December 2014: The UN University’s International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (UNU-IHDP) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) have released the ‘Inclusive Wealth Report 2014′ (IWR 2014). The main objective of the report is to offer quantitative information and long-term analysis of global inclusive wealth (IW) to evaluate the capacity of nations to provide for the welfare of their citizens in a sustainable manner.

The report is based on the Inclusive Wealth Index, a metric presented during the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20) in June 2012. In contrast to the gross domestic product (GDP), the Inclusive Wealth Index takes into account all forms of capital—manufactured, human and natural—to provide a comprehensive measure of a nation’s ability to create and maintain human well-being.

The 2014 edition of the report covers 140 countries from 1990-2010, offering a major expansion of the 20 countries included in the first edition, released in 2012. The authors focus on human capital, and education in particular, with the goal of aiding the transition to the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Additional chapters address technical advances and methodological challenges using examples from forest accounting and ecosystem service valuation, and applications for the use of Inclusive Wealth in project evaluation.

One of the key findings of the report is a positive average growth in per capita inclusive wealth, over half of which stems from improvements in human capital. Other messages include the finding that population growth and the depreciation of natural capital are the main drivers of declining wealth, and that most wealth comes from human and natural capital, with manufactured capital contributing only 18% of the total. [Publication: Inclusive Wealth Report 2014: Measuring Progress toward Sustainability] [Publication Website] [IISD RS story on Inclusive Wealth Report Workshop]