About
- IWR 2018 has been released by the UN Environment and partners. It is a biennial effort led by the UN Environment to evaluate the capacities and performance of the nations around the world to measure the sustainability of economy and wellbeing of their people.
- It is the accounting value of an economy’s stock of manufactured capital, human capital and natural capital. It is a tool assessing a nation’s ability to look after its wealth in a way that is sustainable and safeguards its future generations.
Highlights
- Inclusive wealth in 135 countries was higher in 2014 compared to the level in 1990 and the global growth rate of IW was 44% over the same period, which implies an average growth rate of 1.8% per year. However, during the same period the global GDP growth per year was 3.4%, which is close to twice the annual growth rate of growth in IW.
- The methodology is to track the progress of 140 countries that make up the lion’s share of the global economy and population. The changes in the inclusive wealth of 140 countries are calculated by annual average growth rates over the past 25 years, and 1990 is the base year.
- The report demonstrates that assessing and valuing natural capital and the change in per capita inclusive wealth over time has the potential to keep track of progress on most Sustainable Development Goals.
- The Inclusive Wealth Report 2018 shows that 44 out of the 140 countries have suffered a decline in inclusive wealth per capita since 1992, even though per capita GDP has increased in all but a handful of them.
- It shows that growth in inclusive wealth per capita with adjustments (for total factor productivity, carbon damage, and oil capital gains), indicates that only 81 of the 140 countries, or 58%) are on sustainable path.
- Top performers on the basis of per capita inclusive wealth for 1992-2014
- Republic of Korea
- Singapore
- Malta
- Latvia
- Ireland
Performance of India
- It revealed that India’s economic growth took a toll on its natural assets like forests, food and clean air.
- It also added that when the average growth rate of gross state domestic product (GSDP) during 2005-15 for almost all the states was around 7-8%, 11 states registered a decline in their natural capital.
