For the best part of the 20th and 21st centuries, progress was seen as synonymous with economic growth. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) became the dominant way in which the world measured and 'progress' understood. But this perspective is evolving.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recently expressed the view that, ‘The world today recognises that it isn't quite as simple as that. This approach has failed to explain many of the factors that impact most on people’s lives’.

Not only does the GDP fail to account for the depletion of our natural resources, but it treats all economic activity, including spending on crime, divorce, and massive oil spills, as economic gains. As one recent example, the catastrophic Victorian bushfires of 2009 which killed 176 people and destroyed 11 towns actually made a positive net contribution to national progress (by this measure) by adding around $5 billion to GDP in reconstruction and compensation costs.
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In a recent national survey almost two-thirds of Australians felt that ‘the future we pass on to our children and grandchildren will not be better than that handed to us’.

​We're beginning to understand that real progress is much more than economic growth and that beyond a reasonable level of material comfort, wellbeing improvements are negligible.

GDP is simply the sum total of the goods and services bought and sold in our economy. While it is an important statistic in its own right, as a measure of the overall progress and wellbeing of the nation it is not just inadequate but  misleading.

GDP takes no account of the positive qualities of a society, the wellbeing of its people or the state of its environment.  It leaves out many of the activities that we value – like volunteering, leisure and family time. And while it counts the total income produced, it ignores inequalities in its distribution.
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In short, GDP measures the quantity of our national economic production but not the quality of our lives, or of our society, our communities, our culture, our values or our environment .
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In this way, GDP fails to capture the full story of what is happening in our society and diverts the focus of governments and communities away from other important aspects of wellbeing and from the social and environmental costs that economic activity brings with it.

* Measuring Production to Measuring Wellbeing, presentation to The Productivity Commission, Melbourne, 29 July 2010.