Gross domestic product (GDP) was never designed to be a measure of societal well-being. It tracks only market transactions, conflates costs and benefits, and ignores the distribution of income, the contributions of household labour and volunteer work, and social and environmental costs and benefits.In the decades after the Second World War, GDP growth functioned as a reasonable proxy for well-being when rebuilding economies and increasing production and consumption were the main priorities. However, since about 1950, which some call the Anthropocene era, ecological limits, inequality and declining social cohesion have restricted further improvements in well-being. At the same time, the rapid development of artificial intelligence promises fresh opportunities and challenges.Degrowth can work — here’s how science can helpMeasuring and modelling what truly matters, not just market transactions, is now essential. Processes are under way to develop indicators that move beyond GDP. In May, the United Nations secretary-general António Guterres appointed a High-Level Expert Group to develop such measures, with a focus on balancing economic, social and environmental dimensions of well-being. This initiative builds on the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): target 19 of SDG17 commits governments to adopt beyond-GDP metrics by 2030.Yet progress remains slow. Overcoming decades of structures built around GDP is difficult. Nonetheless, several governments, including those of New Zealand, Scotland, Wales and Bhutan, have experimented with alternatives to GDP1 (see also go.nature.com/3ktuvhv). Others should follow suit, but it will be a steep climb.Shifting all societies from a narrow focus on GDP growth to a comprehensive understanding of the multiple factors that support well-being and prosperity, and of how these factors interact over space and time, demands consensus on another approach2. Over the past seven decades, researchers and institutions have proposed hundreds of alternatives to GDP.Paradoxically, this proliferation has helped GDP to keep its privileged status, by creating the impression that there is little agreement on what sustainable and inclusive well-being means or how to measure it. In fact, there is much that these approaches do agree on.Here, we identify areas of common ground and propose four ways forward: universally adopting the goal of sustainable and inclusive well-being; establishing agreed metrics to evaluate progress towards this goal; developing models that incorporate the drivers and dynamics of well-being; and addressing institutionalized societal ‘addictions’ that reinforce unsustainable behaviours.Embrace sustainable and inclusive well-beingThe concept of sustainable and inclusive well-being — encompassing the well-being of all people and of the ecosystems that sustain life — is emerging as a widely accepted overarching policy goal that can provide common ground for beyond-GDP metrics, models and policies.By assigning a central role to natural ecosystems and planetary boundaries, the concept acknowledges that human prosperity depends on healthy ecological systems. Respecting ecological limits by constraining the material scale of the economy is therefore a precondition for lasting well-being. It also demands that human societies prevent significant harm to other species, protect the rights of future generations and guarantee that all people today have access to essential resources, services and participatory forms of decision-making.Market workers in Kenya. Employment is a core factor in many indicators of well-being.Credit: Elen Marlen/GettyA 2009 report on the measurement of economic performance and social progress, chaired by economist Joseph Stiglitz, laid the groundwork for moving beyond GDP3. Since then, international bodies, including the UN, the European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), have progressively adopted this conceptual foundation. Full international enforcement should follow; however, this might depend on a more-receptive US administration and stronger demand from civil society.Agree on well-being indicatorsConverging on an approach to evaluating sustainable and inclusive well-being is important if policymakers and organizations such as the UN are to embed these measures into official reporting and budgetary processes. Studies suggest that this is possible.Although more than 200 beyond-GDP indicators have been proposed, they share many similarities. These indicators often use different terminology to describe contributors to sustainable and inclusive well-being4. For example, ‘health’ might refer to mental health, physical health, health care, child welfare or any of more than 400 variants. Semantic modelling of the components of each indicator, which looks at the similarity between them, nevertheless reveals a high degree of agreement5. Nineteen key components capture a large proportion of the similarity (see ‘Well-being components’).Well-being componentsThese 19 core factors are common to most beyond-GDP indicators5.HumanLife satisfactionHealthLife expectancy at birthEducationSocialCrimeCivic engagementGovernanceIncome equalityGender equalityBuiltHousingInfrastructureFinancial securityEmploymentPer capita consumptionBusiness healthNaturalNatural capitalWater qualityAir qualityGreenhouse-gas emissionsResearchers and policymakers, led by an international convening body such as the UN, should now establish a core set of around 20 components to serve as the backbone of national statistical reporting and UN frameworks. The UN High-Level Expert Group and the ongoing update of the SDGs are already advancing the agenda. The expert group has committed to an inclusive process that invites contributions from all stakeholders.Interested parties are encouraged to submit ideas and insights to help strengthen the emerging global consensus (see go.nature.com/4gcebvr). This month, the expert group launched an online consultation about its progress, and is expected to present its recommendations in the first half of 2026, which falls within the 80th session of the UN General Assembly. After this, intergovernmental processes will consider their recommendations.To build a better world, stop chasing economic growthOther efforts include the UN System of Environmental Economic Accounting and the UN System of National Accounts 2025 initiative, which are revising economic accounts to include more well-being components. The 2024 UN Pact for the Future and recommendations from the secretary-general’s Our Common Agenda report call for measures of progress that complement GDP. But these efforts need help from researchers and the consensus recommendations of the High-Level Expert Group.The UN can also play a central part in strengthening institutional capacity and securing stable funding to support the regular production of national estimates. Advances in citizen science, social-media analytics and remote sensing offer opportunities to reduce costs and improve data reliability. The world is awash with big data, so directing even a fraction of these resources towards measuring sustainable and inclusive well-being would enhance global monitoring and policy effectiveness.Develop dynamic models that go beyond GDPGDP has retained its dominance partly because it is embedded in the models that underpin national accounts and policy analyses. For example, the input–output model developed by economist Wassily Leontief6 tracks monetary flows across sectors and into ‘final demand’, defined as GDP.Why we need to measure people’s well-being — lessons from a global surveyMainstream macroeconomic models also place growth at the centre of policy evaluation. For example, standard computable general equilibrium models assume a high degree of substitutability among factors of production, implying that labour or technology can largely replace natural resources. They neglect environmental limits and exclude well-being, equity and ecological integrity. Most importantly, they are optimization models that are intended to maximize a single objective — GDP — rather than being designed to evaluate policies against multiple goals, as is required for sustainable and inclusive well-being.New models are needed. These must be dynamic, nonlinear and represent the economy as a subsystem of society embedded in the biosphere. Such models must be able to compare resource use and pollution to environmental limits, and social outcomes to the thresholds required to meet human needs7. They must track both stocks (natural, human, social and built capital) and flows (including monetary transactions, ecosystem services and social benefits) and capture their interactions, including feedbacks from transgressing environmental limits. Ecological macroeconomic models, rooted in the field of ecological economics, are one promising approach8.Young people at a cultural arts centre in Kibera, an informal settlement in Nairobi, perform a traditional African dance.Credit: Eva-Maria Krafczyk/dpa/Alamy