Global Solidarity Accounting

To replace purely financial measures of wealth and development, a new approach to global non-financial accounting has been explored to measure directly how progress in a spirit of global solidarity can lead towards environmental sustainability and human well-being.

SUMMARY

• A new system of global accounts for the common good relevant to human and natural well-being has been described using relevant science-based non-financial units of account.

• Nine initial indicator forms of capital are identified to respect both the planetary environmental boundaries of the global commons and the minimum human and social standards for the common well-being of all humanity.

• These accounts could measure dimensions of human solidarity and become the basis to internalise environmental and social externalities, leading to global taxes or fines on damaging activities and supporting payments for social contributions and environmental regeneration in the common interest, in an integrated dynamic global system aiming for human and natural well-being and sustainability.

• Development of these accounting systems will provide the basis for the gradual replacement of the present economic paradigm and financial system which values only monetary wealth and GDP.

• The approach can be scaled down to the community level through conversations on global sustainability.

A report on the GSA project was presented during the IEF Annual Conference on 21 September 2023

Basic working paper on Global Solidarity Accounting by Arthur Dahl, updated 22 July 2022

Global Solidarity Accounting - Documenting the Journey as of 1 May 2023

Examples of other efforts to measure human and environmental well-being beyond GDP

UN Secretary-General's policy brief Valuing What Counts: Framework to Progress Beyond GDP May 2023

Complements to GDP: What Values Guide Development?
Baha'i International Community Event
New York, 15 June 2023

Lessons learned from the Global Solidarity Accounting project 24 July 2023

SOME PRESENTATIONS OF THE CONCEPT

Webinar summary for the Eco-Social Summit 30 June 2022 (10 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbnpzI3jnbs

Video recording of the associated event on Global Systems Accounting at the Stockholm+50 International Meeting on 3 June 2022

Webinar presentation by Arthur Dahl on 8 December 2021 for ebbf (40 minutes), Slides of the presentation

Video of the plenary review of the global accounting project 26 January 2023 (1hr 28 min)

APPLICATIONS

Global Solidarity Accounting for Business

Community Conversations for Global Solidarity

THE PROCESS

After an initial IEF blog by Arthur Dahl on 7 November 2021, and his 8 December webinar, this new approach to Global Solidarity Accounting (GSA) has been developed in a partnership and collective effort of the International Environment Forum (IEF) and ebbf – Ethical Business Building the Future https://www.ebbf.org. Working groups for all the accounting dimensions with multiple contributors were managed by ebbf over various platforms, summarised at https://www.ebbf.org/global-systems-accounting, and including an ebbf Mighty Network open to collaborators. The initial results were presented at the ebbf Annual Conference in Lisbon on 12-15 May 2022, and in an associated event at the Stockholm+50 International Meeting on 3 June 2022. A virtual meeting of all the collaborators to relate the accounting process and the new Bahá'í International Community statement One Planet, One Habitation, and to discuss ways forward was held on 20 July 2022, with a video record available. A further general meeting was held on 23 August 2022, and another on 26 January 2023, and a number of local projects were launched to apply this approach at the community level. There is a progress report on 23 January 2023, an update on the GSA journey in a report dated 1 May 2023, and a paper summarising lessons learned on 24 July 2023. There is an application for business from the ebbf-Ethical Business Building the Future annual conference in May 2023.

We also encourage communities to explore this concept at their own level through Community Conversations for Global Solidarity. Questionnaires and other tools are being developed. Some initial materials are below.

Our Prosperous World is also developing beautiful materials for Local Action inspired by this approach, including a Community Wealth Inventory (also now in French), a module on Food Wealth, and another on Building Thriving Communities, with others planned.

