IPCC 6th Assessment Report mentions "de-growth" for the first time

New Zealand government implemented the Wellbeing Budget

The Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll) was launched.

WEAll is a collaboration of organisations, alliances, movements and individuals working towards a wellbeing economy, delivering human and ecological wellbeing.

The Social Progress Imperative published "2016 EU Regional Social Progress Index"

Civic Exchange published "The Asian Urban-Wellbeing Indicators"

United Nations Sustainable Development Summit 2015 (New York) -the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted.

The Bertelsmann Stiftung published "Sustainable Development Goals: Are the rich countries ready? "

OECD Launched an Interactive Website Indicating Regional Well-Being

The Social Progress Imperative published "The Social Progress Imperative"

The International Youth Foundation (IYF) and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published "Global Youth Wellbeing Index"

Updated "Your Better Life Index" (BLI) released by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

World Happiness Report launched at the United Nations

- Published by the Earth Institute, Columbia University and co-edited by Jeffrey Sachs.
- Shows top 4 happiest countries are Denmark, Norway, Finland, and the Netherlands.

High Level Meeting on Wellbeing and Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm (UN Headquarters, New York)

- Host: Royal Government of the Kingdom of Bhutan
- In follow-up to the UN General Assembly Resolution 65/309, titled "Happiness: towards a holistic approach to development"
- Participants will be representatives of governments, economists, scholars, and civil societies from both developed and developing countries, as well as United Nations and other international organizations.

Celebration of the 40th anniversary of the launching of Limits to Growth (Washington D. C., US)

- Host: The Club of Rome and the Smithsonian Institution's Consortium for Understanding and Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet

"Asia-Pacific Conference on Measuring Well-Being and Fostering the Progress of Societies" Held in Tokyo

- Held as one of a series of regional conferences for Asia-Pacific countries toward the World Forum of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), to be held in New Delhi, India in October 2012.
- In collaboration with OECD, the Economic and Social Research Institute of Japan (ESRI), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Statistics Korea (KOSTAT) and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) jointly organized the conference.

Beyond GDP- how do we measure progress?

- Host: The Danish Ecological Council

"How's Life?" released by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

- A report covers livelihoods and well-being in 40 countries, including its own member countries.
- Part of the OECD's "Better Life Initiative," which analyses country situations in 11 areas: income, jobs, housing, health, work-life balance, education, social connections, civic engagement and governance, environment, personal security and subjective well-being.

The Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW) released by the Canadian Index of Wellbeing Network (CIW Network)

- Shows that Quality of Life does not match GDP increases

"Your Better Life Index" (BLI) launched by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

UK starts to discuss the necessity of introducing a new indicator.

- The British PM Cameron: "It's time we admitted that there's more to life than money, and it's time we focused not just on GDP but on GWB (general wellbeing).
- The new index would indicate how people perceive happiness, be used for policy-making, and be based on regular surveys.

Transition Network 2010 Conference (Totness, UK)

De-Growth Vancouver (Canada)

- Host: Vancouver Board of Change and the Revelry Society
- Theme: How do we de-grow the economy and maintain jobs?

Second International Conference on Economic Degrowth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity (Barcelona, Spain)

- Host: Research & Degrowth, Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Ecologistas en Acción
- Participants: Over 500 scientists and citizens group members from over 40 countries
- Barcelona declaration
- Suggested concrete policies and strategies to shift toward a de-growth society, responding to the First International Conference in Paris, 2008.
- Declaration: Proposes new ideas not being discussed in mainstream media, such as currencies and financial institutions, population and resource depletion.

"Rethinking Economic Growth, Towards an international degrowth network" (London, UK) - Host: CEECEC, nef

Growth in Transition (Vienna, Austria)

"Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress" (Joseph E. Stiglitz, Amartya Sen, and Jean-Paul Fitoussi) released in France.

- Says it is important to rethink current GDP and shift the focus in economy to well-being, including health, education, and safety.
- French President Nicolas Sarkozy says government's addiction to economic growth puts the Earth at risk.

"GDP and beyond: Measuring progress in a changing world" roadmap released by European Commission.

"Prosperity without Growth? - The transition to a sustainable economy" report released by Sustainable Development Commission (UK).

Degrowth Seminar (Copenhagen, Denmark)

Global Peace Index 2009 released by Economic Intelligent Unit.

- Compares data from 144 countries.

Lehman Brothers (US investment bank) goes bankrupt, causing global financial crisis.

City Biodiversity Index (CBI) development suggested at Ninth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 9) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

- Thirty-four model cities designated during two expert workshops.

The First International Conference on Economic De-growth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity (Paris, France)

- Host: GET / INT National Institute of Telecommunications, ESEE (European Society for Ecological Economics), SERI (Sustainable Europe Research Institute), the Wuppertal Institute and Research & Degrowth
- More than 130 people including scientists and civic group reps.
- Conference declaration:
-States that pursuit of economic growth leads to problems such as the increase of natural resource extraction, poverty, and inequalities between countries.
-Calls for a paradigm shift from the general and unlimited pursuit of economic growth to a concept of "right-sizing" the global and national economies.
-Says the paradigm shift involves degrowth in wealthy parts of the world.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy creates Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (CMEPSP).

