Sustainable finance
Total Wealth
The World Bank's measure of everything a nation owns — produced, natural, human and intangible capital — the balance-sheet test of sustainability.
Definition
Total wealth is the aggregate value of a nation's capital stocks: produced capital (infrastructure, machinery), natural capital (land, forests, minerals, fisheries), human capital (skills and health embodied in people), and net foreign assets — compiled by the World Bank's Changing Wealth of Nations programme for over 140 countries. The sustainability test is whether wealth per capita is maintained or growing as GDP rises: growth accompanied by declining wealth — consuming natural capital without building human and produced capital — is unsustainable by definition.
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