Sustainable National Income

Sustainable national income, (SNI) is an indicator for environmental sustainability.

The national income of a country is an estimate of the yearly production of goods and services. The loss of possible uses of the non-human made physical surroundings, named environmental functions, on which humanity is dependent in all its doings remains outside the estimate. Also the present and future production is dependent on these environmental functions. The sustainable national income (SNI) in a given year is an estimate of the production level at which - with the technology in the year of calculation - environmental functions remain available ‘for ever’. Economist Roefie Hueting developed the theoretical and practical framework of the SNI. Already in 1970 he published a collection of articles over the years 1967-1970 titled: “What is nature worth to us?” . In 1974 Hueting obtained a Ph.D. in economics (cum laude) at the University of Groningen with the thesis “New scarcity and economic growth: More welfare through less production?” In 1969 Hueting founded the Department of Environmental Statistics at Statistics Netherlands. A multidisciplinary team of biologists, chemists, physicists, electrical engineers and economists worked for nearly forty years on the SNI and the environmental statistics it is based on.