- Aware of a growing gap between people's sense of happiness in daily life and what politicians and statisticians talk about, resulting in a sense of distrust of governments and politicians, and dangerous for democracy.
- Members of the commission, some 20 experts including winners of Nobel Prize in Economics, conduct studies and research.

"Beyond GDP" international conference by European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, together with the European Commission (EC), OECD, Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), and the Club of Rome.

- Recognizes the necessity of new indices aside from GDP to tackle global issues such as climate change, poverty, and resource depletion, taking into account environmental and social aspects.
- Aims to deepen understanding on "progress, affluence, and happiness," discusses how to measure them, and considers the merits of introducing such components into decision making processes.

Subprime mortgage crisis in United States also hits financial sectors in many other countries, particularly in Europe.

International Conference on Happiness and Public Policy (Bangkok, Thailand)

- Thailand releases Green and Happiness Index (GHI).
- It is based on philosophy of Sufficiency Economy, human-centered development, and vision of "Green and Happiness Society."
- Consists of six components: health, warm and loving family, community empowerment, economic strength and equity, good quality environment and ecological system, and democratic society and good governance.

Environment Performance Index (EPI) released by Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy (Yale University) and Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN, Columbia University).

- Covers 163 countries, measuring performance based on 25 indicators, including environmental health and air pollution, and 10 policies.
- Compares and analyses how each country pursues environmental policies.
- World Economic Forum and the European Commission's Joint Research Centre develop it jointly with Yale University and Columbia University.

Happy Planet Index (HPI) released by British think-tank New Economics Foundation (nef).

- Measures happiness, by country.
- Advocates for a transition from economic prosperity and resource depletion.
- Index components: Life expectancy, life satisfaction, ecological footprint (instead of economic indicator).
- Measures well-being delivered per unit of environmental impact.

Quality of Life Index released by British consulting and research firm (Economic Intelligence Unit).

- Based on research in 111 countries and regions.
- Is an indicator to combine subjective affluence (satisfaction) with objective qualities (social determinants).

Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators released (by Calvert and Henderson)

- Measures happiness of society.
- Henderson advocates for the need to change economic growth models.

Genuine Progress Index (GPI) released by US non-governmental organization Redefining Progress.

- GDP is not enough to measure true prosperity because it measures only market value without considering social and environmental cost of market value.

Human Development Index (HDI) introduced into the Human Development Report (United Nations Development Programme, or UNDP).

- Former Pakistani Minister of Finance, Dr. Mahbub ul Haq, developed HDI when serving as Special Advisor to UNDP, based on the idea of "Human Development."
- Covers 169 countries.
- Indicators used: A long and healthy life (life expectancy at birth), access to knowledge (literacy rate and education rate), decent standard of living (GDP per capita)

Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) proposed by Herman Daly, John Cobb et al.

- Recognizes that environmental pollution is a cost to economic sustainability.
- Goes beyond simply counting monetary transactions such as GDP
- Deducts for costs such as air/water/noise pollution, loss of wetlands and farmland, depletion of ozone, etc.

Second oil crisis

"Demain la décroissance: Entropie-ecologie-economie" released (J. Grinevald) as French translation of "The Entropy Law and the Economic Process" (Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, 1971)

- The word "décroissance" (de-growth) in French title has attracted attention since 2000 and spread outside France.

Gross National Happiness (GNH) index presented by King of Bhutan at an international conference.

- It is based on the idea that spiritual affluence (i.e., happiness) is what should be pursued, not monetary or material affluence measured by GNP.
- Says that economic development can lead to poverty, environmental destruction, and loss of culture.
- GNH is developed later as an indicator.

First oil crisis

"Small Is Beautiful" (E. F. Schumacher) published.

- Gains world attention by sounding the alarm about the supremacy of economic growth, science and technology, and discusses various problems of current economies.

United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (also known as "Stockholm Conference") held in Stockholm, Sweden.

- The first large international conference on environmental issues, themed on "Only One Earth."
- Reveals the North-South problem, resulting from different views on "development": Developed countries face natural resources depletion and environmental destruction caused by rapid economic growth, while developing countries face population growth and poverty.

"Limits to Growth" (Donella H. Meadows, et al.) published.

- Analyses five variables (world population, food production, industrialization=economic growth, pollution, resource depletion), recognizes world situation and trends, and forecasts the future.
- Raises alarms that humanity may reach the finite Earth's limits within 100 years if current trends in economic growth continue.

Pollution problems and environmental destruction from rapid economic growth are worsening, mainly in developed countries.

Gross National Product (GNP) indicator developed by American economist Simon Kuznets for US Congress (GDP later becomes more popular).

- During World War II, GNP is used as an indicator for measuring military demand.
- After WWI, it takes root as a major indicator to measure a country's economic development.