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: