs, ensuring decisions reflect a balanced view of competing interests.
The team applied a similar method on a global scale using existing data sets. They mapped biophysical and social performance measures to index the resilience of 132 countries during 1992 and 2015.
In this illustrative example, the global index revealed a trend towards progress being made on social measures at the expense of biophysical measures of resilience.
The team believe such models could enhance or even replace traditional performance measures, but suggest further development is needed.
Co-author Professor Robert Nicholls of the University of East Anglia said: "We urgently need to think about how we mobilise a global change in outlook.
"That means moving away from the focus on GDP to measures that track the challenges we face to meet societal needs and recognise that these are inextricably linked to the needs of all life on earth."
The work was supported by the UK Climate Resilience Programme through UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
