The UK lags behind Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands and Norway as well as other developed nations on social progress
The UK is far behind other European and developed countries on social progress, a new report reveals today.
The Social Progess Index ranks Finland top with the UK coming 9th, lagging behind other European countries such as Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands and Norway as well as Canada and Australia.
The Social Progress Index is the first comprehensive framework attempting to challenge the current practice of using gross domestic produce (GDP) to measure a country's succes. As a simple measure of economic progress, GDP does not assess the wellbeing of citizens or the effect wealth creation is having on the environment.
We really need to understand that our economy is doing much less than it could to give us wellbeing and opportunity - Matthew Crighton
Finland, which ranks 1st in social progress only ranks 22nd in GDP per head of population, and a comparison between social progress and GDP across all countries shows considerable variation in performance among countries for comparable levels of GDP per capita.
Matthew Crighton, convenor of the Scottish Environment Link’s economic group said the UK as made some progress in the last year moving up from 11th place in 2015, but still needs to do better.
"We really need to understand that our economy is doing much less than it could to give us wellbeing and opportunity. If we focus on growth of GDP alone we drive the economy in a direction often incompatible with sustainable development, depleting the natural resources on which we rely for our wellbeing.
"We need to change the way we think about and manage the economy – it is a means to wellbeing, constrained by the carrying capacity of the environment, not an ends in itself".
Scotland’s National Performance Framework includes a range of indicators against which we can gauge our progress beyond GDP.
Scottish Environment LINK members has been working with the Scottish Government on promoting and improving a suite of indicators that can adequately reflect the wellbeing of society and the health of our environment as well as the state of the economy.
