Green equations

A first-of-its-kind index to evaluate gross environment product

- ANIL PRAKASH JOSHI, SHIVAM JOSHI, DURGESH PANT AND HIMANI PUROHIT

IN A warming world, the call to re-evaluate how we gauge development is gaining traction. Traditional indicators like GDP (Gross Domestic Product) measure output and growth, but they fail to account for the impact of human actions on environmental quality and societal well-being. There is a need for a concept to measure the environmental costs, social inequalities, sustainability implications and the negative externalities of resource use by humans these are crucial to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

To address these shortcomings and measure the growth of the environment along with development, the Uttarakhand government in 2021 announced that it would be the first state to introduce a Gross Environment Product (GEP). This measure aims to assess the growth and health of natural resources, and the positive or negative impact that human activities have on them. The state is currently working on formulating a GEP index.

GEP as a concept was introduced in 2011 by the Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organization (HESCO) in Dehradun, Uttarakhand. The concept rests on gauging the health of four pillars-forest, water, air and soil. "Continuous work has been done worldwide to improve each of these pillars, but an integrated method of measuring these efforts has been lacking; GEP is an attempt to fill this void," says a December 2023 study published in the journal Ecological Indicators. (Anil Prakash Joshi of HESCO, who led the study is one of the authors of this appraisal). The GEP index can be articulated as a sum of the indices of each of its pillars (see 'Formulae for growth').

Each constituent of the GEP index highlights a specific aspect. The Forest-GEP index evaluates status of forest resources, Soil-GEP index gauges soil health, Air-GEP index focuses on air quality improvement and Water-GEP index assesses water quality and quantity.