This concluding chapter highlights eight themes in the history of environmental economics, including the rise of the consumer, the changing definition of econmics, measurement and objectivity, the quest to measure the intangible, theories of surplus value, the relationship between pure and applied science, economic institutions including common property, and economics relationship to politics. It also points the way ahead to three areas where pricing the environment may be extended to new levels, areas that reflect these themes. The areas include the expansion of benefit-cost analysis to account for equity, the expansion of national income accounts like GDP to account for natural capital, and the international pricing of greenhouse gases.

The previous chapters have shown that there is one powerful community (“the GDP multinational") which is being challenged by a heterogeneous and weakly organised community (“the Beyond-GDP cottage industry). The ever-expanding range of Beyond-GDP initiatives will not lead to success however. A new strategy is based on the GDP success story and aims to create an institutionalised community with a clear goal and coherent structure based on a common language. The chapter argues that the community should not be based on the SDGs, green accounting or the SEEA. It also argues that the community should not be based on economic terminology and theory but rather on multidisciplinary building blocks such as stock/flow accounting, networks and limits. The aim of the community is to enhance well-being and sustainability and one of its most important features is its common language: the System of Global and National Accounts (SGNA). The SGNA has four system accounts (environment, society, economy and distribution), which describe how the systems are developing. However, this does not yet tell people whether the developments are good or bad. This is left to the quality accounts.

GDP is the most influential indicator in the world. It is published all over the world and there is a powerful logistical infrastructure (the "GDP multinational") which involves national statistical offices, international institutes, policy researchers, academics, media and society. Yet GDP is not a good measure of sustainability or well-being and this is why hundreds of alternatives have been proposed in the last decades. This "Beyond-GDP cottage industry" is expanding all the time but there is no sign that it is going to threaten the dominance of GDP anytime soon. Replacing GDP by 2030 provides a strategy to overcome this situation by 2030 and Chapter 1 provides an outline of the arguments made in the book.

The history of Beyond-GDP is far more complex than the history of GDP because it is hard to define the boundaries of this field. Some fields have a long history: the measurement of Subjective Well-being (SWB) started just after the Second World War and Green Accounting emerged in the early 1970s. This chapter shows that there are basically four types of methodologies. Up to the early 1990s, the majority were green accounting or SWB indexes (conceptual indexes). After the publication of the Brundtland Report and subsequent Earth Summits, the other three types (composite indicators, and conceptual and non-conceptual indicator sets) also became popular. With the adoption of the SDGs in 2015, the situation became even more dynamic. The chapter shows that Beyond-GDP is a highly heterogeneous community without the powerful features of the GDP multinational. It is a community without a common language and is therefore incapable of communicating with each other or the rest of society. The only positive exception is the System of Environmental and Economic Accounts (SEEA), which provides the accounting framework and indicators for environmental macroeconomics.

The previous chapters have shown that there is one powerful community (“the GDP multinational") which is being challenged by a heterogeneous and weakly organised community (“the Beyond-GDP cottage industry). The ever-expanding range of Beyond-GDP initiatives will not lead to success however. A new strategy is based on the GDP success story and aims to create an institutionalised community with a clear goal and coherent structure based on a common language. The chapter argues that the community should not be based on the SDGs, green accounting or the SEEA. It also argues that the community should not be based on economic terminology and theory but rather on multidisciplinary building blocks such as stock/flow accounting, networks and limits. The aim of the community is to enhance well-being and sustainability and one of its most important features is its common language: the System of Global and National Accounts (SGNA). The SGNA has four system accounts (environment, society, economy and distribution), which describe how the systems are developing. However, this does not yet tell people whether the developments are good or bad. This is left to the quality accounts.