Growth Net Planetary Stress (GNPS)
GNPS quantifies how effectively an economy generates growth (i.e., socio-economic output) relative to the resource depletion, pollution, and social inequities it causes. Within this framework, it evaluates how effectively economic systems convert physical, labour, and energetic inputs into human well-being, while minimizing ecological damage and distributive injustice. Growth is considered efficient when the gains in life quality and social equity outweigh the ecological and social costs embedded in the production-consumption cycle. It functions as a penalty-reward metric to differentiate the quality of growth pathways. It is penalized by high resource throughput, energy intensity, and inequality, and rewarded by green technologies, circularity, and social justice.
Global Annual Anthropogenic Planetary Pressure Index (GAAPPI)
Unprecedented in Earth’s long history, an organism has acquired five critical attributes that enable it to alter the planet’s morphology and biosphere at an unimaginable rate: Size, population, life span, intelligence, and collaboration. These factors make us uniquely capable of depleting and polluting the very same natural system that produced and sustains us in a rapid and irreversible manner.
GAAPPI quantifies the real-time ecological strain of human activities by comparing the rate of resource demand (load) to the rate of biophysical regeneration (capacity). It measures the intensity at which human activity imposes stress on Earth’s life-support systems and is defined as the ratio between human-induced environmental burdens—such as resource extraction, emissions, land use change, and waste generation, and the Earth’s biophysical capacity to absorb or regenerate from these impacts. It consists of several key elements such as Planetary boundary buffers (e.g., safe nitrogen/phosphorus cycling limits), assimilative thresholds (e.g., ocean CO₂ uptake, wetland filtration) and Biosphere renewal rates (e.g., forest regrowth, soil carbon sequestration for quantifying Regenerative biophysical capacity and thresholds, as well as resource extraction, Land-use change, and Pollution output to measure a pressure load. It is defined as the ratio between human-induced environmental burdens—such as resource extraction, emissions, land use change, and waste generation—and the Earth’s biophysical capacity to absorb or regenerate from these impacts.
State Accountability for Damage and Losses Index (SADLI)
SADLI quantifies the extent to which a state fulfills its duty to protect populations’ well-being, infrastruture, and critical services from the impacts of disasters, whether natural or anthropogenic, based on data available on hazards’ loss and damage by the United Nations Office of Disaster Risk Reduction. The index evaluates not only the scale of economic losses, infrastructure damage, and human harm but also critically examines the preventability of those outcomes based on the state’s preparedness, governance quality, risk communication, and resilience planning. SADLI functions as a performance and justice-based accountability metric, highlighting the gap between foreseeable risks and actual state interventions. It incorporates factors such as early warning systems, investment in risk reduction, legal frameworks for disaster response, and timeliness and equity of recovery support. By attributing responsibility proportionally to the avoidability of damages, SADLI seeks to incentivize proactive governance, ensure transparent public reporting, and advocate for reparative justice for affected communities. Ultimately, it reinforces the principle that the state bears a structural obligation to reduce avoidable harm and to support its citizens through crises with dignity and fairness.
