“On their deathbed, no one will regret not having contributed enough to GDP.”
As the limitations of GDP as the primary measure of progress become increasingly clear, Energon Green Solutions believes it is more important than ever to promote frameworks that focus on sustainability, equity, and the well-being of future generations. We are deeply committed to being part of the solution—and not just through our energy projects, but also by actively participating in shaping the conversation and policies that will determine what “progress” really means.
That is why we proudly join the “Youth Moving Beyond GDP” initiative, in partnership with Rethinking Economics International and UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD). We were honored to take an active role in the inaugural “Insight Forum” meeting of the Beyond Lab at UN Geneva, contributing to youth-led recommendations, intergenerational dialogue and grassroots engagement focused on reshaping how economic systems measure value over the long term.
Why “Beyond GDP” Matters for Energy
The energy sector sits at a unique nexus: it drives nearly all modern economic activity, but it is also one of the largest sources of environmental risk, social inequality, and intergenerational impact. Rethinking how we measure economic success is not just academic—it has real implications for investment, policy, and community well-being.
Some of the reasons GDP is inadequate:
- It does not account for environmental costs (e.g. carbon emissions, habitat destruction, pollution).
- It ignores social externalities, such as energy access inequality, health impacts of pollution, energy poverty, or job disruptions in transition.
- It fails to capture resilience and reliability of energy systems (e.g. the cost of blackouts, grid failures, or vulnerability to climate shocks).
- It overlooks long-term impacts—what happens to ecosystems, future generations, or resource depletion.
For companies, investors, governments, and communities, relying only on GDP means missing risks and costs that will increasingly matter—legally, financially, and socially.
What We Learned and Contributed at the Forum
Energon Green Solutions did more than simply attend the Insight Forum; we were an active voice in several key dimensions:
- We contributed to the youth-led recommendations on metrics that go beyond GDP—suggesting energy-sector specific indicators like clean energy access, lifecycle environmental impact, and equitable distribution of energy-transition benefits (jobs, affordability, public health).
- We participated deeply in intergenerational dialogue, helping bridge the perspectives of younger stakeholders with those of long-standing institutions—bringing energy industry experience, project realities, and financial implications to the table.
- We engaged in grassroots discussions, underscoring how energy projects can be designed to serve local communities now and preserve possibilities for future generations.
Through this participation, we have helped shape proposals that align measurement of progress with real sustainability and equity benchmarks—not only in general economic terms but also specific to the energy sector.
Alternative Metrics: What Energy Needs to Track
Based on what we heard, and based also on our own work, here are concrete metrics and frameworks that should be more widely adopted—especially for energy systems:
- Life-cycle carbon and environmental footprint: from extraction through construction, operation, decommissioning.
- Energy access & affordability: percentage of population with reliable access to clean energy; cost burden on low-income households.
- Grid resilience & reliability: measuring not just capacity but losses, uptime, ability to adapt to climate extremes.
- Social & public health externalities: local pollution, health outcomes in communities near energy generation or extraction sites.
- Resource sustainability: impact on land, water, biodiversity; dependency on non-renewable inputs; material end-of-life.
- Intergenerational equity indicators: debt or liability shift to future generations; number of stranded assets risk; long-term regenerative impacts (or damages) of current choices.
How Energy Finance Must Adapt
Financial and investment frameworks need to adapt if we want economic systems that truly serve people and planet over time. Some of the shifts we believe are crucial:
- Integrating non-financial risks and externalities into valuation
Investors and financiers should include environmental, social, and intergenerational risks in their project valuations, risk assessments, and due diligence. - Longer time-horizons, lower discount rates for sustainability
Projects with long useful lives (like renewables, grid infrastructure) should be evaluated not only on short-term returns but on long-term wellbeing and durability, including risk of regulatory change, climate impacts, obsolescence. - Financial tools that support inclusive transition
Grants, concessional finance, blended finance, green bonds or sustainability-linked instruments should be used to lower the cost of transitioning away from carbon-intensive energy, especially in communities or regions that are vulnerable. - Transparency, reporting, and stakeholder participation
Energy projects should disclose not just energy output and financial ROI, but also environmental impacts, community engagement, health data, and how intergenerational issues are factored in. - Policy, regulation, and metrics reform
Governments and institutions must support new economic indicators—beyond GDP—that embed intergenerational equity, well-being, environmental limits. Statistical agencies, regulatory bodies, and multilateral institutions must adopt such measures officially.
Energon Green Solutions: What We’re Doing
At Energon Green Solutions, we are implementing these principles in practice:
- We design energy projects with careful environmental impact assessments, community feedback, and long-term resource sustainability in mind.
- Our financial strategies include evaluating projects by total costs (environmental, social, regulatory) over their full life cycles, not just up to immediate payback.
- We advocate for and collaborate on frameworks that measure well-being, not just economic throughput, engaging with public policy, industry partners, and stakeholders to align on sustainable indicators.
- Through our participation in the Forum, we are helping shape the Youth Network on Beyond GDP and pushing for energy sector-relevant metrics and finance reforms.
Looking Forward: What We Can All Do
If the energy sector, policy-makers, investors, and civil society work together, the transition to a post-GDP measurement era can be just, effective, and sustainable. Some steps forward:
- Adopt pilot projects with alternative metrics (e.g. local/regional “well-being indices,” energy justice indicators)
- Include youth, communities, and future generations in project governance and decision-making
- Push for regulatory reforms that codify “Beyond GDP” frameworks
- Use finance to support sustainable, equitable energy, and include long-term environmental costs in investment decisions
Energon Green Solutions believes the global energy transition is not just about switching technologies—but about redefining what value means. By participating actively in initiatives like the Youth Moving Beyond GDP Forum, we seek to bring energy, finance, and policy together in ways that measure what truly matters: well-being, fairness, and resilience for us, and for generations to come.