BACKGROUND TO THE NAME

Our proposals started as Global Systems Accounting Beyond Economics based on the realisation that the values behind economic accounting in financial terms such as GDP were selfishness, greed, monopoly and ego, whether individual or expressed through national sovereignty, with endless growth destroying the planet. Our alternative was inspired by ethical values of the oneness of humankind, cooperation and reciprocity, unity in diversity and leaving no one behind. In our group discussions, and particularly in considering how to apply the concept at the community level, "global systems" seemed too distant, and "systems" too neutral for a process grounded in ethical values. The alternative "Global Solidarity Accounting", by emphasizing solidarity at all levels, put this ethical motivation at the centre. It also modified the sense of "global" away from the UN level of global statistics (without removing this as one of the intentions) towards "global solidarity" as identifying and responding to all the suffering masses around the world, which is equally relevant at the community level. Solidarity includes both human solidarity, and our relationship with the natural world. While it may be beyond our limited means to develop an alternative accounting system in all its details, we already see individuals preparing local initiatives with this concept in communities. There is also great potential to contribute new ideals and values to public discourse on the topic, at a time when there are many calls, at the UN and elsewhere, to look beyond GDP. See our summary of examples of measures of wellbeing.

NINE DIMENSIONS OF ACCOUNTING

Environmental accounting

Our planetary environment is the foundation for all life and natural resources, but we are now exceeding planetary boundaries and system stability, and eroding the resource base upon which we depend, representing existential risks to our future. Accounts measuring our energy and climate imbalances through carbon flows, our management of biodiversity, and global contamination by pollutants, would target the most critical risks.

Accounting for the full carbon cycle including both the release of fossil carbon and the capture and sequestration of excess atmospheric carbon would both monitor global heating and climate change, and the flow of solar energy and carbon sequestration through photosynthesis supporting all life on the planet, aiming to bring carbon accounts back into balance.

Relevant to Sustainable Development Goal 13 climate action

Go to the Carbon (energy) page

While the complex systems of living things feed us and provide extensive ecosystem services, these are not presently valued. Accounts directly in species and ecosystems could encourage the protection and regeneration of the natural systems essential for our survival.

Relevant to Sustainable Development Goals 14 life below water and 15 life on land

Go to the Biodiversity page

A clean environment is essential for human health and environmental stability. We need to quantify environmental pollution by the thousands of chemicals and man-made materials to identify their sources, pathways and impacts, measuring their true cost and driving reduction and remediation.

Relevant to Sustainable Development Goals 6 clean water, 7 clean energy, 12 production and consumption

Go to the Pollution page

Human well-being accounting

Measuring poverty in terms of income per capita is not a true measure of human subsistence and well-being, when the physical characteristics can be measured directly in more objective accounting for basic needs and the resulting good health.

Every human being should have adequate shelter, clean water and sanitation, a source of energy and basic security as the ideal capital, with any deficiency a source of debt to be addressed.

Relevant to Sustainable Development Goals 1 no poverty, 6 water, 7 energy, 10 reducing inequalities, 11 cities and communities (housing)

Go to the Minimum living standard page

Food is essential for life, so food accounts should include measuring the planetary capacity to produce enough food for all, how it is distributed to meet everyone’s nutritional needs, while eliminating food waste and ensuring an adequate income to all farmers and fishers.

Relevant to Sustainable Development Goal 2 Zero Hunger

Go to the Food page

Since good health is essential to human well-being and to enable all to contribute productively to society at each stage in life, health accounts should treat this as health capital, with all factors damaging health increasing health debt.

Relevant to Sustainable Development Goal 3 Good Health

Go to the Health page

Social accounting

Humans are a social species, so accounting is needed for individual contributions to society through work and service, and for the intangible knowledge dimensions of science, technology, art and culture and their transmission through education. Finally effective individuals and institutions function through values and spiritual capital, accounted through performance measures.

Every human being has a capacity to contribute to the wealth and well-being of society, so we need accounts to measure how we use this capacity for work and service, whether in paid employment or in other contributions to society, with all barriers, from unemployment to discrimination as forms of work debt depriving society of potential wealth.

Relevant to Sustainable Development Goal 8 decent work

Go to the Work and service page

A society is often defined by its knowledge and information dimensions of science, technology, art and culture. These are intangible yet highly significant, and increase in value the more they are shared, requiring different forms of accounting. Furthermore their operational impact comes from their acquisition and use by people, their incorporation in objects or institutions, and their transmission through education.

Relevant to Sustainable Development Goal 4 Quality education

Go to the Knowledge and education page

The most basic level of a system is the rules by which it is organized and operates. In human systems and communities, effective individuals and institutions function through values and spiritual capital, accounted for indirectly through performance measures.

Relevant to Sustainable Development Goal 16 peace, justice and strong institutions (in part)

Go to the Spiritual capital page