Monitoring the environmental quality of life

Environmental outcomes are important determinants of health status and well-being. They provide an example where production and income growth may not be accompanied by a rise in overall well-being. Degraded environmental quality can result from and cause unsustainable development patterns. It can have substantial economic and social consequences, from health costs to reduced agricultural output, impaired ecosystem functions and a generally lower quality of life. Environmental conditions affect the quality of life of people in various ways. They affect human health through air and water pollution, exposure to hazardous substances and noise, as well as through indirect effects from climate change, transformations in the water cycles, biodiversity loss and natural disasters that affect the health of ecosystems and damage the property and life of people. People also benefit from environmental services, such as access to clean water and nature, and their choices are influenced by environmental amenities. The main aspects of importance to green growth include: .. Human exposure to environmental pollution and environmental risks, the associated effects on human health and on quality of life, and the related health costs and impacts on human capital. .. Public access to environmental services and amenities that characterises the level and type of access that different groups of people have to environmental services such as clean water, sanitation, green space, or public transport. These indicators can usefully be complemented by subjective measures of people’s perceptions about the quality of the environment they live in (forthcoming in OECD(2011), How’s Life?).