For many years, OECD has been a proponent for ‘green economy’ and has published reports on many green growth related topics. A month ago OECD hosted a high-level meeting about “Managing and measuring our increasingly scarce natural resources”.

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss how to best show the economic costs of not putting environmental policy in place, and the economic benefits of doing so and achieving environmental goals. The Swedish government has recently declared that they will publish a report on that theme. In addition to the representatives of all OECD-member nations, some UN agencies and a few NGOs have a place at the OECD-high-level-meetings. On the behalf of 180 million members around the world, the trade unionist at the negotiating table declared that:

•    The highest economic costs and benefits related to the environment will be found if one looks for the positive health effects on labor-productivity from policies improving the environment. As between 60-70 per cent of GDP, +/- 10 percentage points depending on the country and the year, consists of compensation for work, it is the possible impact of environmental degradation on labor force participation and labor productivity that will produce big numbers in the analysis.
•    Poor air quality, undrinkable water and contaminated food should be a major priority, as this negatively affects a worker’s ability to do productive work. Water availability and affordability of good-nutrition food on the other hand do wonders for human health and work productivity.
•    If, or then, essential natural resources, as food, water and energy, become more scarce they also become more expensive, which means that the poorest households will not have the purchasing power to eat properly and maintain their health, with detrimental effects not only for them but for the whole economy if work productivity is affected.
•    Trade unions always call for “green decent jobs, with good pay”. The reason is that it will become increasingly costly for the global economy if not (all) jobs turn ‘greener’ (thriftier, more efficient, cleaner and more renewably-based). Furthermore working conditions must be conducive to good health, and salaries high enough to allow people to sustain themselves, their families and secure all family members’ health and productivity. Trade unions start their reasoning concerning these green economy issues from their members’ horizon and bottom up. OECD argues from the GDP-level and top-down. But as we usually agree on the interdependencies of the environmental, social and economic sustainability dimensions we meet in the middle, as one should in most negotiations.

These issues, and other green-growth related topics, will also be discussed at OECD the upcoming week, when OECD organizes the Annual Conference of the Green Growth Knowledge Platform together with UNEP. The World Bank, which has recently published a study claiming that air and water pollution cost China more than half of its economic growth, and the largest loss is related to health effects, is also one of the organizers.

The 4th of April a conference was held in Stockholm focusing on how global health is related to environmental problems and climate change, and how costly it is to not to curb these environmentally induced health problems. Clearer examples of how the sustainability dimensions – the environmental one, the social one, and the economic one - are interconnected, and how beneficial it is to turn their present vicious circles into positive feed-back loops are hard to find.

Those who watched the action (live or virtually) in Rio de Janeiro last June, when the world came together for the big summit on sustainable development, will remember that the Green Economy went from being a big idea that would unite the world and "place sustainability at the heart of economic decision-making," to being viewed with suspicion as a "controversial concept" that split the world along rich-poor lines. 

The critical words were hard. Some (mostly those from the developed or wealthy countries) were calling the actions of government in Rio a "betrayal" of the dream a Green Economy because they did not explicitly tackle the issue of growth. Others (largely from developing countries) viewed the Green Economy as a kind of ruse, on the part of the rich nations, to limit the growth potential of developing countries.

The final Rio+20 outcome document is a study in diplomatic compromise:  the Green Economy is "considered," "acknowledged," and "viewed," but it is not formally endorsed or adopted by the member states of the United Nations as the guiding principle that many hoped it would be.

Does that mean the Green Economy is on the way out? Hardly. The concept is continuing to work its way into the heart of policy-making around the world, just as the concept’s designers hoped.

The Rio+20 meeting should be seen not as a death knell for the Green Economy, but as a rite of passage, a tough initiation ritual for this new idea as it entered the rough-and-tumble world of international negotiations.

And: it survived the beating. In fact, the Green Economy is even riding the wave of Rio+20 deeper into precisely those regions of the world that expressed the greatest misgivings.

Consider, for example, this recent news story from Africa, "Green Economy Takes Hold in African Countries". The African Union and UNEP have moved forward with the concept, under mantle of the firm decisions taken at Rio+20 to advance the Sustainable Consumption and Production agenda.

One of the main focus areas? Water.

"Demand-side management of energy use and of water use in Uganda and Zambia have been undertaken under the [African Ten-Year Framework of the Programme on Sustainable Consumption and Production.] ... Others include a water saving initiative of beverages industries in Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe ..."

In the direct aftermath of the Rio+20 summit, Green Economy champions were sober, but not dispirited. "Rio+20 has helped the concept of a green economy take its first tentative steps into the world," wrote Oliver Greenfield, convenor of the Green Economy coalition. "The sustainable development community now has a mandate, albeit weak, for many of the things we wanted."

