Measuring long-term sustainability with shared socioeconomic pathways using an inclusive wealth framework

To understand the trajectory of sustainability, it is important to measure historical and future projections of productive capital that contribute to wellbeing. This study considers a productive base that includes the human, natural and produced capital of 140 countries. We then develop projections for 2014–2100 using the newly developed shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) that strive to explain the implications of key socioeconomic variables on long-term global sustainability. Those SSPs with high investments in broad societal development are associated with the highest growth in inclusive wealth. Poverty alleviation, demographic changes and human capital investments are effective instruments to attain greater wealth as shown in East and Southeast Asia. Furthermore, the SSP that describes a sustainability pathway, which poses the least climate change challenges and substantially reduced reliance on natural resources, is more conducive to increasing wellbeing than the fragmented pathways that result in inequality.