NETGREEN · NETwork for GREEN growth Indicators

Policy-makers aiming to accelerate the shift to a green economy have to balance different objectives that, in practice, might contradict or reinforce each other. A good knowledge of these different aspects as well as their interrelations is therefore crucial for developing and implementing effective policies for the transition to a green economy.Many international organisations, research institutions, and non-profit groups have developed indicators and support tools designed to measure progress made on building a green economy. NETGREEN will take stock of this fragmented body of work and enable policy-makers, practitioners and researchers in different fields to engage in a meaningful discussion on the details and the broader issue of how to measure green growth.NETGREEN’s main impact lies not only in collecting but structuring the information on the indicators and tools, including sustainable development indicators and complements to GDP, using an open-access, searchable web-based database and comprehensive meta-data that allows the users to quickly identify suitable metrics, understand their strengths and weaknesses, and learn how to optimally use them for their policy and research objectives. NETGREEN’s stocktaking exercise produces complete, easily searchable information, which facilitates comparison and contextualisation of the data. The website will become a vital medium for this discussion, and the focal point for existing and new networks of policy-makers and researchers.In addition, NETGREEN will organise a series of workshops to build and further develop this community, and to disseminate the work to the diverse user groups of the project’s results. The workshops will include policy-oriented workshops on specific topics (thematic workshops on policies), and expert workshops on methodological questions (indicator typology, database and website design). Smaller workshops targeted to key audiences will promote the building-up of the user- community.