In the face of climate change and growing inequality, our current way of measuring economic success is unfit. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is not designed to support human and planetary thriving. It fails to inform decision-makers how sustainable our economies really are. The right path and solution to this worldwide issue, although often viewed as unrealistic, is not only viable, but already being implemented at the micro and macro levels, from the Common Good Balance Sheet to the Common Good Product. Economy for the Common Good (ECG) tools are well-proven and efficient alternatives to the current social, environmental and political crisis.
In order to showcase these theories and practical instruments, Greenpeace has arranged the collaborative publication “Growing the Alternatives: Societies for a Future Beyond GDP”, inviting academics, organisations and activists from different corners of the world to contribute their perspectives in three different parts. Chapter 2, featuring ECG’s Common Good Balance Sheet, “builds on the theories that underpin these alternatives and their imperative. We address the degree to which these solutions can contend with the marketplace, an arena where much of the destruction that is wrought on people and planet occurs, and explore how products and services can be delivered without such disastrous impacts.”
