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.

Skeptical, critical, or despairing observers of the recent Rio+20 mega-sustainability-marathon are overlooking some surprisingly good news. No, Rio did not deliver a fantastic new international agreement to transform global civilization. What it *did* produce was a solid, global-scale reflection of the current state of the global sustainability movement - and the conclusion is, global transformation is already well under way.

This positive interpretation is a far cry from what one hears coming from most activist voices. But I am prepared to defend this claim on the merits of the much-criticized "outcome document" alone, though I also have powerful anecdotal evidence from friends who went to Rio. (I did not; it collided with Swedish midsummer.)

Activist voices were highly critical of Rio+20. Greenpeace leaders spoke of "war," documents were symbolically burned, etc. But as Denmark's charismatic Environment Minister Ida Auken put it recently, "NGOs need to get out of the disappointment business." (She said that during a planned interruption of my recent keynote speech to European policy makers on sustainable development, a group that really needed a lift post-Rio. For more on that speech and conference, see www.sd-network.eu)

Let's just look at the Green Economy. Mostly, one hears that the world's nations could not agree on what a Green Economy was -- some want more "Green," some want more "Economy" -- and that they battered their way to a watered-down text about it.

In my view, the text on Green Economy in the Rio+20 outcome text, called "The Future We Want" ("TFWW"), is an example of successful global negotiation. Green Economy retained a prominent role in TFWW. And better yet, it is clearly (though still only partially) defined by the global community for the first time. TFWW includes a statement of fifteen very specific principles intended to guide Green Economy policy making. If you look at previous international documentation around Green Economy -- running to hundreds of pages of contradictions and contestations by dozens of actors -- this specificity in TFWW represents an amazing breakthrough in international diplomacy.

Of course, I personally wish those principles included reference to the biophysical limits of Planet Earth, such as the use of fresh water, addressing climate change, or the preservation of biodiversity. They don't. But they do include (Paragraph 58, principle "o") the idea that Green Economy -- while also meeting legal, social, and poverty-reduction critieria -- should "promote sustainable consumption and production patterns." As long as you actually know that the word "sustainable" must include these things, you'll know what to do to create a real Green Economy.

Other positive elements of Rio+20's TFWW outcome include the first-ever global public endorsement, by the national governments of planet Earth, of concepts like Life-Cycle Assessment, Sustainable Design, corporate social responsibility and sustainability reporting, and the adoption of a new plan for promoting sustainable consumption and production over the next ten years. That's an amazing list ... and it's a partial one.

Just compare that specificity to the abstractions of Rio+0 in 1992, or Jo-berg in 2002, and what you'll see is global recognition that we are in the midst of a global transformation. Sustainable development has finally become the new normal.

(Yes, I know, "water" does not show up until paragraph 109, and soft calls for "significantly improv[ing] the implementation of integrated water resources management" do not excite deep feeling. But water's all over the place in TFWW, both directly, and indirectly:  there can be no Green Economy without sustainable management of water resources, for example.)

So, watchers of Rio, don't despair. I was delighted to see some of my more optimistic NGO, research, business, and consultancy friends -- I am not alone in this -- come back from Rio on a high (certainly compared to my government friends). Sure, the mood near the UN process was sour, they say. But elsewhere, they saw evidence of dynamic engagement, people taking initiative and embracing responsibility, a great outpouring of innovation. "I really feel that a global transformation is under way," said a German friend who heads a major center on these issues.

If I stop listening to the disappointment brokers, and just read the actual Rio+20 text with an historic, 20-year perspective, and think about how far we've come, and listen to the reports from my friends who talked with so many other friends about all the wonderful things that are actually happening in this world ... then I feel it, too.

-- Alan AtKisson is a consultant and writer working in sustainability since 1988. He is CEO of AtKisson Inc., president of the ISIS Academy, and co-president of the Balaton Group. He lives in Stockholm.
 

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