Indeed a direct textual comparison of the Rio+20 document with similar declarations ten and twenty years ago reveals that Green Economy and other previously alternative ideas have emerged, rather suddenly, as mainstream practice - recognized by a consensus of the world’s governments. Here is my own analysis of the Green Economy elements that Rio+20 recognized as the "new normal," but which were previously nowhere in sight in these international processes.

First and most important, the world's governments agreed that we are in crisis. This may seem a rather obvious point, but it is actually a breakthrough. The word "crisis" has been studiously avoided in previous such global declarations. There were concerns and worries, but no crisis. Rio+20 changed that dramatically. Now, world leaders acknowledge (in paragraph 20) that we have "multiple financial, economic, food and energy crises, which have threatened the ability of all countries, in particular developing countries, to achieve sustainable development." (One might have hoped that they would add water to that list of crises; but water does get substantial "recognition", in UN speak, and is mentioned over 30 times.)

Second, the governments in Rio recognized "the need for broader measures of progress to complement GDP." This provides an enormous boost to the niche topic where I made my own start in sustainability consulting, namely, the development of sustainability indicators. This fall alone, I will attend two major congresses on the topic of creating better measures of national well-being than the GDP, one sponsored by the Austrian government, the other a global forum in India, organized by the OECD.

Third, the nations of the world declared in Rio that they "support national regulatory and policy frameworks that enable business and industry to advance sustainable development initiatives taking into account the importance of corporate social responsibility." To rephrase, they want more CSR, and more companies embracing Green Economy practices ... and they want more policies to push companies in that direction as well.

Fourth, fifth, and sixth, the world's governments endorsed (the formal word is "encouraged") a life-cycle approach, sustainable design, and extended producer responsibility for the products they make. These concepts are cornerstones of the Green Economy. They are also essential practices for assessing, avoiding, and reducing negative impacts on the world’s water resources.

The positive post-Rio news does not end there. Those who attended Rio (I did not) generally report that while the UN negotiations were dispiriting, the buzz of energy and innovation that characterized the rest of that once-a-decade global happening was exciting and inspiring. Business, education, civil society, local governments and many other sectors are not waiting around for the world’s leaders to tell them how to save the planet; they are busy working doing just that, and they are leading the way.

So, where is the Green Economy?  Look around, you’ll find it popping up through the pavement, all around the world. 

Alan AtKisson is president of the AtKisson Group and co-president of the International Network of Resource Information Centers, aka the "Balaton Group". He has been writing and consulting on sustainable development since 1988. See www.AtKisson.com for more info.

At a breakfast meeting last Tuesday Mr. Achim Steiner, executive director of UNEP, shared his thoughts on the role of water in the green economy with the Swedish Water House network.

The concept of "green economy" is not always clear to everyone. Mr. Steiner however urged us not to get stuck on a definition, but underlined that the green economy is more a set of principles for how economies should develop in order to sustain a sustainable development. This can be done through many different avenues, fiscal and policy reform to stimulate renewable energy are just a few, as is payment for ecosystem services. It entails a range of delicate challenges, such as how to achieve a policy change in parliaments, or achieving economic development in countries where people don’t even have basics rights in place. The idea that a country must develop first and only then worry about the environment is a fallacy. Mr. Steiner emphasized the importance of moving beyond the North and South opposition, and bringing the green economy discussion to the core of sustainable development.
 
Achim Steiner, executive director of UNEP. Photo: Ann-Mari Karlsson

Water has many roles in the economy. The way that natural resources are used always affects people very differently and so equity issues are central to water management. At the Rio+20 conference in June, Mr. Steiner hopes that sectors will stop looking at how to capture and manage "their" particular resource against the interests of others, and instead start linking different users of water and to look at the entire hydrological flow to discuss how these flows should be managed.

Policymakers now need ripe advice on how to move forward with economies in light of the environmental state of the world. Mr. Steiner pointed out that it is difficult for decision makers to navigate in the cacophony of voices on biodiversity issues today. Rio will, among other things, discuss the Millennium Development Goals and whether they should be followed up with a set of Sustainable Development Goals to be reinstated for every country. But how to formulate these goals, should we define each domain according to water, forests, mountains, e.t.c or should we take a systemic approach based on the interconnected nature of these domains? While Mr. Steiner warned against too much fragmentation, parts of the audience pointed out that water as a prerequisite for the functioning of all other domains should have its own role in the sustainability goals.

by Ann-Mari Karlsson, Swedish Water House