Table 1-1-2 Indicators Set by International Organizations in Order to Measure the Status of the Environment, the Economy, and Society

Year	Party that Announced the Indicator, Etc.	Product	Objectives, Content
1990-	The United Nations Development Programme	Human Development Index (HDI)	An integrated indicator that targets 175 countries of the world for global assessment of countries' achievements in different areas of human development
1996	Sustainable Development Indicators (CSD indicator)	A set of 14 indicators that target 53 states and focus on sustainable development and assist decision-makers at all levels to adopt sound national sustainable development policies
1998	The World Bank	Where is the Wealth of Nations? Measuring Capital for the 21st Century	An evaluation of sustainability by using indicators such as genuine savings to measure the savings in an economy after taking into account investments in human capital, depletion of natural resources and damage caused by pollution
2000-	OECD	Society at a Glance - OECD Social Indicators	A set of indicators for providing quantitative data on social equality, health, and social cohesion in OECD countries, in the general context of society, self-sufficiency, equality of income distribution, social welfare, and social cohesion (e.g. crime rate, suicide rate, life satisfaction)
2001-	OECD	OECD Key Environmental Indicators	A set of indicators for supporting evaluation of the status of OECD countries' environmental policy progress and political measures, and providing information to the public sectors (climate change, ozone layer, air quality, waste generation, freshwater quality, freshwater resources, forest resources, fish resources, energy resources, biodiversity)
2004-	OECD, the World Bank, EU, the United Nations, etc.	World Forum	A world-wide forum for encouraging awareness of what constitutes society's progress and assessment of progress of well-being. The first meeting was held in Palermo, Italy (2004). At the second meeting the Istanbul Declaration (2007), which proposed recommending development of indicators to work for social progress, was published. The third meeting (2009) was held in South Korea
2005-	OECD	OECD Factbook	A set of indicators providing a global overview of trends in the economy, society, and the environment, based on OECD statistics (population, GDP, consumer price indices, primary energies, gender ratios in employment, expenditures for research and development, international student assessments, public finance, life expectancy, emigration, etc.)
OECD	Economic Policy Reforms: Going for Growth	A set of indicators for indicating a country's performance in relation to improvement of labor productivity and employment (product market regulation indicators, human capital, labor market, labor tax, labor market policies, etc.)
2007-	The European Commission, the European Parliament, the Club of Rome, OECD, WWF	Beyond GDP Conference	A conference for defining indicators that are appropriate for measuring society's progress, and how those indicators can be integrated in public decision-making
2009	OECD	Government at a Glance 2009	A set of statistics for evaluating government activities and performance and assessing fundamental issues of good governance (e.g. data related to government income, expenditures, and hiring)
Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (CMEPSP)	CMEPSP Reports	Proposal of a system of indicators, requested by French President Sarkozy, for identifying the limit of GDP and measuring economic, environmental, governmental, and social quality of life and sustainability, focusing on the future and the current generation

Source: Created by the Ministry of the Environment, using the CMEPSP report “Survey of existing approach to measuring socio-economic progress,” materials from the Cabinet’s first Study Group for the level of happiness (December, 2010), etc.

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5. Extending National Accounts to environmental and social issues

As requested by France’s President Sarkozy, based on awareness of the limits of GDP and the need for measuring sustainability and quality of life, the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (CMEPSP) has been established. A report by the Commission proposed indicator systems in order to measure quality of life and sustainability in environmental, economic, and social aspects. It also pointed out that there are various difficulties and that indicators are imperfect, because using a composite indicator is not enough for measuring quality of life and sustainability, since the way in which various items are weighted is arbitrary and the messages of results are ambiguous.

The report presents an approach that incorporates the idea that sustainability is securing quality of life for future generations.

The following examples of methods were given as ways of measuring sustainability:

1) Development of composite indicators,

2) Dashboards or sets of indicators that gather and put in order series of indicators.

3) The System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA), that account for the impact of the economy on the environment.

4) Adjusted net savings (ANS), also known as genuine savings, to measure the savings in an economy after taking into account investments in human capital, depletion of natural resources and damage caused by pollution, and

5) Environmental footprints, which measure the regenerative capacity of the biosphere.

The report proposes that it is important to use indicator dashboards that gather and put in order series of indicators, and proceed with measurement of stocks.

The report also suggests three ways of evaluating quality of life (QoL). The first is a subjective approach that evaluates people's satisfaction with their daily lives as a whole and then analyzes the results. The second is a