The world’s audacious bid to improve human wellbeing yet conserve resources has not been lacking in attention. Summarised as Green Economy, talks of its enormous possibilities as well as the flip sides have heightened since the Rio+20 Conference, where the goal of a green economy was formally announced. The foremost targets are to improve wellbeing and social equity while trimming environmental and ecological risks. So, is Green Economy the latest economic miracle? A workshop at the 2013 Global Media Forum attempted to answer the question.
Wrong nomenclature
“There ought to be talks of Sustainable Economy rather than Green Economy, because there have to be fair conditions globally concerning access to resources and access to energy,” said Deputy Director General of Directorate Sustainability, Climate, Energy, Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Bonn, Wilfried Kraus.
The sustainability component of Green Economy
While Kraus would rather have Sustainable Economy than Green Economy, Head of Corporate Responsibility at REWE Group, Dr. Daniela Buchel believes it is just enough that the former is a component of the latter.
“Sustainability must be a significant criterion in growth,” Buchel said, before going on to offer perspectives on how to drive the green-economy plan.
“It is important to have sector-wide initiatives,” she added. “We have to think about how we can award and reward our suppliers for positive change towards green economy. We have to have a sort of competition in the home market on these things.”
Can it Work? And how?
Speakers at the conference believe so. They offered critical recommendations.
“We have to reduce COs emission into the atmosphere and we have to reduce energy consumption by 50 per cent,” Kraus said.
“We have to really focus on the future of our lifestyle,” stated Rudi Kurz, a professor of economics at Pforzheim University, Germany. “We have to know the future of our actions and their consequences.”
For Andreas Loschel, professor of economics at University of Heidelberg, support of the people is crucial. “The policies are necessary,” he admitted. “But it is important to bring a lot of people behind the regulations.”
The ideal type of growth
“Growth is important but you have to consider what growth you want to achieve,” Buchel reinforced. “Is it growth in terms of quantity or growth in terms of quality?”
It’s the latter. “It has to be a growth in terms of quality and not quantity,” she said. “That is what we want!”
By ‘Fisayo Soyombo, Nigeria
Photo by Suy Heimkhemra, Thailand
