Genuine wealth assessment

The Genuine wealth assessment (GWA) is an alternative metric system which has been suggested to supplement gross domestic product (GDP) as a metric of economic growth. Specifically, the GWA is used to assess the well-being of communities. [1]

The first step in the genuine wealth assessment is to come to an understanding of the core values of a community. The core values of the residents together with the community's economic, social, health and environmental conditions are evaluated against genuine wealth benchmarks to create a large number of genuine wealth indicators. For example, genuine wealth indicators of surrounding communities, or of the same community at a different period in time, can serve as a benchmark. Genuine wealth accounting considers financial, manufactured, human, social and natural capital.

The genuine progress indicator full-cost-benefit accounting model is a subset of the more comprehensive integrated genuine wealth accounting model for measuring the overall well-being and sustainability of communities and organizations. [2]

One of the key measures of the genuine wealth model is the ecological footprint analysis, or EFA. [3]

Contents

History

The concept of genuine wealth accounting was defined by ecological economist and University of Alberta professor Mark Anielski. [4] It is also the subject of an award-winning book entitled “The Economics of Happiness: Building Genuine Wealth”. [5]

See also

References

  1. ^ Genuine Wealth Assessment in Tyrol/Austria by Prof. Michael Klassen, MCI Management Center Innsbruck
  2. ^ Genuine Wealth Assessment of Alberta's Stewardship Programs Final Report prepared for Alberta Environment
  3. ^ Genuine wealth: building economies of well-being by Mark Anielski
  4. ^ Anielski, Mark. 2004. Genuine Wealth Accounting: Measuring the Sustainability of Communities. Anielski Management Inc. Edmonton, Alberta.
  5. ^ Anielski, Mark. 2007. “The Economics of Happiness” New Society Publishers.

Further reading

External links