“Using the Genuine Progress Index to Stimulate and Measure Social Enterprise Success”

1. “Using the Genuine Progress Index to Stimulate and Measure Social Enterprise Success” Capital Change: the New Return on Investment Conference Vince Verlaan, Executive Director GPI-Pacific Society of BC www.vcn.bc.ca/gpip vince.verlaan@dccnet.com

2. Workshop objectives • Understanding of the origins of the Genuine Progress Index (GPI) as an indicator tool • Understanding of how the GPI can be used to develop support for social enterprise efforts • Understanding of how the GPI can support measurement and ongoing development of social enterprise efforts • Understanding of the goals and purposes of the GPI Pacific Society

3. Agenda • Introductions (or “Who are you people?”) • Group exercise #1 – We all want to live in a “healthy community”, don’t we? • Problems with GNP; the search for alternatives • Group exercise #2 – What is missing from the “GNP growth” model re: our healthy community? • Outline of the Genuine Progress Index model and other alternative measures • GPI, social economy and social enterprise • Group Exercise #3 – Stimulating SE in BC • GPI Pacific Society information (and free drinks!)

4. Introductions • Please introduce yourself, and suggest just one thing that “social enterprise” definitely is or does (elevator summary) • Vince captures SE points of all attendees on flipchart sheets for later reference 20 seconds max. per person please!

5. Small group exercise #1 • Brainstorming in groups of 5 or 6 people • Each group lists the 10 things or qualities that you think makes a given geographic community “healthy” (5 mins) • Each group decides internally on how to rank the items they have listed (5 mins) • Each group presents their ranking on a flipchart sheet (1 min each – write clearly) • Post these for later reference

6. In the beginning. . . • Gross National Product (GNP) is the total value of final goods and services produced in a year by domestically owned factors of production. • Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the total value of final goods and services produced within a country's borders in a year.

7. What’s wrong with these measures? • The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income.... • Goals for “more” growth should specify of what and for what. Simon Kuznets, principle architect of GDP

8. What’s wrong with these measures? Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things.... The Gross National Product includes air pollution and advertising for cigarettes, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors, and jails for the people who break them. The GNP includes the destruction of the redwoods and the death of Lake Superior. It grows with the production of napalm and missiles and nuclear warheads.

9. What’s wrong with these measures? And if the GNP includes all this, there is much that it does not comprehend. It does not allow for the health of our families, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It is indifferent to the decency of our factories and the safety of our streets alike. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, or the intelligence of our public debate, or the integrity of our public officials.

10. What’s wrong with these measures? The GNP measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. -- Robert F. Kennedy (March 18, 1968) Recapturing America’s Moral Vision

11. What’s wrong with GDP? • GDP Treats Crime, Divorce & Natural Disasters as Economic Gain • GDP Ignores the Non-market Economy of Household & Community • GDP Treats the Depletion of Natural Capital as Income • GDP Increases with Polluting Activities & Again with Clean-Ups • GDP Takes No Account of Income Distribution • GDP Ignores the Drawbacks of Living on Foreign Assets Source: Redefining Progress

12. The search for alternatives - 1 Figure 1. The span of the late 20th century indicators literature (modified from Hodge, 1995).

13. Items used to calculate the GPI for the USA 1950-1995 • Private Consumption expenditure (+) • Index of Distributional Inequality (+ or -) • Cost of consumer durables (-) • Services yielded by consumer durables (+) • Services yielded by roads and highways (+) • Services provided by volunteer work (+) • Services provided by non-paid household work (+) • Public expenditure on health and education - counted as personal consumption (+) • Cost of noise pollution (-) • Cost of commuting (-) • Cost of crime (-) • Cost of underemployment (-)

14. Cost of lost leisure time (-) • Cost of household pollution abatement (-) • The cost of vehicle accidents (-) • The cost of family breakdown (-) • Net capital investment (+ or -) • Net foreign lending/borrowing (+ or -) • Loss of farmland (-) • Cost of resource depletion (-) • Cost of ozone depletion (-) • Cost of air pollution (-) • Cost of water pollution (-) • Cost of long-term environmental damage (-) • Loss of wetlands (-) • Loss of old-growth forests (-) Total = sum of all positive and negative items = GPI (valued in dollars)

15. The search for alternatives – 2 • Recent Indicator and Index projects: • Federation of Canadian Municipalities (Quality of Life) • Oregon Benchmarks • Canadian Index of Well Being • Gross National Happiness (Bhutan) • Sustainable and equitable economic development • Cultural promotion • Environmental preservation • Good governance and engaged citizenship

