digibird on Thursday September 19, 2024

Beyond GDP: Redefining Success for a Sustainable Future

Our current economic system places value almost entirely on financial success as the way to achieve prosperity and wellbeing. This is why gross domestic product (GDP) is the core national and international measure of economic success. It assumes that the more money we have, the greater potential we have to purchase our wellbeing from the market in the form of commodities, goods, services and experiences (e.g. property, food, healthcare and holidays). Therefore, profit maximization is the priority objective at all levels of the system:

Governments measure success through GDP
Organizations and businesses measure success through profit and loss (P&L)
Marketing, media and creative measure success through return on (marketing) investment (ROI or ROMI), increased sales, indirect measures of market share, share of wallet or share of voice via pipeline generation, click rates, downloads, views, hours streamed etc.
Individuals measure success with income and net worth

This current economic mindset assumes that without economic growth, we cannot increase wellbeing. It is designed to optimize financial income while ignoring other markers of wellbeing and the long-term impacts on both people and the planet.

As a result, the health of the natural and human resources that our economy relies on is often overlooked. This oversight leads to problems like Earth Overshoot Day, nature depletion, and eventually, the climate crisis.

This engaging video lays out:

How it happened so that the primary identity of people in many countries has become the identity of consumers
Why 99% of all the products go to trash within just 6 months after the date of sale
Why the average U.S. person now consumes twice as much as they did 50 years ago
When and why stewardship, resourcefulness and thrift stopped being valued as they used to be
How the retailing analyst Victor Lebow came up with the solution to ramp up the post-war economy and how it has impacted all of us and will unfortunately impact future generations because the solution has made consumption our way of life…

Screenshot from The Story of Stuff

One of the most important questions though is:
When will we realize that exponential (financial) growth cannot be achieved within the earth’s planetary boundaries, and cannot satisfy human needs?

Did you know that the U.S. national happiness index peaked in the 1950s when the consumption mania exploded…?

Do you think we can reverse the trend, if:

we, instead of self-interest and financial success, focus on well-being?
governments track and consider GDP as just one of the KPIs for the society they are in charge of?
brands and marketing communications regard us as citizens instead of consumers and inspire collective action for collective good? 🤔

Picture credit: Stories for Life

Some environmentalists and economists believe that decoupling financial growth from wellbeing is crucial for rewiring the economy. This change would focus on growing wellbeing for everyone while ensuring the health of social and natural systems.

There is an evolving narrative that money is not the ultimate goal, but a means to long-term wellbeing for all people and the planet. (Reference: New Economy Brief. n.d. The growth debate. Available: https://www.neweconomybrief.net/in-depths/the-growth-debate [2022, April 12].)

An excessive focus on financial success, driven by what and how much we consume, leads us to overlook the environmental and social consequences of consumption. This creates a one-way system of extraction, production, distribution, and disposal. Such a system is inherently wasteful.

The good news for our own profession is that marketing, media and creative functions sit at the center of this system as the interface between production and consumption (that is, business and society), aligning and shaping both.