Shaping the Green Growth Economy

This publication, by Green Growth Leaders, commences by saying thatthe concept of green growth has enormous potential in changing the mindsets of governments and businesses around the world from fearing that acting on climate change would bring about rising costs and reducing growth to realising that green growth can create foundations for economic prosperity. The authors reason that this is why green growth has become especially attractive to policy makers in the wake of
the financial crisis.

The report asserts that sustained green growth will require both a fundamental change in the energy system itself, and a policy framework that allows the private sector to discover and capture the gains that transformation can provide to the entire economy. The transformation is likened to the systemic transformations of the past including the rail transport and information technology revolutions that both fundamentally altered the way things are produced, distributed and consumed, and generated substantial economic growth (by creating a platform for new innovations, business models and value creation) in the process.

The authors define what they understand by green growth as ‘job creation or GDP growth compatible with or driven by actions to reduce greenhouse gases.’