Green growth makes economic as well as environmental sense. In natural resource sectors alone, commercial opportunities related to investments in environmental sustainability could run into trillions of dollars by 2050.
“This report shows that green and growth can go together,” said the OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría. “With the right policies in place, we can create jobs, increase prosperity, preserve our environment and improve the quality of life. All at the same time.”
Two broad sets of policies are essential elements in any green growth strategy: the first set mutually reinforces economic growth and the conservation of natural capital, including core fiscal and regulatory settings and innovation policies. The second includes policies that provide incentives to use natural resources efficiently and make pollution more expensive.
Replacing natural capital with physical capital is expensive and the infrastructure needed to clean polluted water can be costly, but the cost of inaction can be higher still. Greening growth now, the report argues, is necessary to prevent further erosion of natural capital, including increased scarcity of water and other resources, more pollution, climate change, and biodiversity loss, all of which can undermine future growth.
The OECD Ministerial Council had commissioned the elaboration of the new strategy two years ago. Now a comprehensive set of documents has been published:
- the official summary, a summary for decision-makers published on the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD and the document Tools for Delivering on Green Growth are generally available;
- the reports "Towards Green Growth" and "Towards Green Growth – Monitoring Progress: OECD Indicators" are available for subscribers to the OECDiLibrary. Prints can be ordered via the OECDBookshop.
The OECD will continue to support national and global efforts to promote green growth in the run-up to the Rio+20 Conference. Going forward, OECD will integrate green growth into national reviews and in its work on indicators, toolkits, sectoral studies and development co-operation.
Future OECD work on green growth will be based on a deepened collaboration with other international organisations, including UN agencies, the World Bank and the Global Green Growth Institute GGGI. The Institute that was set up on initiative of Korea aims to enter into international partnerships to implement national and local strategies and policies for pursuing green growth.
