Sustainable Communities agrees with the Blue Planet Laureates

The Blue Planet Laureates are a group of the world’s leading scientists who will today urge governments to replace Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a measure of wealth, end damaging subsidies, and transform systems of governance to set humanity on a new path to a better future.

Failure to do so, they will say, risks climate, biodiversity and poverty crises that will spawn greater problems worldwide.

The paper urges governments to:

•  Replace GDP as a measure of wealth with metrics for natural, built, human and social capital – and how they intersect.
• Eliminate subsidies in sectors such as energy, transport and agriculture that create environmental and social costs, which currently go unpaid.
• Tackle over-consumption, and address population pressure by empowering women, improving education and making contraception accessible to all.
• Transform decision-making processes to empower marginalised groups, and integrate economic, social and environmental policies instead of having them compete.
• Conserve and value biodiversity and ecosystem services, and create markets for them that can form the basis of green economies.
• Invest in knowledge – both in creating and in sharing it – through research and training that will enable governments, business, and society at large to understand and move towards a sustainable future.