Produced by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), in collaboration with Tongji University, this Chinese-language textbook aims to inform China’s economic structural transformation and its move towards ecological civilization. It involved 21 authors from 10 national and international institutions, covering the theoretical, sectoral and policy dimensions of green economy with a specific focus on key issues of relevance to China. This book is supported by illustrative examples tailored to a Chinese audience and provides a systematic understanding of the inclusive green economy concept and its linkage to the Chinese concept of Ecological Civilization.
The World Survey on the Role of Women in Development is a UN Secretary-General report mandated by the Second Committee of the General Assembly and comes out every five years. The 2014 report focuses on gender equality and sustainable development, with chapters on the green economy and care work, food security, population dynamics, and investments for gender-responsive sustainable development. The report comes at a crucial moment, as the global community grapples with the definition of the Sustainable Development Goals and the emergence of the post-2015 framework. This report also offers a comprehensive set of recommendations for gender-responsive policy actions and investments towards sustainable development overall, as well as for the selected areas which the World Survey emphasizes.
China’s drive to develop a low-carbon, resource-efficient economy is a top priority of the government, placing pressure on the industrial development zones (IDZs) to respond to a growing and diverse set of policy levers. The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), with the support of the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), is working with Chinese industrial and economics zones to identify key policy trends that will affect competitiveness and to provide insight to help better manage the transition to a low-carbon, resource-efficient economy. This synthesis report provides an overview of the two phases of the project, which a specific focus on the low-carbon drivers of IDZs, an overview of the research results, policy trends and drivers of low-carbon development in IDZs and Priority areas for action.
In this perspective, the project “Enhancing South-South Cooperation – Building the Capacity of Developing Countries to Promote Green Economies” provides a forum to share the South’s various experiences and national-level initiatives for transitioning to resource efficient, low carbon and socially inclusive economies. The project also addresses the use of indicators for green economy policymaking, implementation and evaluation. Through this knowledge exchange platform, it aims to raise awareness of different concepts and, at the same time, inspire and support the participant countries of the ASEAN region in pursuing their pathways to sustainable development.
This paper is primarily a critical analysis of the social sustainability assumptions of green growth. It examines the extent to which the overall approach and assumptions inherent in the green growth model allow it to adequately address key social sustainability underpinnings of sustainable development e.g. multi-dimensional poverty, inequality and social justice. In so doing, the potential for green growth to deliver in important ways for poor and marginalized individuals is also considered. The false dichotomy that may unintentionally be created between economic efficiency and social equity considerations is investigated in further depth. Employing a social justice lens informed by the existing socio-environmental and socio-ecological literature, explicit and inexplicit synergies, trade-offs and conflicts are explored. A largely theoretical review, it will also be complemented by analysis of one of the more well-known sustainable development public policy responses to-date: biofuels. Advancing a more multidimensional theoretical approach to the longstanding problem of sustainable development i.e.