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Abstract: Measuring sustainable well-being is an important task in determining whether people''s lives are improving or becoming worse over time. A new index, the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), has been developed in order to measure sustainable well-being. The GPI is comprised of a large number of individual cost and benefit items that account for various social, environmental and economic impacts associated with a growing economy. Various policy implications flow from the result of applying this new well-being metric. This paper briefly reviews an application of the GPI to the state of Victoria, Australia for the period 1986–2003, before discussing the policy implications of this application. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: This paper discusses two well-known market-based social change initiatives, Fair Trade coffee and Forest Stewardship Council certification, which harness market forces to pursue social and environmental objectives. A serious challenge for both is to operate in the conventional market without undermining their original objectives. A global commodity chain analysis approach is combined with insights from economic sociology embeddedness theory to explore the social, cultural and organizational factors shaping the initiatives’ governance structures. Both initiatives are seen to move along opposite organizational trajectories, but face similar pressures from conventional market logics, practices and dominant actors. A preliminary framework is proposed for comparative assessment, focusing on distribution of benefits, how conventional market institutions may be questioned, and how internal governance manages diverse stakeholder interests and influence. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]