Beyond GDP: A Global Commons for Accelerating Sustainable Development on a Finite Planet

Professor Phoebe Koundouri is giving a talk on Thursday 22 October, from 5:00pm to 6:30pm, and it's an online one, so you can tune in from wherever you are. It's called Beyond GDP: A Global Commons for Accelerating Sustainable Development on a Finite Planet, and it sits within the University of Sheffield's 'Rethinking Prosperity on a Finite Planet' series, hosted by the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures.

Koundouri is a professor at the Athens University of Economics and Business, and she's coming at this from a human-centred, interdisciplinary economic systems approach. The core of it is about bringing natural capital, ecosystem services, environmental pressures, resilience, equity, and wider societal wellbeing into the analysis of economic development, and she does that by drawing on a Beyond-GDP economic modelling framework. The talk then takes that integrated approach and asks how it could underpin a digital Global Commons connecting science, policy, and finance to speed up the Sustainable Development Goals to 2030 and beyond.

It's a big subject, and Koundouri has the background to match. She's Co-Chair of the United Nations Global Sustainable Development Report 2027 and Chair of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Global Climate Hub, and she's advised the United Nations, World Bank, European Commission, and OECD on climate and sustainability policy. Her own research focuses on sustainable development, climate economics, and natural resource management.

It's aimed at researchers, policymakers, practitioners, students, and anyone interested in alternative ways of measuring economic prosperity. It runs from 5:00pm to 6:30pm on Thursday 22 October, and it's free of charge.