Briefing Paper

From Sustainable Development to the Green Transformation -

A Rough Guide

Hubert Schmitz and Bastian Becker

8 March 2013

There is increasing realisationin government, civil society and business circles that the global economic systemis out of balance with the earth’s carrying capacity. Continuing on the same path is not sustainable. The most widely discussed problem is climate change, but there are other problems such as resource depletion, chemical pollution and biodiversity loss. Many concepts have been put forward to indicate what is to be achieved and how to move forward. This Briefing Paper provides a rough guide through the green conceptual landscape.

The need for alternatives to current economic developmenthas been captured in a number of concepts such as ‘sustainable development’, the ‘green economy’, ‘green growth’, ‘low carbon development’, ‘decarbonisation’ andthe ‘great transformation’.The purpose of this note is togive readers a quick guide to what these concepts mean. They are not just competing brands in an increasingly crowded market of green ideas. They entail subtle but important differences with regard to whether growth is essential for greening, whether social dimensions are included or how deep the change needs to be in order to achieve sustainability. This note brings out where they overlap and where they differ and then suggests a way of grouping drivers and pathways using multiple criteria.

While conceptual clarity is needed, more attention needs to be given to the drivers of change. Progress is slow because the debate pitches public against private (or civic) sectors, developed against developing countries, or rising powers against old powers. Actors supporting (and opposing) the green transformation can be found in each of these categories. The analytical and practical challenge lies in identifying and forging alliances across these divides. Such focus on alliances offers the best hope to accelerate the green transformation. The categories we use and the way we frame the political discussion is essential for making more substantial progress with the green transformation.

Sustainable development

‘Sustainable development’ is the oldest concept, coined in the 1980s and continuing to command wide support.It sought to express that ‘development’ – understood as improved life chances for increasing shares of the population – was not sufficient; it suggested that taking care of the environment is essential for improving life chances, especially for poor people.

The most popular definition of sustainable development stems from the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED 1987), commonly known as the Brundtland Commission, and has amongst others been adopted by the UNDP (2011). Accordingly, ‘sustainable development’ means:

development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
(WCED 1987: 57-9)

This old definition goes straight to the heart of the current dilemma, namely that the economic and social cost of harming the environment might be greater for future generations than it is for the current generation.

The green economy

More recent concepts express similar concerns but between them they differ in the relative importance given to economic, social and environmental concerns and the attention given to present versus future.

The concept of the ‘green economy’ has gainedleverage over the last twoyears. It was afocal theme at the 2012Rio+20 conference on sustainable development (United Nations 2012), the follow-up of the first Rio conference in 1992, which laid the groundwork for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). UNEP, a major promoter of the ‘green economy’, defines it as:

one that results in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. In its simplest expression, a green economy can be thought of as one which is low carbon, resource efficient and socially inclusive.
(UNEP2010: 29)

UNEP launched this concept in order to refute two myths: that economic development and ecological sustainability are incompatible and that only countries already rich can afford the luxury of an ecologically sustainable economy.UNEP calculated that higher global growth can be achieved with a green investment strategy than with a business-as-usual approach.

Why then is the green economy hotly contested?Imme Scholz (2012) gives the reasons: (1) in the short term there are mainly costs while the benefits of the investments will only be reaped in 10 years or later; (2) sharing the costs and gains is a big challenge within and between countries; (3) the required innovation capabilities are mainly concentrated in the rich countries; (4) the ecological cost of existing consumption patterns is underplayed.

Green growth?

Such criticism of the green economy concept can draw on earlier work which questions whether economic growth and sustainability are compatible.In his work on steady-state economics, Herman Daly (2008) questions the meaningfulness of growth when the global economy exceeds the earth’s carrying capacity. In a report by the Sustainable Development Commission (UK), Tim Jackson (2009) argues that growth is indeed the root cause for the non-sustainability of our economic system, stressing that its reliance on material consumption is fatal.He concludes that decoupling growth from environmental pressures might be an attractive but not sufficient answer; bolder steps that limit material economic activity are required to shift to a sustainable system.

Recent work on ‘green growth’, promoted by the OECD and The World Bank, has shrugged off such fundamental questioning.The promoters put the emphasis on continued economic growth but give greater considerationto environmental trade-offs than done so far.

Green growth is about fostering economic growth and development while assuring that natural assets continue to provide the resources and environmental services on which our well-being relies. To do this it must catalyze investment and innovation which will underpin sustained growth and give rise to new economic opportunities.
(OECD2011: 17)

Green growth is about making growth processes resource-efficient, cleaner and more resilient without necessarily slowing them.
(World Bank 2011: 2)

The great transformation

The German Advisory Council on Global Change (WGBU) sidesteps this growth question by redefining the task in terms of ‘The Great Transformation’.So as to bring out the enormity of the current challenge the Council refers to two earlier epochal changes.

The WGBU considers only two great transformations, waves of change, or civilization phases in the history of humankind to be comparable to the Great Transformation faced now: the Neo-lithic revolution, i.e. the transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural society … and the Industrial Revolution …
(WGBU 2011: 81)

Shifting the discourse to ‘transformation’ seems an essential step to take; it draws attention to structural changes in a way that green growth or sustainable development do not.And drawing historical parallels can be a useful heuristic device but drawing lessons from history is hampered by a new reality:scientists tell us that the transformation required for sustainability needs to be achieved quickly.Continuing on the current path would mean reaching soon tipping points beyond which the earth system would suffer irreversible damage.

Such ideas on the depth and speed of the required transformation are increasingly influenced by the concept of ‘planetary boundaries’ (Rockström et al.2009). These boundaries define ‘a safe operating space for humanity’.A breach of these ‘planetary guard rails’ (WGBU 2011) would give rise either immediately or in future to intolerable consequences so significant that even major advances in other fields could not compensate for the damage.Rockströmet al. (2009) indentify nine planetary boundaries that human-induced developments threaten to break: climate change, ocean acidification, stratospheric ozone depletion, interference with the global phosphorus and nitrogen cycles, rate of biodiversity loss, global freshwater use, land-system change, aerosol landing, and chemical pollution.

Low carbon concepts

The boundary that has received most attention is climate change due to increasing carbon emissions.Climate scientists have produced a timetable for reducing these carbon emissions (IPCC 2007) and social scientists have suggested policies for achieving these targets (Stern 2006; WGBU 2011; Altenburg and Pegels 2012).The scientific and policy debate on mitigating climate change has exploded partly because there is a deadline for achieving the transition from a high to low carbon economy. In the course of this debate a number of new concepts have been coined.Here we set out briefly what the most popular amongst them mean.

  • Low carbon growth is achieved when economic growth is driven by industries with a lower carbon footprint and/or by the development of low carbon technologies.
  • Low carbon development is a concept situated at the interface of two debates: climate change mitigation and international development.It is thus concerned with promoting low carbon industries and technologies but complements it with the aims of reducing poverty and improving social justice (Urban and Nordensvard 2013).
  • Decarbonisation refers to reducing carbon emissions in the energy sector as well as in the whole economy, with pushing up energy efficiency frequently playing an important role.
  • Low carbon prosperity is a concept with an openly political message: adopting low carbon solutions, far from making us poorer, can make us better off.

A critical question in the low carbon debate is how progress is measured. Focusing on carbonproduction can give results very different from measuring carbon consumption. Take the British case: between 1990 and 2005 carbon production fell by 15 per cent and carbon consumption went up by over 19 per cent (Helm 2012: 69).The reason for the difference is that many carbon-intensive products were no longer made in-country but imported from China and other countries.

Commonalities and differences

While preferences for concepts and measurements differ, there is consensus that the market alone cannot be relied on to solve the problem.The need for state intervention is recognised by all promoters of green concepts.Where they differ is on the issue of whether economic growth is a pre-requisite or obstacle for green progress and how the social objective (poverty reduction or distribution) is dealt with.In ourview, both are important concerns but building them into the green concepts is of little help.These are empirical issues, best dealt with by asking questions such as: can the green economy be made pro-poor? How?Under what conditions?However, none of the concepts is inherently superior; their usefulness depends on the question for research and the purpose of the project.

Focusing on process

Some of the concepts were hard fought over, but most proponents would probably agree that arguing over the differences is less important than working on the process forward.In our view, ‘green transformation’ is a concept which helps to focus on this process. ‘Transformation’ signals structural change, ‘green’ gives the direction of travel and the two together invite questions about the driver of change.We suggest a parsimonious definition of the green transformation as the pro-active restructuring of the economy in a way that respects planetary boundaries.

Melissa Leach et al. (2010) stress that there is a diversity of‘pathways to sustainability’.[1]For a first cut we suggest distinguishing between the green transformation from below and above.But we can go further and unpack the process using the categories in Table 1.