16. Canadian Index of Well-Being • A set of indicators in seven areas: • living standards; • health outcomes; • education and literacy; • environmental quality; • community vitality; • citizen engagement; • time use and work-life balance • Romanow support; Globe and Mail • Reality Check magazine • www.atkinsonfoundation.ca

17. The search for alternatives - 3 • In the GPI (or in the CIW): • Health, livelihood security, free time, unpaid work, natural resource, & education have positive value • Sickness, crime, disasters, pollution are costs • Reductions in crime, poverty, greenhouse gas, ecological footprint are seen as progress • Growing equity also signals progress

18. The search for alternatives - 4 Source: Pembina Institute

19. Small Group Exercise #2 • Go back to your small groups and review the cumulative sheet re: a healthy community • What now jumps out as the failure of the GNP model given what we all want to see healthy communities? (5 mins) • How can we rethink the way we measure progress to achieve more of what we want – list 2 or 3 practical ideas for BC (5 mins) • Each group presents to all; discussion (10 mins)

20. Time Use: Economic value of civic and voluntary work Economic value of unpaid housework and child care Work hours Value of leisure time Natural Capital: Soils and agriculture Forests Marine environment/fisheries Nonrenewable subsoil assets Environmental Quality: Greenhouse gas emissions Sustainable transportation Ecological footprint analysis Air quality Water quality Solid waste Socioeconomic: Income distribution Debt, external borrowing, and Capital movements Valuations of durability Composite livelihood security index Social Capital: Health care Educational attainment Costs of crime Taken from GPI Atlantic The GPI approach as a new frame of reference to stimulate “social enterprise”

21. GPI Atlantic’s model has evolved to embrace local participation • Community GPI • Demographics and employment • Age, education, income, employment, job characteristics, work schedule • Health and community • Care giving, volunteer work, community service, social supports, weight, smoking, physical activity, disability, disease, health care use • Peace and security • Costs of crime, neighbourhood safety, police, community issues (drinking, drugs, domestic violence) • Time use diary • Unpaid work (household, volunteer, care giving), free time, travel • Environment • Energy use, transportation patterns, water quality, recycling, food consumption

22. Interactive aspects of the Community GPI concept Process as result • Indicator selection, survey creation • Results and report releases bring together stakeholders and disparate • Scan existing programs and identify gaps • Catalyst for new ideas (restorative justice, family-friendly work, social enterprise) Balance community-based research with methodological rigour

23. GPI and Social Economy? SE? • Social economy organizations produce goods and services with a clear social mission and have these characteristics and objectives: • The mission is services to members and community and not profit-oriented. • Management is independent of government. • Workers and/or users use a democratic process for decision-making. • People have priority over capital. • Participation, empowerment, individual and collective responsibility are key values. -- Economic and Employment Summit in Quebec, 1996 (Chantier de l'économie sociale, 1996)

24. Small Group Exercise #3 • Small groups again… • Discuss how the approach of the Genuine Progress Index might stimulate the social enterprise sector of BC? (5 minutes) • Each group then identifies an existing or planned social enterprise issue or initiative in BC; suggest ways to show its value and increase its support by using a GPI framework (10 minutes) • Report back to large group (10 minutes)

25. GPI Pacific Society • GPI Pacific’s vision is to see public policy decision-making in British Columbia based on an integrated perspective that values social, economic, and environmental concerns equally. • GPI Pacific’s Goals are to: • Create greater public awareness/understanding of, and support for, the GPI concept and methodology. • Increase the capacity of Community Based Organizations in the use of GPI tools and methodology. • Increase the capacity of all government levels in BC in the use of GPI tools and information. • See sustainable and non-partisan institutional structures achieve the above three points with broad-based community support.

26. For more information • GPI Atlantic - www.gpiatlantic.org • GPI Pacific – www.vcn.bc.ca/gpipac • Canadian Index of Well Being - www.atkinsonfoundation.ca/ciw • Pembina Institute - www.pembina.org/sustainability_mea.asp • Redefining Progress - www.rprogress.org/newprograms/sustIndi/index.shtml • If GDP is up, why is America down? (Atlantic Monthly, 1995) - www.rprogress.org/newmedia/articles/9510_atlantic.pdf

27. Closing Thought I slept and dreamt that life was joy, I awoke and saw that life was service , I acted and behold, service was joy. - Rabindranath Tagore