Susan Sanderman of Denver just forwarded this fascinating World Clock that shows the current status of major global health, environmental and social statistics, updated in real time. You can see the rate of population growth, new cases of disease, injury, death, biodiversity loss, marriage and divorce…. It’s like a (rather depressing) impact dashboard for the Planet!

This kind of ‘impact context’ should be a touchstone for any impact analysis– if focused down to the region where a company or organization does its work, it makes a great starting point for what the “addressable market” is in terms of any of these social or environmental issues. Working to prevent biodiversity loss? Malaria? Drowning? Use your impact analysis to say not just, “We’re eradicating X instances of the bad thing,” but also, “Here’s how much our solution will slow it from the current rate of loss.” That makes it MUCH more meaningful.

World Clock’s makers compiled it from highly credible sources of statistical datasets, but they have not verified any of it and it may be spotty in parts, so it would be worth verifying if you use it.