Can measures of well-being and progress help societies to achieve sustainable development?

• GDP is inadequate for monitoring sustainable societal development.
• All indices studied are proxies, but singly they are inadequate to monitor progress towards SD.
• None of the indices studied encompass all perspectives needed to guide societies to SD.
• Our findings indicate, which indices are redundant and which are complementary.
• Combinations of biophysical and socioeconomic indices improve the information provided.

The search for sustainability and the growing apprehension with environmental degradation are increasingly attracting researchers from around the world, and bringing the need for developing indicators that include the economy, society and environment. This study compares the emergy indices with 10 known indicators taken from the literature: Gross Domestic Product, Gross Domestic Product per capita, Human Development Index, Happiness Index, Life Expectancy, Democracy Index, Ecological Footprint, Surplus Biocapacity, Wellbeing Index and Environmental Sustainability Index 2002. Correlations are made using the Spearman coefficients to verify correlations between the fractions of renewable natural resources, non-renewable natural resources, resources from the economy and the emergy indices with the known indicators, and indexes emerged with the literature indicators. The analysis of the results is made by illustrative matrices and graphs. The results suggest that the combination of socio-economic and biophysical indicators is essential to provide a better understanding of the limits of economic growth and while ensuring sustainable societal well-being.

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