PIB : un indicateur de bien-être "dépassé"

"We can't measure the challenges of the future with the tools from the past," said Commission President José Manuel Barroso. 

"GDP is a tool of the 1930s, which does not take into account sustainable consumption matters," said Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquín Almunia. 

"GDP measures the final market values of goods and services. While it is widely believed that people's well-being and quality of life improves as they get wealthier, economic wealth is not everything. Quality of life depends to a degree on the type of goods consumed, good access to healthcare, quality of education, family relations, the integrity of our public officials and the state of our environment. So, we should be able to measure these important objectives. GDP is not an indicator that measures well-being or welfare," said Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas.

"The EU framework for going beyond GDP is the renewed Lisbon strategy in which progress stands for economic performance, social cohesion and environmental sustainability," said Rui Baleiras, State Secretary for Regional Development, Portugal.

"GDP is meaningless if it is based on non-sustainable resources, because it is not a measure of well-being but a measure of using wealth, of consuming wealth that you had as opposed to earning income from your capital assets," said David Vardy from the Leslie Harris Centre for Regional Policy and Development.

"A society where only a few people get very rich and the rest are very poor is not very sustainable in the long run," said Enrico Giovannini, chief statistician at the OECD.

Bruno S. Frey, Professor of Economic Policy and Non-Market Economics at University of Zurich underlined that well-being can't be measured by happiness, and that it would be an error if politicians tried to maximize happiness. "Life satisfaction indicators are important but let's let people decide on and find their own happiness."

"Happiness should not be the only thing for policy-making - as justice, solidarity and responsibility need to be taken into account as well - just as good environment and education, economic conditions and increased citizens' participation need to be taken into account. More educated people have more opportunities so they are happier and more satisfied with their life. Unemployment is the worst thing for happiness, as a person loses contact with his role in society. Increased citizens' participation is very important, not only for the democratic deficit but also increasingly for citizens' wellbeing," added Professor Frey.

HE Chief Emeka Anyaoku, President of WWF said: "12 years ago, we hosted a similar conference entitled 'Taking nature into account'. The call is the same as it was 12 years ago – only more urgent. We need to move beyond conventional economic accounting. We need new ways to record progress to set more wise development paths. Societies cannot continue to operate as if the planet were business in liquidation. We cannot call [something] income that in reality is resource depletion."

"We are using more resources and emitting more waste than our planet can handle. Human demand on planet has grown rapidly. It is now 1.3 planet earths. Europeans use 2.6 more than Europe's ecosystems can provide. If others used as much, we'd need three planet earths. If everybody lived like Americans – we'd need five planets. WWF's target is to diminish, by 2050, the human footprint to the size of one planet," added Anyaoku.