Chapter 06 · Governance & regulationDevelopment, Impact & Global Frameworks
Adjusted net savings
Definition
A sustainability indicator calculated by the World Bank as net national savings plus education expenditure, minus energy depletion, mineral depletion, net forest depletion, and damage from carbon dioxide and particulate emissions. It is usually expressed as a percentage of gross national income (GNI).
References
Official long definition and formula; source publication "The Changing Wealth of Nations"; annual periodicity.
Component definitions (education expenditure, energy/mineral/forest depletion, CO₂ and particulate damage valuation); conceptual basis in Hamilton and Clemens (1999).
Overview
What it means
Conventional savings measures count only produced capital. Adjusted net savings treats education spending as investment in human capital and treats resource extraction and pollution damage as disinvestment in natural capital.
A persistently negative rate indicates that a country is running down its total wealth — failing a "weak sustainability" test in which declines in one form of capital can be offset by increases in another.
How it is used
The World Bank publishes the series annually in the World Development Indicators (methodology documented in "The Changing Wealth of Nations"), and researchers and policy institutions use it to compare development trajectories, particularly for resource-exporting economies whose GDP growth may mask depletion.
Why it matters
Adjusted net savings is one of the longest-standing attempts to correct GDP-centred accounting for environmental costs. Its limits matter too: it monetises diverse assets on contested valuation assumptions, omits several forms of natural and social capital, and embodies weak-sustainability assumptions that strong-sustainability advocates reject.
Definitions and controversy
A variant excluding particulate emission damage is also published; valuation of CO₂ damage and the substitutability assumption between capitals are debated.