In the arena of global environmental policy, the past several decades have seen some major accomplishments in setting goals. At the onset of 2016, the United Nations ushered in a very ambitious list of goals to be achieved by 2030. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include the elimination of poverty and hunger, realization of gender equality and reduction of social inequalities, as well as peace, justice, and new institutions and partnerships. The 13th goal of SDGs is devoted to “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.” Accordingly, the Paris Agreement was reached at the COP21 on 12 December 2015, and entered into force in the next year. In particular, the Agreement determines that all countries put an effort to limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius at most.

This ambitious target-oriented approach to tackling environment and development challenges is commendable in many ways. It serves to share the status of the topic with a wide audience on the globe. Moreover, the goals may facilitate local regions in the “downscaling” of global goals, leading to local initiatives to complement global solutions. We build on the past achievements of Inclusive Wealth Report (IWR), but extend the analysis both in depth and breadth. In particular, our target is to develop a theory of how the idea of inclusive wealth can be put into general practice.

Inclusive wealth concept: physical capital + human capital + natural capital = inclusive wealth