Three Pillars: A Sustainable Development Systems Model

Policy Levers

Resource extraction rate 55%

Circular-economy recovery 20%

Social investment share 30%

Pillar Stocks

🌍 Environmental

70.0

🤝 Social equity

55.0

💰 Economic

45.0

📊 Ecological footprint

0.44

Genuine Progress (avg)

56.7

GDP-only vs GPI gap

-11.7

Simulated time

0.0 yr

How it works

Three coupled stocks — Environmental health E, Social equity S and Economic viability Ec, each on 0–100 — evolve as a logistic system with cross-pillar feedback, the "systems thinking" the article describes: a change in one pillar ripples into the other two.

footprint f = extraction·(1 − circularity)

dEc/dt =  k1·(Ec/100)(1 − Ec/100) − k2·(1 − E/100)(Ec/100)
dE/dt  =  k3·(1 − E/100) − k4·f·(Ec/100)
dS/dt  =  k5·invest·(Ec/100)(1 − S/100) − k6·(1 − E/100)(S/100)

GPI  = (E + S + Ec) / 3        (genuine progress, all three pillars)
Gap  = GPI − Ec                 (what a GDP-only view misses)

Extraction rate — the share of economic output drawn straight from natural capital (raises Ec, damages E).
Circular-economy recovery — reduce/reuse/recycle: the fraction of that extraction pressure returned to the environment instead of consumed.
Social investment — the share of economic surplus channelled into education, healthcare and equity (raises S).
Environmental damage also feeds back into Economic and Social stocks (resource scarcity, unrest) via the k2/k6 terms — an economy or society cannot outrun a collapsing environment indefinitely.
The GDP-only vs GPI gap readout is the simulation's version of the article's Genuine Progress Indicator: a policy that only tracks Ec can look successful while true, three-pillar progress quietly falls.

Environmental pillar Social pillar Economic pillar

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