The everyday metrics making bad choices look good today
We don’t get what we value. We get what we measure.
And right now, we track success using numbers like GDP, labor productivity, and return on
investment — metrics that reward when we burn more oil, sell more stuff, and work ourselves to
exhaustion. Things we need less of.
Growth is good, apart from all the times that it isn’t.
Driving carsGood for growth
Riding bikesBad for growth
Being on medicationGood for growth
Staying off medicationBad for growth
A clear-cut forestGood for growth
A living forestBad for growth
Over-consumptionGood for growth
Repair and reuseBad for growth
Re-imagine
How many girls cycle to school?
Building a future-fit economy requires measuring what GDP overlooks — wellbeing, resilience,
and ecological health. Explore these expert suggestions of indicators we could be using.
Girls Cycling to School
The number of girls biking to school is a simple proxy for wellbeing. If girls can move freely and safely in public space, it signals safety, equality, social trust, and decent living conditions — things that financial indicators tell us nothing about.
Katherine Trebeck,co-founder of the wellbeing economy movement
Life Satisfaction
On a scale from 0 to 10, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole?
This single question captures mental health, security, relationships, and hope for the future.
OECD,World Happiness Report
One Close Friend
The number of people with at least one close friend reflects emotional support, mental health , and long-term wellbeing.
Research consistently shows that strong relationships are among the most powerful predictors of happiness — often more important that income or status.
Harvard Study of Adult Development,Harvard Medical School
Earthworms per Square Meter
Counting earthworms is a measure of soil health: more worms mean better structure, water retention, nutrient cycling, and long-term fertility — far beyond what conventional yield and agricultural productivity statistics show on their own.
Elaine Ingham,founder of the Soil Food Web approach
Planetary Boundaries-Based Indicators
Tracking whether human activity stays within Earth's safe ecological limits — including climate, biodiversity, land use, freshwater, and pollution — shifts the focus from growth at any cost to stability within limits.
Kate Raworth,creator of Doughnut Economics
Show me the incentives, and I'll show you the outcome.
Reflect
The choices we make are guided by what's reviewed, rewarded and measured. Take a moment to
reflect: what is your work and life set up to deliver?
Questions like these can reveal where important forms of value might be missing.
In the next section, we'll examine ways of broadening what gets measured and prioritized.
Does your work bonus system reward short-term profit more than long-term social and environmental value?
Is your organisation mainly judged on short-term financial results?
If someone looked at your calendar, would they understand what you truly care about?
Do you regularly measure the things you'd miss the most if they suddenly disappeared?
Experiment
Measure what matters
Change what you measure and you can change what we get. Test out different ways to challenge
what's really important.
Inspiration
See who's already redirecting efforts beyond short-term growth — and how they do it.