The World Bank is the guiding saint of the principle that the only measurement of a country's well-being is its economic growth rate. Any ecologist can tell you that exponential economic growth is an impossibility in a finite ecological world. How many poor countries have had their customary societies including traditional sustainable resource management systems ripped asunder by World Bank policies to open their markets and access their resources? Whenever the Bank ventures into issues of sustainable development, rarely does the message effect their core lending.

Now we are told by the World Bank that current indicators such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ignore depletion of resources and damage to the environment. Having worked within the World Bank, I can tell you that most of the economists are not getting this message despite this report. Resources are being depleted globally because markets are not properly valuing natural capital. And the World Bank is one of the greatest culprits in advocating this ecological sickness.