Green Growth: A sustainable pathway for economic and environmental harmony

Abstract

Sustained growth is necessary to achieve the urgent development needs of the world’s poor and that there is substantial scope for growing cleaner without growing slower. Green growth is necessary, efficient, and affordable. It is the only way to reconcile the rapid growth required to bring developing countries to the level of prosperity to which they aspire with the needs of the more than 1 billion people still living in poverty and the imperative of a better managed environment. Indeed, green growth is a vital tool for achieving sustainable development. But sustainable development has three pillars: economic, environmental, and social sustainability. We cannot presume that green growth is inherently inclusive. Green growth policies must be carefully designed to maximize benefits for, and minimize costs to, the poor and most vulnerable, and policies and actions with irreversible negative impacts must be avoided. Green growth also requires improved indicators to monitor economic performance. National accounting indicators like GDP measure only short-term economic growth, whereas indicators like comprehensive wealth - including natural capital help us determine if growth is sustainable in the long run.