An important aspect to highlight with regards to the ranking system is that it should not be misleading in the sense that it can give a true answer to how the countries are performing in each of the dimensions. Since the TPI is based on a ranking system, the countries´ performance is based on how well the other countries are doing as well. Hence, if a country is improving the score from one year to another, it is both affected by the country's own performance as well as if the others are doing better or worse. The results should therefore be interpreted with cautiousness.
On a final note, as mentioned above, there has not been an updated release of the TPI from the EU Commission. Hence, to get a better understanding of whether the TPI is expected to be developed and used further within the EU, a personal request was sent to the European Research Enquiry Service. In the answer on the request, it was explained that there is no envisioning on further updating the TPI. The reasoning for this being that the TPI as a tool lacks transparency in its design, and the potential for its use as a policy tool was deemed not sufficient at this point.
But there has on the other hand been other developments as kind of an extension of the TPI. In 2023, three years following the first report of the TPI, a new report by the European Commission (European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Vladimirov, M., Gerganov, A., Petrova, V. (2023) presented two new alternatives to the TPI, with the aim of developing better policy instruments to monitor the member states progress towards sustainable transition. This is suggesting that the TPI has not been sufficient in delivering a full assessment of the Commission's political priorities. The report further states that as of 2023 there has not been a ‘Beyond GDP’ monitoring framework with clear and measurable targets to report for the UN SDGs or achieve the EU Agenda 2030. Newer editions of a ‘Beyond GDP’ metric seeks to integrate a broader aspect of well-being in European countries, building on the methodology of TPI and other metrics developed by the European Commission. In the report, five in depth interviews with experts on the subject of ‘Beyond GDP’ were conducted, with specific comments on the TPI and possible improvements on the index’s dimensions. It is suggested that the social dimension is unpacked to favour more inclusion, health and wellbeing, as well as a greater emphasis on sustainability within the dimensions. One expert suggests integrating the ‘Doughnut approach’ in the sustainability aspect, to have a clearer dimension of the environmental transition in terms of input and output.
Further development of the report from 2023, is a preliminary study (European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Charveriat, Abdallah, & Jong, 2024) for a new metric published by the European Commission presenting another alternative in the ‘Beyond GDP’ approach for a sustainable prosperous future. The framework for the study is called GDP+3, which is similar to the TPI in terms of dimensions. As the name suggests, the GDP+3 framework adds three dimensions to GDP as a measure on wellbeing and prosperity, namely social, environmental and institutional prosperity. The report emphasises that the framework needs to have strong policy traction for it to be a strong and influential political tool. Here, the strong relation to GDP in the framework might be an advantage, as it is familiar to policymakers and the wide public.
Even though the TPI in its current form will not be developed and used further, the TPI has still been influential in providing a solid baseline for the further development of ‘Beyond GDP’ metrics within the EU, as it has been a stepping stone in finding more appropriate metrics for policymakers in terms of recent research and the work on the GDP+3 measure. With these findings, the TPI is thus not recommended for direct implementation in policies in the Nordic countries. However, since the work on efficient indicators is still being developed, it is accurate for policymakers to stay up to date with the current work presented by the European Commission on the ‘Beyond GDP’ approach, as this can be relevant for the Nordic countries’ work going forward towards well-being economies.
4.2c Doughnut Economy Indicators
To date there is no single and centrally produced set of indicators which both quantify and evaluate performance of individual countries against the DE framework. However, a number of scholars have undertaken distinct calculations to understand relative and comparative national performance. These have often been based on distinct but overlapping synthetic indicators. There have been, to our knowledge, only four studies which conduct large-scale comparative studies, including European countries. Three of these use the same data sets from 2011 and 2015, whilst the last uses more recent data sources ranging till 2019.
Based on data collected from 2011, the seminal paper ‘A good life for all within planetary boundaries’ looked at over 150 countries. It determined there were profligate transgressions: no country met the basic human needs of its citizens while using resources at a globally sustainable level (O’Neill et al. 2018). Based on the same set of data, a follow-up paper ‘Is it possible to achieve a good life for all within planetary boundaries’ looked at the ability of poorer nations to pursue a good life for all within planetary boundaries, due in part, to the ecological overshoot by richer nations (Hickel 2019).
A follow-up to the first of these papers – ‘The social shortfall and ecological overshoot of nations’ – was based on updated time-series data till 2015 (Fanning et al. 2022). Reviewing over 140 countries till 2015, it concluded that countries are likely to overshoot their biophysical boundaries faster than achieving the social foundations for prosperity, with projections suggesting that deep transformations were needed to safeguard human and planetary health.
This study draws on the data used in ‘The social shortfall and ecological overshoot of nations’ (Fanning et al. 2022). This selection was based on the fact that this is the most comprehensive time series data available and has been referenced on the official website of the Doughnut Economy Action Lab (DEAL, 2021). However, three major limitations should be noted.
First, this dataset nor any of the others reviewed contained data for Iceland. The research team searched extensively for data which would enable novel calculations for Icelandic performance to be undertaken, but such data was not publicly available. Analysis of Iceland in terms of the doughnut economy is thus missing.
Second, this dataset does not contain data for Cyprus, Luxembourg or Malta. This means that EU comparisons are based on an average of the remaining 24 EU member states, rather than the full EU27. However given the size of the omitted countries, we are confident that such a comparison can still provide valuable insight.
Third, and most importantly, the fact that historical data only exists until 2015 places considerable limitations on the conclusions that can be drawn. The datasets do include projections under business-as-usual scenarios, however given the ensuing years have seen the global pandemic, a war on Europe’s eastern border, drastically increased energy costs and high persistent inflation, not to mention ecological changes seemingly accelerating far faster than models had predicted, these projections are likely to deviate significantly from reality. For this reason we have elected not to include these projections in our analysis.