Green Growth

What is it?

Green Growth is “a path of economic growth that is environmentally sustainable,” decoupled from resource use and damage to the environment.

Back in April, we attempted to unpack ‘Degrowth’: an alternative economic approach to dealing with the climate crisis. Currently resurfacing and gaining in popularity, degrowth prioritises social and ecological health over profits and excessive consumption.

On the other side of the debate, green growthers believe economic growth is not just compatible with our ecology, it’s actually necessary to support environmental wellbeing and address global issues like mass poverty.

So what?

Here’s why you need to know about green growth.

1. It underpins sustainability-minded economic policy, from the macro (the G7 has made a commitment to “turbocharge global green growth”) to the micro (the Scottish government recently decided to launch a green growth accelerator).
2. It raises important challenges to degrowth. For example, rationing during the Cold War and WW2 did not drive an ecological revolution, and the biodiversity of low-consumption Haiti is clearly poorer than the high-consumption Dominican Republic.
3. The debate redefines economic growth and the metrics for measuring it. More progressive proponents are pushing for a humanistic idea of wealth and prosperity, questioning how well our current metrics and systems reflect those values.

Unlocking Innovation: Investment in ideas is vital

Green growthers believe:

• Investing in science, creativity and innovation drives economic growth, enabling us to separate it from resource use and carbon emissions, finding solutions in bold new ideas and emerging technology. See Bill Gates’ ‘How to Avoid a Climate Disaster’
• The efficiencies of innovation show that “more prosperity does not require more materials”. Although ideas are created and shared by digital networks accounting for 8% of global electricity generation, the benefit outweighs the cost
• Degrowth inhibits (or worse, squashes) the growth we need to resolve poverty and the innovation we need to drive resource efficiency.

Kate Raworth, the “renegade economist” whose Doughnut Economics theory we discussed in ‘Degrowth’, stresses that innovation should foster a new relationship between our ‘commons’ (shareable resources of society and nature) and the ‘market’ (capitalist business and enterprise). This relationship should be circular, creating modular solutions that are “click-open”, not “glued-shut”, (Fairphones over iPhones).

So what?

If green growth champions a philosophy of innovation above all, how can the third sector make sure it’s working in a mindset of innovation and bold new ideas?

How can charities approach innovation while keeping the focus on empowering people and communities? How can you make sure you’re creating services and products that everyone can instinctively understand, operate and manage independently?

Rethinking Growth: ripping up the rule book

Along the lines of Mark Carney’s recent thinking, Dimitri Zenghelis welcomes redefining growth and using new metrics to measure economic welfare. The Wealth Economy Report uses an alternative framework for measuring wealth, and a broader definition of prosperity encompassing infrastructure, intellectual property, natural resources, physical and mental health, and social capital.

Beth Stratford is one of the thinkers determined to find the concerns that unite, rather than divide, degrowthers and green growthers. One area of agreement is the need to reduce our dependence on growth as we know it. There’s a strong argument that the fear of economic contraction (shrinking or stagnating GDP) inhibits the way we address all kinds of challenges, not just environmental ones.

So what?

Given the current rethinking of the way we define wealth and prosperity, how can the third sector help shape the development of a more holistic idea of growth and success?

In ‘Degrowth’, we talked about using a model of sufficiency rather than efficiency. There’s an opportunity here for charities to challenge the dogma of relentless year-on-year growth, to identify how it inhibits fundraising efforts, and to envision a new way forward.

Marrying Growth and Planet

In ‘Redefining Ownership’, we covered the pioneering work of Single.Earth in rewarding landowners for protecting the natural world. The recent success of the save the mangrove schemes on the Lamu archipelago in Kenya is another example of the merits of the green growth philosophy. Young women are trained in preserving an essential ecosystem in return for business loans. Their work protects a part of the world that is both environmentally important and economically fruitful, and drives economic growth in the community.

J.M. Ledgard, novelist and technologist, recently wrote an article in WIRED arguing the mind-bendingly out-there but intelligent case for an interspecies currency. Ledgard envisions a rich potential to deliver both environmental salvation and economic growth. Given that the poorest people tend to live next to the richest biodiversity, yet have almost no economic incentive to protect it, could this present a compelling opportunity for progress?

So what?

Embracing a green growth approach, how could you work to identify new areas where investment creates immediate reciprocal returns?

In our 5G report, we explore how charities might benefit from mobilising a new volunteer workforce in a ‘jobless’ future. For many people, that future is already happening. How can the right investment drive exponential returns?