Over the last decade, most attention has been given to the left side of the table.The ambition was to bring economic development within the planetary boundaries by pursuing an approach which was topdown, had a global scale, was (supposed to be) led by the North, and driven forward by publicactors that recognised the need to mitigate climate change.This global governance approach has failed as shown by successive climate conferences (COPs) and the sustainability conferences in Rio de Janeiro.In the meantime however, progress was made on the right side of the table: using bottom up approaches and relying on local initiatives in which civic actors play a major role.Similarly, at the national level, substantial progress was made in some countries, with governments implementing green industrial policies and the private sector making big investments in renewable energy and other low carbon technologies.Such progress made at the national level risks however running out of steam in the countries expected to lead the green transformation: most of Western Europe and North America is politically paralysed and financially bankrupt.The rising powers (China, India and Brazil) have become the default movers and shakers in the green transformation – in both the negative and positive sense.While responsible for the continuing growth of carbon emissions they are also the biggest investors in mitigation.Seen globally, China is No. I investor in renewable energy and India has recorded the highest growth rate in 2011 (BNEF 2012).

Table 1 Accelerating the green transformation
Approach / Top Down / Bottom Up
Level / Global / National / Local
Location / North / Rising Powers / South
Actor / Public / Private / Civic
Motive / Climate Change / Energy Security / Competitiveness / Green Jobs

A vertical reading of Table 1 thus helps to categorise existing approaches.On their own none of them will achieve the green transformation.Most observers would agree that the bottom up and top down approaches need to be combined and that multi-level governance is needed.But which force can bring this about?Recall that this is the first transformation in history that has to be achieved purposefully and against a deadline. In other words, the task of accelerating the process takes centre stage.Where can this acceleration come from?Here we turn again to Table 1, in particular the last two lines which focus on the range of relevant actors and the motives of these actors.Analysis of these actors and motives then needs to take four critical steps: first, recognise that no single actor has the resources to bring about the green transformation; second, recognise that within government, civil society and business there are actors seeking to block or slow down the green transformation.Third, attention needs to focus on supportive alliances across these categories.Fourth, including actors with different motives helps to understand and accelerate the green transformation.The transformative alliance becomes the central concept.

The transformative alliance

Bringing about the green transformation requires resources of different types: expertise, money, organisational capacity, and legitimacy (one could add leadership).These resources tend to be distributed over a range of public, private and civic actors.It is therefore useful to concentrate on alliances between actors in government and business and civil society.Who then can be considered a member of such alliances? Is the deciding criterion motivation or action?While it is tempting to let motivation count and opt for an alliance of the like-minded, this is a limiting step to take.There is a range of actors that can support the green transformation through their action (such as investing, providing expertise, lobbying) but their motives for doing so can differ greatly.Take the case of renewable energy promotion in India and China.While some supporters are motivated by concern with reducing carbon emissions, the most powerful support comes from actors concerned with securing energy for the nation, building competitiveness in new green industries, or generating employment and thus reducing poverty in particular parts of the country.The bottom line of Table 1 reflects this, indicating a potential for alliances that include actors whose priority concern is not ecological sustainability.This is a potential‘game changer’ in the dynamics of the transformation, supported by historical research which shows actor groups with differing intentions advancing the change into a specific direction (WGBU 2011:85 drawing on research by Osterhammel).

Putting such alliances centre stage is not sufficient.We need to be able to distinguish between alliances of different types.At one end there is the strategic alliance based on joint action.At the other end there is the mere alignment of interestwithout co-ordination between the parties.Both can be transitional (short term) or enduring (long term).All types can be instrumental in overcoming the collective action problem.

Advancing collective action for the green transformation has been difficult at all levels: global, national and local.Progress is held back partly because the units of analysis are mis-specified. The debate continues to pitch public against private (or civic) sectors, developed against developing countries, or rising powers against old powers.Actors supporting (and opposing) the green transformation can be found in each of these categories.The analytical and practical challenge lies in identifying and forging alliances across these divides.Such focus on alliances offers the best hope to accelerate the green transformation. The categories we use and the way we frame the political discussion is essential for making more substantial progress with the green transformation.

References

Altenburg, T. and Pegels, A. (2012‘Sustainability-Oriented Innovation Systems – Managing the Green Transformation’,Innovation and Development 2.1: 67-85

BNEF (2012)Global Trends in New Energy Investment 2012, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management

Daly, H. (2008) A Steady-State Economy. Sustainable Development Commission, UK. Retrieved from

Helm, D. (2012)The Carbon Crunch, New Haven and London: Yale University Press

IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007)IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007, IPCC: Geneva