NEW MEASURES OF PROGRESS

PROGRAM OVERVIEW

The hallmarks of a sustainable and just economy have been well researched and articulated. Ever since the first Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 this vision of sustainable development has been refined in greater and greater detail. More local self-reliance and less dependency on imports and exports. Economic diversity rather than dependence on one or two key sectors. Protection of natural capital assets like forests, estuaries, wetlands, and grasslands for the ecosystem services they provide to local economies free of charge. High quality education for all. Renewable energy as the norm and not the exception. Equal access to high quality education, health care and public services.

 

The transformation we need is well understood. What is lacking is the political will to implement the policies that need to be put in place to expedite a rapid transition. At CSE we consult with community organizations, government agencies, and experts to explore options for policy makers at the national, state, and local levels to expedite this transition through the powers they have to regulate harmful economic activities, raise revenues through taxes and fees, and spend and invest public money in socially productive ways. 

CURRENT PROJECTS

Worker installing solar panels

Sustainable Development Policy and Planning


Economic development planning provides a powerful tool for governments at every level to create a vision of where the economy needs to go and what policies and investments need to be made to get there. CSE lends our expertise to help create those visions and set appropriate goals, targets, and timelines. We also analyze the benefits and costs of doing so, and make recommendations as to what sectors hold the most promise for maximizing sustainable development returns over time.

Sustainability Indicators


The world needs new economic indicators to drive policies that spur equitable growth in wellbeing while reducing our use of natural resources. The global Beyond GDP movement was formed to vet and demonstrate such indicators, and CSE plays an important role in this by advancing the science and practice of the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) and Ecological Footprint. The GPI is an alternative to GDP that accounts for the benefits of care work, higher education, modern infrastructure, and ecosystems services as well as the costs of pollution, deforestation, income inequality, crime and other social ills. The Ecological Footprint tells us whether the economy is operating safely within planetary boundaries or breaching of those boundaries by depleting or contaminating the stocks of natural capital on which all economic activity ultimately depends.

Ecological and Carbon Footprint Analysis


CSE’s fellows have extensive experience conducting ecological and carbon footprint analysis for legislation, programs and projects that are being considered for approval by public agencies. We conduct such analyses for clients, and then work to ensure that our research is included in the decision-making process so that reasonable alternatives to projects with excessive footprints can be evaluated fairly with objective data.

FEATURED WORK

By John Talberth 27 Feb, 2024
GPI 2.0 is gaining traction amongst sustainability researchers
Ilhan Omar photo portrait in front of American Flag
By John Talberth 20 Sep, 2023
Legislation update September 2023 : After garnering the support of NGOs and five co-sponsors, Rep. Omar is now exploring options for reintroduction of the GPI Act in 2024 or possible inclusion of key components of the bill in appropriations language. Stay tuned here for further updates as the reintroduction date approaches.  Original post July 2021: On July 30th, Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) introduced the GPI Act of 2021, directing the Secretary of Commerce to establish a new metric for measuring US economic performance, setting budget priorities and guiding policy– the Genuine Progress Indicator. If her bill becomes law, the GPI would effectively unseat Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the nation’s leading economic indicator, a reform long sought after by politicians, economists and civil society. Rep. Omar was joined by five House co-sponsors including Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, Dwight Evans, Pramila Jaypal and Marie Newman. Against the backdrop of a global pandemic and on the heels of one of the nation’s most fractured and contentious election cycles, the world of economic indicators may seem distant and esoteric, irrelevant to struggles Americans are facing every day. But the legislation is, in fact, revolutionary and transformative, signaling a long overdue shift in economic priorities away from the bottom-line profits of Wall Street corporations and towards improving economic conditions for those least well off and ordinary American households. With Biden-Harris now at the helm, this new metric should be a centerpiece of the administration’s economic policies. Despite its many logical failings and fallacies, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and its state-level counterparts still reign as the most ubiquitous measures of economic performance. It works well for the world’s elites who own the means of production because when GDP grows it means more buying and selling from which they profit. But more buying and selling is not always a good thing. Sometimes it represents something that is truly beneficial (healthy food and experiences in nature) and other times it represents a cost we’d rather avoid (inflated health insurance premiums) or expenditures that reflect growing insecurity around us (guns and burglar alarms). GDP does not differentiate between costs and benefits; it considers all spending beneficial and as such provides an extremely poor measure of economic wellbeing.
By Chad Hanson, Ph.D. and John Talberth, Ph.D. 28 Sep, 2021
As Congress accelerates work to pass two massive new spending bills – the budget Reconciliation ($3.5 trillion) and Infrastructure ($1.2 trillion) packages – lawmakers need to do the math to ensure that money is not thrown to programs that increase greenhouse gas pollution and reduce our ability to overcome the climate crisis. After all, one of the key selling points for each is their claimed climate benefits. Proponents of the Reconciliation package, for example, assert that some clean energy measures included in the bill, along with some in the Infrastructure package, would slash US carbon emissions by 880 million metric tons (0.88 gigatons) of annual CO2 emissions by 2030. However, as discussed below, the very recent elimination of the Clean Energy Performance Program (CEPP) from the Reconciliation package lowers the annual CO2 emissions reduction to only 0.38 gigatons by 2030. Moreover, buried within both bills are expenditures that would take us even further in the opposite direction – among them, massive subsidies for logging and highways that come with a steep carbon footprint. In combination with the elimination of CEPP, these climate-harming aspects of the Reconciliation and Infrastructure packages would actually increase net annual CO2 emissions by 2030 relative to current levels.
Sustainable Development Opportunities in Nunavut
By John Talberth 21 Feb, 2018
In a report commissioned by Greenpeace Canada, “Beyond Fossil Fuels: Sustainable Development Opportunities in Eastern Nunavut,” CSE’s John Talberth and Daphne Wysham explored the dilemma Canada’s northern territory of Nunavut is facing.
GPI 2.0: States and Cities Can Lead the Way Beyond GDP
By John Talberth and Michael Weisdorf 05 Jul, 2017
In a new study authored by Dr. John Talberth and Michael Weisdorf of Portland State University, CSE has demonstrated a new methodology for the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) that promises to accelerate its adoption...

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