The phrase “Green Economy” was first mentioned in ‘Green Economy Blue Book’ by the British economist Pierre published in 1989. Green Economy promotes economic growth, instead of blocking it in the name of protecting the environment. It advocates changing extensive economic growth with the features of big investment, huge consumption, and serious pollution into intensive economic growth with the features of high efficiency, less resource-consuming, and less waste discharging and calls for harmony between economic and social growth and the proper load that nature can bear. As a new economic model aiming at harmonious development of economy and environment, Green Economy can fully satisfy the requirements of the scientific outlook on development of harmony and people first with energy saving and environmental protection as its goal.
This issue ADB's quarterly magazine explores the concept of green growth: the embracing of environmentally sound and sustainable policies with the need to maintain high economic growth. It features an exclusive interview with leading expert Ashok Khosla, who takes a hard look at the promises and failings of green growth. In other stories, the issue looks at pioneering efforts to deliver medicine through a soda company's distribution network. There is also an article on Cambodia's efforts to pursue green growth.
This guide aims to encourage early dialogue and diagnosis in and by developing countries on what a green economy would mean for their country. Green economy and green growth are hot topics. Definitions, evidence, debates and increasingly, policies, have tended to be dominated by powerful countries and international groups. Several intergovernmental organisations are making it a priority and are announcing policies and programmes; but they each have different approaches. This proliferating work on the international scene provides rich material which can be highly influential in developing countries. However, there are risks of considerable bias if the concepts are not first explored by stakeholders in-country. As the 2012 Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development concluded, green economies should take very different forms according to a country’s diverse capital endowments and needs. As such, green economic policy and investments need to be tailored at both national and local levels.
At a more fundamental level, healthy ecosystems represent the foundation of economic activity and a prerequisite for achieving a green economic transition. Given this, it is essential that the economic value of these services are recognized, demonstrated and captured in the accounts and decision-making of governments, the private sector and consumers
This paper on Green Innovation in Tourism Services seeks to analyse the role of green innovation in the transition of tourism enterprises (hotels, restaurants, travel agencies, tour operators) to a green economy; how green innovation in tourism is supported in OECD countries (e.g. specific structures, mechanisms and good practices); and what can be done to accelerate the diffusion of green innovation in the sector. The paper provides a range of potential areas of policy focus to improve diffusion, strengthen markets and change consumer attitudes to green innovation in the tourism sector.
The financing required for a green economy transition is substantial, but it can be mobilized by smart public policy and innovative financing mechanisms. Supportive public finance and policy, the growing green orientation of capital markets, and the evolution of emerging market instruments are opening up the space for large-scale financing that will bolster national initiatives to green economies. But these flows are still small compared to total volumes, and urgently need to be magnified for the transition to be successful in the near-term.
In the transition path towards the green economy, health is a powerful tool and a key precondition in harnessing sustainable economic development, as well as in eradicating poverty and in ensuring an economically equitable and socially inclusive society.
Greening the economy is essentially about improving human well-being, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. Thus, health is central to achieving sustainable development. Investments in greening key sectors of the economy, and adopting related policies and strategies, can lead to a healthier population. Moving away from the conventional “grow first, clean up later” path of development into a “green” path of development can result in a more healthy, socially inclusive, productive, equitable and more resilient society.
This paper proposes an analytical framework for assessing policies that will contribute to a better integration of environmental externalities in the pursuit of economic efficiency and growth objectives. The framework consists of two parts. The first part lays out principles and criteria for the identification and selection of policies that will benefit both income and the environment or that will boost income at the least cost in terms of the environment (and vice-versa). In general putting a price on a pollution source or on the over-exploitation of a scarce resource is found to be the most efficient single policy to address many environment externalities. However, given that environmental damage often result from several interacting market failures, an appropriate policy response will in many cases involve a mix of complementary instruments. The second part focuses more on issues of structural adjustment related to the transition towards a greener economy.
With fiscal policy generally constrained by the need to restore confidence in the sustainability of public debt and the effectiveness of monetary policy to stimulate growth is reaching its limits, the question arises: what can advanced economy policymakers do to restore economic growth and stimulate investment? A powerful instrument to restore growth is clear and credible policy to encourage investment in welfare-enhancing activities that need public support to be commercially viable. The low-carbon and wider ‘green’ sector is an exemplar for this.
Key findings are: