State of the World 2012 - Green Economics · nJune2012,RiodeJaneirowillhostthe United Nations Conference on Sustain - able Development, more commonly referredtoasRio2012orRio+20.Themeet-ing

MOVI NG TOWAR DSUSTAI NAB LEPROSPE R ITY

TH E WOR LDWATCH I N STITUTE

State of the World 2012

n June 2012, Rio de Janeiro will host theUnited Nations Conference on Sustain-able Development, more commonly

referred to as Rio 2012 or Rio+20. The meet-ing marks the twentieth anniversary of theU.N. Conference on Environment and Devel-opment in 1992, also held in Rio. That land-mark gathering adopted the FrameworkConvention on Climate Change and openedthe Convention on Biological Diversity forsignature. The conference was itself a mile-stone in the evolution of international envi-ronmental diplomacy, taking place two decadesafter the 1972 Stockholm Conference on theHuman Environment.

On one level Rio 2012 marks a continuityof efforts to rally governments and civil soci-ety around the ever more urgent goal of rec-onciling human development with the limits ofEarth’s ecosystems. In 1992, the end of thecold war and rising environmental awarenessseemed to open new horizons for global coop-eration. The years since then have in manyways been a sobering experience, with sus-tainability aspirations often running headlonginto discomforting political realities, ortho-dox economic thinking, and the staying powerof materials-intensive lifestyles.

C H A P T E R 1

Making the Green EconomyWork for Everybody

Michael Renner

I Among the obstacles to moving toward amore sustainable world order, writes Tom Biggof the International Institute for Environmentand Development (IIED), are “the interests ofpowerful constituencies that defend their turfand can manipulate the political system tostymie change; the hierarchy of policy andpolitics in almost every country which placesenvironmental issues towards the bottom andeconomic growth and military security at thetop; and the difficulty of achieving strongglobal regimes to effect change at a time whenmultilateralism is on the retreat.”1

Environmental governance has largely takena backseat to the pursuit of corporate-driveneconomic globalization—a process that hasbeen marked by deregulation and privatizationand thus a relative weakening of national polit-ical institutions. Comprehensive intergovern-mental agreement on strategies for sustainabilityremains elusive. Despite multiplying numbersof solemn declarations, plans, and goals, nonation is even close to evolving toward a sus-tainable economy. The growth model that hasemerged since the start of the Industrial Rev-olution, rooted in structures, behaviors, andactivities that are patently unsustainable, is stillseen as the ticket to ensuring the “good life”—

SUSTAINABLEPROSPERITY.ORG 3

Michael Renner is a senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute and co-director of State of theWorld 2012.

rapidly multiplying bottom-up protests nowknown as the “Occupy Movement.” BeforeOccupy Wall Street was born, the “Indigna-dos” (or Outraged) had camped out at thePuerta del Sol square in Madrid, and pro-testers took over public squares in Chile andIsrael. The new movement derives some inspi-ration from the Arab Spring in the MiddleEast, suggesting a commonality of concernsacross economic and political systems. Themovement spread like wildfire. By mid-Octo-ber 2011, Occupy protests had taken place inmore than 900 cities around the world; by lateDecember, there were activities in more than2,700 locations.4

These protests have largely focused on socialand economic concerns. But on the sidelinesof the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17)to the U.N. treaty on climate change that tookplace in Durban, South Africa, in December2011, protesters made a connection to thefundamental issues of environmental sustain-ability. Organizers of Occupy COP17 arguedthat “the very same people responsible for theglobal financial crisis are poised to seize con-trol of our atmosphere, land, forests, mountainsand waterways.” From Madrid to Manhattanto Durban, these actions are driven by deepfrustration with the failure of governmentsand international conferences to address thefundamental problems that threaten humanwell-being and survival.5

In the two decades since the 1992 EarthSummit, pressures on the planet’s naturalresources and ecological systems have increasedmarkedly as the material throughput of theeconomy keeps expanding. Not surprisingly,the bulk of human consumption is concen-trated in cities. Urban areas account for half ofthe world’s population but 75 percent of itsenergy consumption and carbon emissions.6

Ecological stress is evident in many ways—from species loss, water scarcity, carbonbuildup, and nitrogen displacement to coralreef die-offs, fisheries depletion, deforestation,

driven in no small measure by massive adver-tising. Western industrial countries hold fastto this model even in the face of rising consumerdebt, while people elsewhere aspire to it.2

The Rio 2012 conference presents a much-needed opportunity to take stock of progresstoward sustainability and development goals—and to create a new take on what prosperitymeans in the twenty-first century. Success willrequire not just official summitry but alsoimaginative initiatives to “lead from below”and qualitatively new relationships amonggovernments, civil society, corporations, andthe media.

A Complex Crisis

Humanity is confronting a severe and complexcrisis. Mounting ecosystem stress and resourcepressures are accompanied by growing socio-economic problems. The global economy isstruggling to get out of a severe recession thatwas triggered by the implosion of highly spec-ulative financial instruments but more broadlyis the result of bursting economic bubbles andunsustainable consumer credit. The economiccrisis is sharpening social inequities in the formof insecure employment and growing rich-poor gaps within and among countries.

All this has led to a growing crisis of legit-imacy of economic and political systems, asmassive bank bailouts stand in sharp contrastto austerity and curtailment of spending for thepublic benefit. The de facto appeasement of arun-amok financial system has blocked theemergence of a vision of how the real economycould be both rescued and made sustainable.Growing numbers of people sense that theirinterests are not represented in legislative andpolicymaking processes whose outcomes areincreasingly influenced by money. Over theyears, this has led to declining voter partici-pation in elections and to political apathy.3

On the other hand, and more recently, dis-enchantment with the status quo has spawned

Making the Green Economy Work for Everybody STATE OF THE WORLD 2012

4 WWW.WORLDWATCH.ORG

pings. But the remainder of humanity—includ-ing the “bottom of the pyramid,” the most des-titute—have little hope of ever achieving sucha life. The global economy is not designed fortheir benefit.9

Over the last decade, countries outside theOrganisation for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment (OECD) have increased theirshare of the world economy. From 40 percentof global gross domestic product (GDP) on apurchasing-power parity basis in 2000, theirshare has risen to 49 percent in 2010 andcould grow to 57 percent by 2030. And eco-nomic expansion in countries like China, India,and Brazil has improved the economic lot ofmany people. According to OECD statistics,the number of poor people worldwidedeclined by 120 million in the 1990s and bynearly 300 million in the first half of the2000s. And according to a World Bank analy-sis, the share of China’s population earning lessthan $1.25 a day (in 2005 prices) droppedfrom 84 percent in 1981 to 16 percent in2005. In Brazil the figures went from 17 per-cent in 1981 to 8 percent in 2005, and inIndia, from 60 to 42 percent.10

But it would be a mistake to regard thesteady expansion of the global consumption-intensive industrial economy as a surefire pathtoward overcoming poverty and social mar-ginalization. The OECD notes: “The contri-bution of growth to poverty reduction variestremendously from country to country, largelydue to distributional differences within them.In many cases, growth has been accompaniedby increased inequality.” From 1993 to 2005Brazil reduced poverty more than India did,even though its growth was much lower (1 per-cent versus 5 percent annually). This is becauseinequality has fallen in Brazil with the assistanceof welfare programs like Bolsa Familia, but ithas risen in China and India.11

Globalization has gone hand in hand withincreased volatility and turbulence—and withgreat vulnerability for those unable to com-

and wetlands losses. The planet’s capacity toabsorb waste and pollutants is increasinglytaxed. Some 52 percent of commercial fishstocks are fully exploited, about 20 percent areoverexploited, and 8 percent are depleted.Water is becoming scarce, and the supply isexpected to satisfy only 60 percent of worlddemand 20 years from now. Although agri-cultural yields have increased, this has hap-pened at the cost of declining soil quality, landdegradation, and deforestation.7

A 2009 study of “planetary boundaries”showed that nine critical environmental thresh-olds had been crossed or were on track to becrossed, threatening to destabilize ecologicalfunctions on which economies, societies, andindeed all life on Earth critically depend.Humanity has been acting as if fresh resourceswere always waiting to be discovered, as ifecological systems were irrelevant to humanexistence, as if an Earth 2.0 were waiting in thewings in case we finally succeed in trashing thisplanet. There are isolated examples in humanhistory of civilizations that outstripped theirresource base, crashed, and vanished. Butnever before has this happened on a planetaryscale; humanity is crossing into totallyuncharted territory.8

While the impacts will be felt everywhereand especially in the poorest quarters, it is theactions of a minority that have gotten us to theedge of the precipice. According to the WorldBank, people in the world’s middle and upperclasses more than doubled their levels of con-sumption between 1960 and 2004, comparedwith a 60 percent increase for those on thelower rungs of the income ladder. The globalconsumer class, about a billion people or so,mostly lives in western industrial countries,but the last two decades have witnessed theemergence of growing numbers of high con-sumers in countries like China, India, Brazil,South Africa, and Indonesia. Another 1–2 bil-lion people globally aspire to the consumer lifeand may be able to acquire some of its trap-

SUSTAINABLE PROSPERITY Making the Green Economy Work for Everybody


all employees as of 2008. In Japan, one thirdof the country’s labor force is part-time andcontract workers who lack job security. Morethan 10 million Japanese workers earn lessthan the official poverty line.14

There is a paradox. Wages are under pres-sure and employment is uncertain for many, yetconsumerism remains alive and well. Materials-intensive lifestyles are financed not just by tak-ing on additional jobs but also by going deeplyinto debt. The ILO explains that “in advancedeconomies, stagnant wages created fertileground for debt-led spending growth—whichis clearly unsustainable.” In the United Statesin particular, high consumption was enabled byleveraging exaggerated housing values duringthe years of the real estate bubble.15

Worldwide, an extremely unequal distrib-ution of wealth has emerged, with conse-quences for who has an effective voice inmatters of economics and politics—and thusin how countries address the fundamentalissues of sustainability and equity that confronthumanity. A 2008 study by the UN Univer-sity’s World Institute for Development Eco-nomics Research (UNU-WIDER) offers datafor the year 2000. (Data gaps and lags rendera more up-to-date reckoning difficult.) Therichest 1 percent of adults owned 40 percentof global assets. (See Figure 1–1.) For thetop 5 percent, the share rises to 71 percent,and the top 10 percent controlled 85 percentof global wealth. By contrast, the bottom halfof humanity together had barely even 1 per-cent of all wealth. The average member ofthe top 1 percent therefore was almost 2,000times richer than the average person from thepoorer half of humanity.16

It is unlikely that the last decade has broughta turn toward greater equality. Undoubtedlythe regional distribution of wealth has under-gone some shifts with the rise of countrieslike China, India, and Brazil. They now havea larger number of very wealthy individualsthan in years past, and there is a rising middle

pete. The economic crisis that broke into theopen in 2008 caused the ranks of the unem-ployed to swell from 177 million in 2007 toan estimated 205 million in 2010, with “lit-tle hope for this figure to revert to pre-crisislevels in the near term,” the InternationalLabour Organization (ILO) notes. Fears about“jobless growth” are borne out by an ILOanalysis noting that the recovery of globalGDP growth in 2010 was not paralleled by acomparable jobs recovery. And global emis-sions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burn-ing rose by half a billion tons in 2010—thelargest annual increase since the start of theIndustrial Revolution. It is difficult to avoidthe conclusion that the economy no longerworks for either people or the planet.12

Even among those with a job, at least 1.5billion persons worldwide—roughly half theworkforce—are in highly vulnerable employ-ment situations. The conditions they face—often referred to as “informality”—includeinadequate or highly variable earnings, low-productivity work, temporary or insecureemployment, and poor workplace conditions,especially in terms of occupational healthand safety. Informal-sector workers typicallyearn about half as much as people in the for-mal sector.13

Rising numbers of people in industrialeconomies face precarious employment con-ditions as well. In the United States, wagestagnation and growing income inequalityhave been prominent phenomena since thelate 1970s. Even though U.S. labor produc-tivity expanded 80 percent between 1979 and2009, average hourly compensation for work-ers rose just 8 percent, with most of the gainsrealized by the top earners. The number ofAmericans living below the official povertyline, about 46 million in 2010, is the highestin the 52 years since government statisticshave been published on this topic. In Ger-many, long a high-wage country, the low-wage sector grew to more than 20 percent of



class. But from a global perspective, thesedevelopments have not undone the observa-tions from 2000 because, as the UNU-WIDERstudy documents, domestic wealth inequalityis high in most countries.17

National data indeed suggest that inequal-ity has been on the rise in many countries inrecent years. In 2007, the richest 1 percentof Germans controlled 23 percent of thewealth in the country and the top 10 percenthad 61 percent (up from 44 percent in 1998).The bottom 70 percent had just 9 percent.And in India, the top 1 percent had 16 per-cent of wealth in 2006; the top 10 percenthad 53 percent. The bottom half of the pop-ulation in India shared just 8 percent of thenation’s wealth. In the United States, theshare of wealth held by the top 5 percentincreased from 59 percent in 1989 to 65percent in 2009. The bottom 40 percentsaw their net wealth fall from an already tiny0.2 percent to a negative 0.8 percent. Infact, in 2009 almost a quarter of U.S. house-holds had a zero or negative net worth, asconsumer and mortgage debts cancelled orsurpassed assets.18

Perc

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fAll

Ass

ets

Source: UNU-WIDER

Top 1%

Top 5%

Top 10%

Top 50%Bottom 50%

0

20

40

60

80

100

Figure 1–1. Ownership of Economic AssetsWorldwide, 2000

Green Growth and Degrowth

In times of economic crisis, environmentalneeds are quickly relegated to the status of aluxury. The conventional impulse is to “primethe pump” to get the economic engine mov-ing again by whatever means necessary. Yetthere is growing acceptance that the goals ofenvironment and development are not neces-sarily in conflict. They can—and they needto—be reconciled. When governments reactedto the outbreak of the global economic crisisin late 2008, they did devote small portions oftheir economic stimulus efforts to a variety of“green” programs. Worldwide, an estimated 15percent of stimulus funds went to supportrenewable energy and other low-carbon energytechnologies, energy efficiency in buildings,low-carbon vehicles, and water and waste man-agement efforts.19

In the face of crisis, new concepts such as aGlobal Green NewDeal were developed. In theUnited Kingdom, the New Economics Foun-dation published a pioneering report on thetopic, and the U.N. Environment Programme(UNEP) became a prominent advocate. UNEPalso commissioned landmark reports on greenjobs and the green economy.20

While the term “green economy” hasgained currency, its meaning is still up forinterpretation among governments, corpora-tions, and civil society groups. UNEP definesa green economy quite broadly as one thatresults in “improved human well-being andsocial equity, while significantly reducing envi-ronmental risks and ecological scarcities. Inits simplest expression, a green economy islow carbon, resource efficient, and sociallyinclusive.” UNEP argues that “the greening ofeconomies need not be a drag on growth. Onthe contrary, the greening of economies has thepotential to be a new engine of growth, a netgenerator of decent jobs, and a vital strategy toeliminate persistent poverty.”21

The extent to which a green economy and



Mark Halle of the International Institute forSustainable Development argues that a greeneconomy “is not merely a redecoration of thetraditional economy with green trimming, buta form of economic organization and priority-setting substantially different from the one thathas dominated economic thinking in the richercountries for the past several decades.”23

Because circumstances and needs vary sowidely, industrial, emerging, and developingcountries have different conceptions of whatexactly a green economy entails—and how toget there. In fact, some observers in emergingand developing economies worry that greeneconomy prescriptions could be used to justify

economic growth are compatible is open toquestion, however. Developing technologiesthat are more resource-efficient and low-carbonis undoubtedly important and can help addresssome of the environmental problems human-ity faces. But efficiency also makes consumptioncheaper and may simply stimulate greaterdemand—a consequence that economists callthe “rebound effect.” Making a difference inthe quest for sustainability will require anabsolute decoupling of economic performanceand materials use. (See Box 1–1.)22

The transition to a green economy is asmuch about social, political, and cultural changeas it is about developing new technologies.

Decoupling human well-being from resourceconsumption is at the heart of the greeneconomy. Typically, this is measured in termsof energy or materials use per dollar of grossdomestic product. From 1981 to 2010, globalenergy intensity decreased by about 20percent—or 0.8 percent each year. But thisdoes not necessarily mean that growth inphysical throughput and environmentalimpacts comes to an end. Indeed, during thesame period world primary energy consump-tion expanded by 82 percent, from 6.6 billiontons of oil equivalent to 12 billion tons.Thus even an impressive rate of relativedecoupling does not necessarily lead to anabsolute decoupling.This is also true for material throughputs.

So the absence of even relative decouplingin the extraction of key metals like iron ore,bauxite, copper, and nickel is striking. Theirconsumption is rising faster than world GDP.If one day absolute decoupling of GDP fromthroughput becomes a reality globally, it willreinforce the logic of limiting throughput,providing evidence that environmentallycostly resource use is no longer essential forgenerating wealth.

All this will need to change in the future.Fortunately there are signs that somecountries may have already started downthis decoupling path. Recent statistics showthat in at least the United Kingdom absolutedecoupling might have started a decade ago.In 2009, the country’s total material require-ment was 81 percent of its 2001 value.If the idea of a green economy is to be

taken seriously, the clear conclusion is thatthe world, starting with the most advancedcountries, must engage in a discussion abouta transition to “prosperity without growth.”Making this possible requires a change ineconomic and social structures so that aneconomy without growth does not equal anunstable economy. One source of instability isclear: the wealthiest 20 percent of the world’spopulation account for nearly 77 percent oftotal private consumption. Acceptance andimplementation of prosperity without growththerefore requires a radical change—animmediate struggle against international andsocietal inequalities.

—José Eli da VeigaUniversity of São PauloSource: See endnote 22.

Box 1–1. The Role of Decoupling in a Green Economy



A green economy needs to be an appealingprospect. The aspiration is for “sustainableprosperity” for all—the result of a process ofsustainable development that allows all humanbeings to live with their basic needs met, withtheir dignity acknowledged, and with abun-dant opportunity to pursue lives of satisfactionand happiness, all without risk of denyingothers in the present and the future the abil-ity to do the same.

The world’s consumer class needs to reduceits overconsumption—adjusting its focus fromthe accumulation of mostly short-lived, flimsyproducts that enter the waste stream at increas-ing speeds. Reducing its claim on resourceswould provide the ecological space needed toallow poor people to escape the deprivationsof underconsumption. And considering thatoverconsumption has led to an obesity epi-demic, social isolation, air pollution, traffic, andmany other social ills, reducing consumptioncould have significant positive impacts on thewell-being of the consumer class as well.Improving the lot of the world’s poor would

measures that block their developmental aspi-rations. A statement on behalf of the G77nations cautions that a green economy “shouldnot lead to conditionalities, parameters orstandards which might generate unjustified orunilateral restrictions in the areas of trade,financing [official development assistance] orother forms of international assistance, leadingto a ‘green protectionism.’”A key challenge atthe Rio 2012 conference is to address theseworries, detailing the ways in which people indifferent parts of the world can derive benefitfrom a greener economy and committing togreater fairness in the distribution of resourcesand wealth.24

Figure 1–2, which brings together humandevelopment and ecological footprint infor-mation, shows that most countries are oneither one or the other extreme of the spec-trum: high development achieved on an unsus-tainable basis or low footprint at the cost ofhuman deprivation. Only a smattering of coun-tries come close to the “sustainable develop-ment quadrant.”25

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.00

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Threshold for highhuman development

Global average availablebiocapacity per person, 1961*

Global average availablebiocapacity per person, 2006*

*Includes the needs of wild species

Human Development Index

SustainableDevelopment

Quadrant

Source: Global Footprint Network

Figure 1–2. Human Development Index and Ecological Footprint of Nations, 2006



vices provide about a quarter of the GDP in thepoorest countries. In India, the poorest tenthof the population derives 57 percent of itsGDP from ecosystem services through farm-ing, animal husbandry, forestry, and fisheries.A continuation of current economic practicesputs the natural assets on which the liveli-hoods, and lives, of hundreds of millions ofpoor people depend at increasing risk fromclimate change and other repercussions of eco-logical breakdown. More-sustainable and equi-table provision of housing, transportation,energy, and sanitation could bring major ben-efits with regard to poverty reduction andhealthier, safer lives.29

Establishing waste management and recy-cling operations that raise sanitary standards,for example, and providing clean drinkingwater and improved sanitation would sub-stantially improve health and the quality oflife, and it would generate much-neededemployment. Decentralized provision of cleanenergy, including mini-grids and off-grid appli-cations, can bring jobs and facilitate local busi-ness development.30

Growth of basic energy services, low-techtransportation networks, ecologically designedsanitation systems, and basic improved hous-ing offer a double benefit: not only improvingthe daily lives of billions of people but also sig-nificantly reducing their ecological impacts.And these changes do not have to come at theexpense of sufficient employment. To the con-trary, they can contribute to more satisfying,meaningful livelihoods.

Green Jobs

One problem with the current economy isthat it relies too much on limited and pollut-ing resources such as fossil fuels and too littleon an abundant resource—people. Whilegreater labor productivity has undoubtedlybeen an engine of progress over time, its sin-gle-minded pursuit is turning into a curse.

not have to come at the cost of a massiveincrease in carbon emissions. The 2011Human Development Report notes that pro-viding everyone with at least basic modernenergy services would increase emissions only0.8 percent by 2030.26

The notion of a steady-state economy wasexamined by economist Herman Daly as earlyas 1973. Since then, many other studies andproposals have looked at how human well-being and happiness can be achieved withoutever-increasing material throughput, be it inthe form of making products more durableand repairable or work-time reductions andbetter sharing of work in line with greater pro-ductivity. With the passage of time, steady-state alone may no longer suffice. Someanalysts argue that in order to live within thelimits of Earth’s capacity, the rich people ofthis planet need to undergo degrowth. (SeeChapter 2.)27

Although the industrial countries bear majorresponsibility, Saleemul Huq of IIED arguesthat emerging economies may ultimately holdthe key to a green economy. Undergoing mas-sive economic growth, the emerging coun-tries are starting to join the materialism of theold industrial countries. But they are not yetfully locked into a fossil-fuel-dependent econ-omy and can leapfrog to technologies, struc-tures, and lifestyles that are consistent with alow-materials “good life.” Huq cautions thatthey will only do so if this is seen as a positive,pro-development opportunity rather than aburden urged on them. The Center on Inter-national Cooperation at New York Universitypoints out that emerging economies are notonly “laboratories of the future” but also mod-els that poorer developing countries mightwant to emulate.28

Developing countries have a major stakein the move toward a green economy. Alreadythey confront the repercussions of the “browneconomy” in the form of climatic upheaval. Onaverage, natural resources and ecosystem ser-



energy poverty—suffering from inadequateaccess to energy in general and relying on tra-ditional, polluting biomass (firewood, char-coal, manure, and crop residues).31

A green and equitable energy transition willrequire richer individuals to both switch fromfossil fuels and reduce their energy demand viagreater efficiency and conservation efforts,whereas the poor will require more, andcleaner, energy. Both dimensions of this tran-sition offer employment opportunities. Onthe whole, the energy sector is a relativelysmall employer, notwithstanding its catalyticeffect on the entire economy. But renewablestend to be more jobs-intensive than the alreadyhighly automated, mature fossil fuel industry,and the pursuit of energy efficiency similarlyoffers greater job opportunities than increas-ing energy supply does.32

Renewable energy is expanding fast. Fromjust $7 billion in 1995, global investmentssurged to $243 billion in 2010, principally inwind energy ($96 billion) and solar power($89 billion). In terms of total renewablepower installed (excluding hydropower), theleaders are the United States, China, Ger-many, Spain, and India. (If hydropower isincluded, Canada and Brazil join the ranks.)Figure 1–3 provides details of installed capac-ity in wind power, solar photovoltaics (PV), andsolar heating, as well as biofuels production.33

In 2010, wind energy represented by far thelargest chunk of renewable power generatingcapacity in the world, followed by biomasspower and solar PV. The latter is picking upspeed, with global capacity growing at an aver-age annual rate of 49 percent between 2005and 2010, compared with 27 percent each forwind power and concentrating solar powerand 16 percent for solar hot water. Bioethanolproduction expanded 23 percent annually andbiodiesel, 38 percent.34

More than 100 countries are now devel-oping wind power capacities. The leading windturbine manufacturers are based in China,

From here on, progress requires a greaterfocus on energy, materials, and water produc-tivity instead. Employment at adequateincomes is key to making an economy work forpeople, and therefore the transition to a greeneconomy requires particular attention to good-quality jobs that contribute to preserving orrestoring environmental quality.

For now, green jobs are still primarilyfound in a relatively small number of coun-tries that lead in green R&D and investment,have adopted innovative pro-environmentalpublic policies, and are able to build on strongscientific and manufacturing bases as well ason educated and skilled workforces. Countrieslike Japan, Germany, China, or Brazil alreadyhave the bulk of employment in renewableenergy, energy and materials efficiency,and related fields. But growing numbers ofcountries are claiming a share of the greeneconomy. And employment in installing,operating, or maintaining equipment likesolar panels, wind turbines, insulation mate-rials, rail vehicles, or efficient industrial equip-ment will be more widely spread than jobs ingreen manufacturing.

A sustainable economy requires social sol-idarity and equity between and within coun-tries and cannot be built on “green for a few”policies—with benefits for only some countries,some companies, or some workers. Instead,there is a need for a “green for all” strategy,with new approaches in energy provision, trans-portation, housing, and waste managementthat combine technical and structural changewith social empowerment.

Energy. Energy use pervades virtually everyhuman activity on Earth, and the heavy relianceon fossil fuels is a major culprit behind urbanair pollution and climate change. In 2010, oil,gas, and coal accounted for 87 percent of com-mercial primary energy use. Renewables(including hydropower) contributed 8 per-cent, and nuclear energy, 5 percent. But manypeople in developing countries contend with



United States, Germany, and Japan are theglobal leaders in manufacturing solar PV pan-els. But even in countries with no domesticsolar manufacturing industry there are impor-tant job opportunities in sales, assembly andinstallations, and maintenance. Small solar PVsystems already provide power to a few millionhouseholds in developing countries, and solarcookers and solar portable lights offer a rangeof benefits. In Bangladesh, micro-creditschemes helped spread solar systems from320,000 homes in 2009 to 1.1 million byAugust 2011.36

Biofuels production is expanding, although

Denmark, Germany, the United States, Spain,and India. By capacity installed, the globalleaders are China, the United States, Ger-many, Spain, and India. As Spain’s Navarraregion has demonstrated, the development ofwind power can bring substantial local bene-fits. Navarra, which now derives two thirds ofits electricity from renewables, managed tocut unemployment from a peak of 12.8 percentin 1993 to 4.8 percent in 2007—the result ofan active industrial policy intended to buildwind power capacity and a concerted workertraining effort focused on this industry.35

Companies based in China, Taiwan, the

Wind Power Generating Capacity, 2010 Solar PV Generating Capacity, 2010

Solar Heating Capacity, 2009 Biofuels Production, 2010

Source: REN21

China

U.S.

Germany

Spain

India

Rest ofWorld

Rest ofWorld

Japan

U.S.Germany

Spain

Italy

Rest ofWorld

Rest ofWorld

China U.S.

Brazil

Germany

Turkey

Germany

JapanGreeceIsrael

BrazilAustria France

China

Figure 1–3. Leading Countries in Renewable Energy, by Type, 2009/2010



congestion, noise pollution, and obesity. Socialdimensions deserve equal attention: wheredependence on private automobiles is heavyand public transport options are sparse ornon-existent, it can be expensive, and per-haps impossible, for people to secure access tojobs and livelihoods without cars. (See alsoChapter 4.)40

Efforts to reduce transportation’s footprinthave principally focused on technology—mea-sures to boost vehicle fuel efficiency, switch toalternative fuels, and develop hybrid and elec-tric vehicles. Although automobile fuel effi-ciency has been improving in recent years,truly efficient models still do not come closeto even one tenth of total sales, and hybrid andelectric vehicles presently account for less than3 percent.41

A number of countries are putting theirfaith in the development of biofuels. Brazil isnow producing almost exclusively “flex-fuel”vehicles that can run on any blend of gasolineand ethanol, and it is hoping to convert itsentire fleet over the next 20 years or so. Morethan 80 countries, many of them poor, havedecided to pursue a different alternative: vehi-cles running on natural gas (mostly com-pressed natural gas, or CNG), which burnsmore cleanly than gasoline. Pakistan, Iran,Argentina, Brazil, and India accounted forthree quarters of the global CNG fleet ofclose to 13 million in 2010.42

But such measures alone are inadequate inthe face of growing numbers of vehicles andlonger distances driven. Rich countries in par-ticular need to reduce their heavy car depen-dence. Other countries, too, are alreadyemulating or aspiring to build an automobile-centric system, often at the cost of badly pol-luted and congested cities. Especially in poorsocieties, public spending in support of car-cen-tric transportation systems accentuates socialdisparities. Expenditures on roads crowd outother needed public infrastructure and mar-ginalize those who cannot afford a car.

controversy continues to rage over food-ver-sus-fuel issues and whether such fuels offer anet carbon benefit compared with fossil fuels.Ethanol and biodiesel together provided about2.7 percent of worldwide road fuels in 2010.Brazil has by far the largest bioethanol indus-try. About half a million people work in sug-arcane cultivation for biofuels use, and another190,000 in processing the sugarcane intoethanol. Biogas is also growing in significance,with more than 44 million households world-wide relying for their lighting and cookingneeds on community- or household-scale bio-gas digesters. China leads the world, but gasi-fiers for heat generation are also increasinglyused in India and other countries.37

Although data on employment are not sys-tematically collected and gaps persist, the num-ber of renewable energy jobs worldwide isundoubtedly rising fast. A rough estimate sug-gests at least 4.3 million direct and indirect(that is, supply chain) jobs, up from an estimateof 2.3 million in 2008. These estimates areincomplete and do not fully account for thejobs or livelihoods in connection with manyrural energy projects.38

Renewable energy employment is still smallerthan fossil fuel employment. The extraction ofoil, gas, and coal employs more than 10 millionpeople, and the use of these energy sources inthermal and electricity plants adds several mil-lion more jobs. But given that renewable energystill accounts for a small share of total energyuse, the number of people already working inthis field is encouraging.39

Transportation. The transportation sec-tor, especially the close to 1 billion motorvehicles on the world’s roads, accounts formore than half of global liquid fossil fuel con-sumption. Accounting for about a quarter ofenergy-related carbon dioxide emissions, withemissions rising faster than those of any othereconomic sector, transportation is an impor-tant contributor to climate change. Its otherimpacts include urban air pollution, accidents,



Rapid Transit systems on a broad scale werepioneered in Curitiba, Brazil, in 1974. Partic-ularly since the 1990s, this concept is spread-ing to a growing numbers of cities. By 2005,an estimated 70 Bus Rapid Transit systemswere in operation worldwide.44

Buildings. Approximately one third ofglobal energy end-use takes place within build-ings, and nearly 60 percent of the world’selectricity is consumed by residential and com-mercial buildings. Under business-as-usualassumptions, building energy demand is pro-jected to increase by 60 percent by 2050. Yetthis sector also offers enormous potential forsignificant energy savings and carbon emissionsreductions through more-appropriate build-ing materials and greater insulation in windowsand roofing, as well as reliance on more-efficient heating and cooling systems, lighting,appliances, and equipment in buildings.45

The construction industry also carries greatimportance as an employer. In most coun-tries, it accounts for anywhere from 5 to 10percent of all jobs, though often with strongseasonal variations. Worldwide, at least 111million people find work in this sector. Butgiven that the industry is highly fragmentedand that many workers are in informal employ-ment arrangements that evade capture in offi-cial statistics, the real figure is likely to bemuch higher.46

The renovation and retrofitting of existingbuildings tends to be of greater importance inindustrial countries with a large existing build-ing stock and low population growth rates. Indeveloping countries, in contrast, greeningnew construction is very important, especiallyin China and India, where the economies areexpanding fast and rural residents stream intocities in search of work. In the developingworld, informal and often substandard hous-ing is widespread; improving health and safetystandards there is as much of an urgent task asgreening the building stock is.

The share of the urban population living in

In both wealthy and poor countries, a reli-able and affordable public transit system playsa critical role in achieving a greater degree ofsocial equity. Poorly planned or designed trans-port systems and unnecessary sprawl can makeaccess to jobs physically difficult and costly,especially for low-income households in bothrich and poor countries, which have to allocatea disproportionate share of their meagerincomes to cover transport expenses.

A more forward-looking policy seeks toachieve a better balance of transportationmodes and thus to boost the share of publictransit in cities and rail in intercity travel. Byavoiding sprawl and limiting the distances thatmust be traveled by people and freight, optionslike public transit, biking, and walking becomemore feasible.

Such changes have implications for thetransportation sector workforce. While notruly comprehensive studies have been under-taken on the employment implications of afar-reaching modal shift, some rough figuresindicate the current situation. Direct employ-ment in manufacturing motor vehicles runs tomore than 8 million people worldwide, withmultiples of this figure in the supply chain. Bycomparison, relatively few people are todayemployed in manufacturing rail vehicles—about half a million directly. Larger numbersof people work in operating public trans-portation systems: more than 7.6 million inurban mass transit and 7.1 million in freightand passenger railways.43

There are some encouraging changes underway, all of which are translating into increasedemployment in operating public transportationsystems. Ridership in urban transit and inter-city rail is rising worldwide, as are investmentsin these transportation systems. Interest inhigh-speed rail is growing around the world.Japan, France, Spain, and China are at theforefront, but the number of countries runningsuch trains is expected to grow from 14 inmid-2011 to 24 over the next few years. Bus



is green—figures that indicate an enormouspotential remains to be tapped.49

Regulations and public policies can pushthe greening of buildings along. They includemeasures such as building codes, green pro-curement programs, appliance standards,energy- and water-efficiency requirements,mandatory audits, and the like. (See Chapter 10for more on policies.)

In the European Union, the Energy Per-formance of Buildings Directive requiresenergy performance certificates to be pre-sented to customers for building sales or leases.The European Commission thinks that by2020, some 280,000–450,000 new jobs mightbe created, chiefly among energy auditors andcertifiers, among inspectors of heating andair-conditioning systems, in the constructionsector, and in industries that produce materi-als components and products needed toimprove the performance of buildings. Theinsulation industry umbrella group Eurimaprovides more optimistic projections, esti-mating additional employment figures rangingfrom 274,000 to 856,000 jobs. And a study bythe European Trade Union Congress and oth-ers estimated that up to 2.59 million jobscould be created by 2030.50

slums in the developing world declinedfrom 39 percent in 2000 to 32 percentin 2010. But the absolute numbers ofslum dwellers have grown along withexpanding populations. In sub-SaharanAfrica, more than 60 percent of theurban population lives in slums—doublethe rate in Asian developing countriesand much higher than the 24 percent inLatin America. Poor households typicallyspend a disproportionate share of theirincomes on energy, so providing moreenergy-efficient housing can be a tool inthe fight against poverty. But poorhouseholds will need grants and subsi-dies to help them weatherize or other-wise upgrade their homes.47

In principle, labor-intensive programs toimprove the social and environmental aspectsof housing and urban infrastructure could pro-vide large numbers of green jobs—throughnew construction of buildings and retrofittingof existing ones and through production ofinsulation materials and efficient building com-ponents like windows, heating and coolingunits, or appliances. Studies in a range of coun-tries confirm that there is ample opportunityfor greening existing construction work andgenerating additional employment and thatmore jobs are created than are lost in theenergy-intensive industries that produce inputslike cement.48

Recent years have seen a degree of progressin greening buildings, though it is difficult toarrive at any worldwide figures. Although stan-dards such as the LEED program in the UnitedStates have been replicated in a number ofcountries, there is no agreed worldwide defi-nition of what constitutes green buildings.Also, allowance has to be made for a widevariety of climatic and other circumstancesthat require differentiated sets of standards. Inthe United States, it is estimated that 10–12percent of new commercial construction and6–10 percent of new residential construction

The first LEED Platinum mixed-use multi-family building inSouthern California.

Calderoliver



All too often, waste management translatesinto landfilling, incineration, and shipment toother countries, either legally or illicitly. Thesepractices impose an environmental and healthtoll on adjacent communities. By contrast,recycling, reuse, and remanufacturing of prod-ucts permit a reduction in logging and mining;they save substantial amounts of energy andwater by replacing the processing of virginmaterials with greater reliance on scrap mate-rials; and they avoid air, water, and land con-tamination associated with waste disposal.More than 1 billion tons of metals, paper,rubber, plastics, glass, and other materials arerecycled each year. But that is only one tenththe amount of waste collected.54

Recycling is also good from an employ-ment perspective. On a per-ton basis, sortingand processing of recyclables sustains 10 timesas many jobs as landfilling or incineration do,and the manufacturing of new products fromrecycled materials or equipment employs evenmore people than sorting recyclables does. Inindustrial countries, recycling is a formalindustry, often with a high degree of automa-tion. In the United States, direct and indirectrecycling employment runs to an estimated1.4 million, and in the European Union,about 1.6 million.55

In developing countries, much greater quan-tities of recyclable materials are recovered byinformal waste pickers than by formal wastemanagement companies. Urban areas in thesecountries often have inadequate waste collec-tion or none at all. Wastes typically end upstrewn in streets, fields, and streams, as well asin open dumps. Many of the people engagedin waste picking and recycling in these countriesare part of the informal economy.56

People who sift through uncontrolled dump-sites confront hazardous work conditions: theyare exposed to a range of toxins and are vul-nerable to intestinal, parasitic, and skin dis-eases. Earnings are often low and unstable.Moreover, municipal governments all too often

Some of the stimulus funds that were passedin several countries to address the economic cri-sis have been directed toward green buildingpurposes. It has been estimated that this sec-tor’s 13 percent share of Germany’s stimuluspackage of more than $100 billion will createsome 25,000 manufacturing and constructionjobs related to building retrofits. This builds onan earlier success story in Germany, wherepublic funds for apartment and building retro-fits triggered substantial additional privatespending equivalent to $26 billion. By 2008,some 280,000 units had been renovated andabout 221,000 jobs either were created orwere saved from elimination—at a time whenthe construction industry faced a recessionand the prospect of widespread layoffs. Thesame could happen in the United States, wherethe Better Buildings Initiative could result inthe creation of 114,000 jobs.51

Greening the building sector requires ade-quately trained workers and professionals, suchas architects. Denmark, Brussels in Belgium, Sin-gapore, and Thailand are among the govern-ments that have developed training programs.Many developing countries still fall short of thenecessary expertise. In India, for example, morethan 80 percent of the construction sectorworkforce is unskilled workers.52

Recycling. At the base of the brown econ-omy is the large-scale extraction of naturalresources. Mining of ores and minerals grew astaggering 27-fold during the twentieth cen-tury, outstripping the rate of economic growth.Now that easily exploited deposits have largelybeen exhausted, environmental impacts of min-ing are bound to worsen. Already, about threetimes more rock and other material needs to beremoved now than a century ago in order toextract the same quantity of ore. A throwawayeconomy means that waste streams keepexpanding along with mining. Worldwide,about 11 billion tons of solid waste were col-lected in 2010 (and an even larger, butunknown, quantity generated).53



improve their situation, but often to merelyhold on to what they have won.”60

The global economic crisis is affecting thedemand and market price for recyclables andcompelling more people to rely on waste pick-ing in the face of a lack of formal-economyjobs. Among the challenges this brings aremoves toward waste management privatiza-tion in ways that sideline the pickers and theirorganizations and the emergence of new wastestreams—particularly e-waste—that exposewaste pickers to new occupational and healthrisks and will require a greater degree of train-ing (to understand how to safely dismantleelectric and electronic waste products, forinstance) as well as proper equipment.61

Promoting Green Jobs Globally

To improve knowledge of green jobs trendsand developments, governments need to craftdetailed definitions and sector-by-sector criteria(as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is cur-rently doing). Internationally, it would makesense to establish green jobs standards andcertifications so that national data are compa-rable. Industry surveys or input-output mod-eling (as the German environment ministryhas done in the renewable energy sector forseveral years) can help generate regular annualdata. Green jobs data need to be integratedinto regular national economic statistics.

Skills shortages could hamper the emer-gence of a green economy. To avoid this, gov-ernments should support a range of trainingefforts. A national skills mapping exercise couldbe undertaken with the goal of establishinggreen skill profiles in each industry, identifyingstrengths and gaps in the existing skills base, andcreating a plan for overcoming gaps (as theregional government of Navarra, Spain, hasdone). Governments can also set up or facilitatethe creation of green training centers and canencourage private companies and educationalinstitutions to incorporate green jobs skills into

regard waste pickers as expendable nuisances,frequently either ignoring them in policymak-ing or even harassing and persecuting them.57

An often-cited estimate puts the number ofinformal waste pickers at 1 percent of theurban population in developing countries. Inabsolute terms, a figure of 15 million peopleis sometimes mentioned in the literature. Math-ematically, 1 percent today translates into anumber as high as 26 million people. Thesenumbers, however, are little more than edu-cated guesses.58

Forming local and national cooperatives,waste pickers are becoming more organized infighting for legalization, improvements in theirsocial status, and better bargaining positionsvis-à-vis municipalities and powerful interme-diaries. Brazil has the most advanced group.The Movimento Nacional dos Catadores deMateriais Recicláveis emerged from years oflocal organizing efforts that had their originsin Porto Alegre and São Paulo in the 1980s.During the past decade, national legislationoffered growing support. Waste picking hasbeen recognized as a legitimate occupation. In2010, the National Policy of Solid Waste man-dated that informal recyclers be included inmunicipal recycling programs. The compre-hensive national poverty alleviation plan (BrasilSem Miséria) launched in June 2011 offerstraining and infrastructure support to wastepickers, and aims to achieve their socioeco-nomic inclusion in 260 municipalities.59

In various parts of the world, the last twodecades have seen growing legal recognition ofwaste pickers as attitudes gradually change,strengthening of their organizations, integra-tion into municipal waste management sys-tems, and social inclusion. This has resulted inimprovements in earnings and secured somesocial benefits. But Chris Bonner of Women inInformal Employment: Globalizing and Orga-nizing cautions that “gains made by workersin the informal economy are often imperma-nent. There is a constant struggle not only to



A New Global Solidarity

A new global solidarity for sustainability musttake root, ensuring that no one—no country,no community, no individual—is left behind.Unlike the conventional pattern of economiccompetition that produces—and indeed isexpected to produce—winners and losers, thequest for a green economy needs to focus onwin-win outcomes that render economic activ-ities sustainable everywhere. There is alreadyintense competition among manufacturers ofgreen technologies and products, such as windand solar energy, and government policies thatreek of green mercantilism and protection-ism. (See Box 1–2.)62

It is essential that cooperative models bedeveloped for shared green development. Asimple slogan therefore would be “avoidlosers.” Given shared environmental vulnera-bilities on a small and increasingly crowdedplanet whose resources are being maxed out,there needs to be recognition that the winnerswill lose if the losers don’t win.

For the rich of this Earth, greening actionlooks of necessity different than it does forthose who aspire to greater wealth and forthose who contend with poverty. In relativeterms, the poor have to win more in a greeneconomy than the rich do, so as to reduceand eventually overcome the stark differencesin claims to the planet’s remaining resources.Environmental sustainability is ultimatelyimpossible without social equity. This requiresthat the rich reduce their draw on materials andgoods in absolute terms.

Both environmental and social conditionshave reached a state that requires a clean breakwith business-as-usual solutions. A key need isa rebalancing of public and private actions.Since the first Rio conference, in 1992, toomuch time and effort has gone into makingmarket forces propel the greening of the econ-omy. Market forces only work when they areproperly regulated. Otherwise they tend

courses, apprenticeships, and other workplacetraining. They should ensure gender balanceand access by disadvantaged communities.

Green jobs are not necessarily or automat-ically “decent” jobs. Effective social dialoguebetween employers and workers, including col-lective bargaining arrangements, and broaderpublic-private partnerships aiming for equi-table outcomes are essential for decent workstandards and social inclusion. Governmentaction may be needed to establish and enforcedecent wage standards and occupational healthand safety rules. Governments may also need topass social-inclusion legislation (as Brazil hasdone with regard to informal waste pickers).

To date, the emergence of green jobs hasnot come at the direct expense of jobs in pol-luting industries. Eventually, however, transi-tioning to a green economy does imply thatsuch industries will shrink and perhaps disap-pear entirely. Governments should proactivelycreate and fund “fair transition” programs foraffected workers and communities, offeringretraining and, if necessary, relocation assistanceso people have an opportunity to find newlivelihoods in the emerging green economy.

The nature of green jobs will vary accord-ing to economic sector and even to someextent country by country. Thus the specificsof the green jobs experience will naturally varyto some extent as well. Nonetheless, in orderto facilitate the spread of green technologiesand methods, it is important to share lessons—policy innovations and green roadmaps thathave proved successful—as widely as possible.The United Nations can play a useful role inthis context by establishing a UN Green JobsBest Practices Unit (with inputs from UNEPand the ILO). Further a UNGreen Jobs Coor-dinating Group could ensure policy cohesionamong various agencies. An advisory councildrawn from experts and stakeholders frombusiness, labor, and civil society could helpguide this work and analyze key developments,opportunities, and challenges.



U.S.-China Wind Subsidies. In September2010, the United Steelworkers petitioned theObama administration, asserting that theChinese government provided millions ofdollars in illegal subsidies to domesticturbine manufacturers that agreed to use keycomponents made in China rather thanimported parts. The union claimed thisamounted to an unfair advantage and under-mined U.S. companies’ competitiveness inthe Chinese market. The U.S. administrationagreed to investigate the case andsubsequently filed an official complaint withthe World Trade Organization (WTO). Afterconsultations, China in June 2011 agreed tohalt its wind power subsidy program. Critics,however, argued that the steelworkers shouldpush their own government to pursue moreambitious strategies, including adoption of anational renewable energy target. U.S.-Chinatrade disputes could hinder future develop-ment of renewable energy technologies. Thetrade disagreement could also have beenused to kick off a discussion on the need forWTO to legalize and regulate subsidies foralternative energy.

U.S.-China Solar Trade. In October 2011,seven U.S. solar panel manufacturers filed acomplaint against the Chinese solar energyindustry, accusing it of receiving illegalgovernment subsidies and dumpingcompleted panels in the United States undertheir marginal cost. The filing at the Depart-ment of Commerce and the InternationalTrade Commission called for the U.S. govern-ment to impose high tariffs—more than 100percent of the wholesale import price—onChinese solar panels. In the first eightmonths of 2011, China exported $1.6 billionworth of solar panels to the United States.The Chinese Development Bank provided$30 billion in low-interest loans to solarmanufacturers in 2010 alone, helping China

to claim the title of leading solar exporter.This helped push wholesale solar panel pricesdown from $3.30 per watt of capacity in 2008to $1.20 in October 2011—a key factor in themuch-discussed bankruptcy of U.S. manufac-turer Solyndra. Chinese solar panel makersmay move some of their operations to theUnited States in an effort to evade protection-ist measures. The imposition of tariffs couldalso trigger Chinese retaliation: instead ofpurchasing raw materials for solar panel pro-duction from the United States, China couldimport them from German suppliers. Chineseofficials claim that the steep tariffs wouldhamper the cooperative development of solarenergy and undermine global support forclean energy.

Japan-Ontario FIT Dispute. In September2010, Japan filed a complaint with WTOagainst Ontario’s 2009 Feed-In Tariff (FIT),which offers renewable energy manufacturersa higher rate than conventional electricitysuppliers receive for a 20-year period. TheFIT is coupled with a domestic contentrequirement of 50 percent in 2010 and 60percent in 2011. It has created 13,000 jobsand attracted $20 billion in private-sectorinvestment so far. Japanese companies notmeeting the domestic content rule argue it isdiscriminatory and that FIT encouragesimport substitution subsidies that are illegalunder WTO rules. The FIT has come underscrutiny from the North American Free TradeAgreement, and the European Union joinedJapan’s complaint, claiming FIT is in “clearbreach of the WTO rules.” The irony is thatJapan passed its own FIT legislation inAugust 2011, a policy driven in part by theJapanese government’s decision to reducereliance on nuclear power in the wake of theFukushima disaster.

—Miki KobayashiSource: See endnote 62.

Box 1–2. Renewable Energy and Trade Disputes



of continuous innovation and improvements.Adopting such an approach on a global levelcould promote leapfrogging for sustainabil-ity. This could have even more fascinatingimpacts if paired with a social top runner pol-icy that counters a global race to the bottomof cheap wages.64

Green Financing. Inefficient products alltoo often have the advantage of seeming cheap.Green products can be difficult to afford whenthey have high upfront costs (even thoughthey save consumers money over the prod-uct’s lifetime). Reducing or eliminating this dis-advantage is a key task in facilitating thetransition to a green economy. This could beaccomplished with the help of a public greenfinancing program that offers preferential inter-est rates and loan terms for green products.Green financing would be even more effectiveif it were linked to a Top Runner approach—if the most efficient models also had the mostattractive loan terms.

Durability, Repairability, Upgradability.Tax and subsidy policies do not differentiateproducts according to how well they are made.In fact, orthodox economics assumes that aproduct that does not last is preferable becauseit requires faster replacement and thus helpslead to greater economic activity. In a greeneconomy, tax and subsidy policies should givepreferential treatment to products that aredurable, repairable, and upgradable.

Energy and Materials Productivity. Sim-ilarly, tax and subsidy policies, as well as othertools of public policy, could be structuredto accord preference to companies that excelin improving the energy and materials pro-ductivity of their operations. This could bedone somewhat like the Top Runnerapproach by setting standards in each man-ufacturing sector and evaluating performanceon a regular basis.

Pricing for Sustainable Well-being. In theexisting economy, consumers who buy largerquantities of a given product are often

toward excess, create “externalities,” and dis-regard social equity. The last 20 years havewitnessed a certain abdication of public poli-cymaking responsibility. It is time to redis-cover this obligation. There is a need torecognize that “harnessing” the marketrequires more public policy, not less.

The policy suggestions that follow are notmeant to be complete but rather sugges-tive—indicating the types of approaches thatcould help humanity achieve sustainabilitywith equity.

ANetwork of Cooperative Green Innova-tion Centers. In order to spread green inno-vation as widely as possible, cooperative modelsare needed for green R&D and technologydeployment. The World Economic and SocialSurvey 2011, for instance, refers to the suc-cessful experience of the Consultative Groupon International Agricultural Research as anexample of how to promote the rapid world-wide diffusion of new technologies via a net-work of publicly supported researchinstitutions. This model could be adapted,and the Survey suggests that an internationalregime allow for “special and differential accessto new technology based on the level of devel-opment” and that intellectual property rightsbe changed to accommodate the rapid diffu-sion of green innovation ideas.63

Global Top Runner. One way to harnessmarket forces for sustainability is through anapproach Japan has taken with its Top Runnerprogram, which was established in 1998 andhas helped to make its economy one of theworld’s most efficient. The program sets effi-ciency standards for a range of products thatcollectively account for more than 70 percentof residential electricity use. On a regular basis,products available in a given category are testedby advisory committees with members fromacademia, industry, consumers, local govern-ments, and mass media to determine the mostefficient model. That then becomes the newbaseline for all manufacturers, driving a process



corporations now have the same free speechrights as people, yet the vast majority of peo-ple have no control over corporations thatoften bestride the globe and trump the demo-cratic process by dint of having become “toobig to fail.” Companies that are bound moreclosely to the needs and interests of their ownworkforces and the communities they servemight play a more constructive role in creat-ing a sustainable economy—less single-mind-edly pursuing growth and profits at the expenseof people and nature. There is limited experi-ence with alternative, more participatory formsof running companies, such as the MondragónCorporación Cooperativa (MCC) in theBasque region of Spain. While limits to cor-porate growth are likely a necessary element ofa more sustainable economy, it does not meanthat companies need to be local only. Worker-owned MCC is Spain’s seventh largest com-pany—with over 100,000 workers, annualsales of $20 billion, and 65 plants overseas. Onekey to a different type of corporation is greaterparticipation by stakeholders and less influ-ence by shareholders. (See also Chapter 7.)66

Transformational policies are needed if sus-tainable prosperity for all—present and futuregenerations—is the goal. The alternative is aplanetary triage that, to use the terminologypopularized by the Occupy movement, maywork for the 1 percent but not for the 99 per-cent. Policies need to reach far beyond tech-nical fixes, limited changes in tax and subsidypolicies, or other marginal efforts. The natureand rationale of the economic system will needto change in fundamental ways. From grow-ing the economy at all costs, the central focusinstead becomes an economy that permits eco-logical restoration and enables human well-being without materialism.

rewarded with price discounts, which encour-ages consumption irrespective of need. In agreen economy, a reverse system of pricingshould be introduced. It would allow con-sumption of goods in quantities that are con-sonant with the satisfaction of basic needs anda decent life at low, affordable prices. Butusage beyond a certain threshold would onlybe possible at steeply rising prices per unit, inorder to discourage overconsumption. In dif-ferent countries, the precise definition of suchthresholds would naturally vary. Dakar in Sene-gal and Durban in South Africa have adoptedvery low tariffs for an initial amount of waterconsumption. The price for water usage abovethat level rises steeply. Such a tiered pricing sys-tem should be adapted for a broad array ofproducts and services.65

Reduced Work Hours. Today most peopleend up working long hours in an effort toearn enough to move with the crest of a never-ending consumption wave. Decent wages makethis an easier process than if people feel theyhave to resort to debt. An economy and pop-ulation that are less in thrall to consumerismmight entertain an approach that seeks totranslate increased productivity in the economyinto reduced work hours rather than moreconsumption. Rich countries will need toundertake this transformation if they are toreduce their overall claim on the planet’sresources and open up much-needed materialand ecological space for the world’s poor.

Economic Democracy. A large number ofcountries are run by at least nominally demo-cratic processes, but there is no democracy inthe economic sphere that determines so muchof human life—the bulk of people’s wakinghours, their incomes, their careers and sense ofself-worth. In the United States, for example,




SUSTAINABLE PROSPERITY Notes

Chapter 1. Making the Green Economy Workfor Everybody

1. Tom Bigg, “Development Governance andthe Green Economy: A Matter of Life and Death?”in Henrik Selin and Adil Najam, Beyond Rio+20:Governance for a Green Economy (Boston: Freder-ick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, Boston University, 2011), p. 28.

2. Erik Assadourian, “The Rise and Fall of Con-sumer Cultures,” in Worldwatch Institute, State ofthe World 2010 (New York: W. W. Norton & Com-pany, 2010), pp. 3–20.

3. For the International Labour Organization(ILO) position on the relationship between thefinancial industry and the rest of the economy, seeILO,World of Work Report 2011: Making MarketsWork for Jobs, Summary, preprint edition (Geneva:31 October 2011), p. 2.

4. Esther Addley, “Occupy Movement: FromLocal Action to a Global Howl of Protest,” (Lon-don) Guardian, 17 October 2011; “OccupyTogether,” at www.meetup.com/occupytogether.

5. Quote is from “About,” Occupy COP17 web-site, at www.occupycop17.org/about.

6. U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP),Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to SustainableDevelopment and Poverty Eradication (Nairobi:2011), p. 20.

7. Ibid.

8. Johan Rockström et al., “A Safe OperatingSpace for Humanity,”Nature, 24 September 2009,pp. 472–75.

9. Mike Foster, “Economic Growth Puts GlobalResources under Pressure,” Financial News, 3March 2008.

10. Organisation for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment (OECD), Perspectives on Global Devel-opment 2010: Shifting Wealth (Paris: 2010), pp. 2,6; Martin Ravallion, A Comparative Perspective onPoverty Reduction in Brazil, China and India, Pol-

icy Research Working Paper 5080 (Washington,DC: World Bank, 2009).

11. OECD, op. cit. note 10, p. 6; Brazil compar-ison from Ravallion, op. cit. note 10, and fromReedM. Kurtz, “Brazil Faces Its Post-Lula Future,”North American Congress on Latin America, 1March 2010.

12. Unemployment and jobless growth from ILO,Global Employment Trends 2011 (Geneva: 2011), pp.6, 63; carbon emissions growth from Justin Gillis,“Carbon Emissions Show Biggest Jump EverRecorded,” New York Times, 4 December 2011.

13. ILO,Global Employment Trends January 2010(Geneva: 2010), pp. 18–19; informal sector earn-ings from Marc Bacchetta, Ekkehard Ernst, andJuana P. Bustamante, Globalization and InformalJobs in Developing Countries (Geneva: ILO andWorld Trade Organization, 2009).

14. U.S. wage stagnation and inequality fromEconomic Policy Institute, Datazone, at www.epi.org/page/-/datazone2008/wage-comp-trends/earnings.xls; U.S. productivity and wages from BillMarsh, “The Great Regression: 1980–Now,”NewYork Times, 4 September 2011; U. S. poverty fromSabrina Tavernise, “Poverty Levels in 2010 Reach52-Year Peak, U.S. Says,”New York Times, 13 Sep-tember 2011; Germany from Thorsten Kalina andClaudia Weinkopf, “Niedriglohnbeschäftigung2008: Stagnation auf hohem Niveau–Lohn spek-trum franst nach unten aus,” IAQ Bericht 2010-06(Duisburg, Germany: Institut Arbeit und Quali-fikation der Universität Duisburg-Essen, 2010),pp. 5, 7; Japan from Machiko Osawa and JeffKingston, “Japan Has to Address the ‘Precariat,’”Financial Times, 1 July 2010; Julia Obinger,“Working on the Margins: Japan’s Precariat andWorking Poor,” Discussion Paper 1, ElectronicJournal of Contemporary Japanese Studies, 25 Feb-ruary 2009.

15. ILO, op. cit. note 3, p. 3.

16. Figure 1–1 and text from James B. Davies etal., The World Distribution of Household Wealth,Discussion Paper No. 2008/03 (Helsinki: UNU-WIDER, 2008), pp. 7–8.


Notes STATE OF THE WORLD 2012

17. Ibid.

18. Germany from Wolfgang Lieb, “PrivaterReichtum – öffentliche Armut,” NachDenkSeiten,23 June 2010; India from “Key Facts: India Rising,”BBC News Online, 22 January 2007; Edward N.Wolff, Recent Trends in Household Wealth in theUnited States: Rising Debt and the Middle-ClassSqueeze—An Update to 2007, Working Paper No.589 (Annandale-on-Hudson, NY: Levy EconomicsInstitute of Bard College, 2010), pp. 11, 33.

19. Nick Robins, Robert Clover, and CharanjitSingh, A Climate for Recovery (London: HSBCGlobal Research, 2009), and corrected summarytable “The Green Dimension to Economic Stimu-lus Plans,” 26 February 2009.

20. New Economics Foundation, A Green NewDeal (London: 2008); UNEP, Global Green NewDeal, Policy Brief (Geneva: 2009); UNEP, GreenJobs: Towards Decent Work in a Sustainable, Low-Carbon World (Nairobi: 2008); UNEP, op. cit.note 6.

21. UNEP, op. cit. note 6, pp. 15–16.

22. Box 1–1 from the following: decoupling mea-surement fromUNEP,Decoupling Natural ResourceUse and Environmental Impacts from EconomicGrowth (Nairobi: 2011), and from UNEP, op. cit.note 6; global energy intensity from World Bank,GDP (2000 dollars), at data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD, and from BritishPetroleum (BP), BP Statistical Review of WorldEnergy (London: 2011); consumption of metalsfrom Tim Jackson, Prosperity Without Growth (Lon-don: Earthscan, 2009), Chapter 5; logic of limitingthroughput from Herman E. Daly, “Foreword,” inibid., pp. xi—ii; Chris Goodall, “‘Peak Stuff’ Didthe UK Reach a Maximum Use of MaterialResources in the Early Part of the Last Decade?”Research Paper, Carboncommentary.com, 13 Octo-ber 2011; change in economic and social struc-tures from Department of Economic and SocialAffairs (DESA),World Economic and Social Survey2011, The Great Green Technological Transformation(New York: United Nations, 2011); consumptionby the wealthiest from World Bank, World BankDevelopment Indicators 2008 (Washington, DC:2008); Ricardo Abramovay, A Transição para uma

Nova Economia (São Paulo, Avina Foundation,November 2011).

23. Mark Halle, “Accountability in the GreenEconomy,” in Selin and Najam, op. cit. note 1,p. 19.

24. Quote from G77 at Delhi Ministerial Dia-logue on “Green Economy and Inclusive Growth,”Inaugural Session, 3 October 2011, at www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/content/documents/G77+China%20Discurso%20Del%20Embajador%20Al%20Varez%20En%20El.pdf. These concerns are alsoaddressed in detail in The Transition to a GreenEconomy: Benefits, Challenges and Risks from a Sus-tainable Development Perspective, Report by a Panelof Experts to Second Preparatory Committee Meet-ing for United Nations Conference on SustainableDevelopment.

25. Figure 1–2 based on Global Footprint Net-work, The Ecological Wealth of Nations (Oakland,CA: 2010), pp. 28–35.

26. U.N. Development Programme, HumanDevelopment Report 2011 (New York: PalgraveMacmillan, 2011), p. 68.

27. Herman E. Daly, ed., Toward a Steady-StateEconomy (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman & Co.,1973); on degrowth, see www.degrowth.org/What-is-Degrowth.22.0.html.

28. Saleemul Huq, “Climate and Energy,” in Selinand Najam, op. cit. note 1; Alex Evans and DavidSteven,Making Rio 2012Work: Setting the Stage forGlobal Economic, Social and Ecological Renewal(New York: Center on International Cooperation,New York University, 2011), p. 8.

29. Bigg, op. cit. note 1, p. 29.

30. Lack of access to sanitation from UNEP, op.cit. note 6, p. 19; urban water shortages from Fore-sight,Migration and Global Environmental Change:Final Project Report (London: The GovernmentOffice for Science, 2011), p. 191; InternationalEnergy Agency (IEA), Energy For All: FinancingAccess for the Poor, special early excerpt for theWorld Energy Outlook 2011 (Paris: 2011); UN-Energy Knowledge Network, “Energy Access,” at



www.un-energy.org/cluster/energy_access.

31. BP, op. cit. note 22.

32. UNEP, Green Jobs, op. cit. note 20.

33. Bloomberg New Energy Finance, “CleanEnergy Investment Storms to New Record in2010,” press release (New York: 11 January 2011);REN21, Renewables 2005 Global Status Report(Washington, DC: 2005); Figure 1–3 adapted fromReference Tables in REN21, Renewables 2011Global Status Report (Paris: 2011), pp. 71–72,74–75.

34. REN21,Renewables 2011, op. cit. note 33, pp.18–19.

35. Li Junfeng, Shi Pengfei, and Gao Hu, 2010China Wind Power Outlook (Beijing and Brussels:Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association,Global Wind Energy Council, and Greenpeace,2010); REN21, Renewables 2011, op. cit. note 33,pp. 15, 39; Olga Strietska-Ilina et al., Skills forGreen Jobs: A Global View—Synthesis Report Basedon 21 Country Studies (Geneva: ILO, 2011); J. M.Roig Aldasoro, “Navarre: Renewable Energies,”Regional Minister of Innovation, Enterprise andEmployment, Government of Navarre, Pamplona,21 April 2009.

36. Solar power from REN21, Renewables 2011,op. cit. note 33, p. 41; solar cookers and solarlanterns from Lighting Africa, Kenya: QualitativeOff-Grid Lighting Market Assessment (Washington,DC: International Finance Corporation, 2008);Bangladesh from Strietska-Ilina et al., op. cit. note35, and from Infrastructure Development CompanyLimited, “Progress with SHS’s Installation up to 31August 2011,” at www.idcol.org/prjshsm2004.php.

37. REN21, Renewables 2011, op. cit. note 33;Brazil from General Secretariat of the Presidency ofthe Republic, The National Commitment to ImproveLabor Conditions in the Sugarcane Activity (Brasilia:undated).

38. Figure of 4.3 million is author estimate basedon an extensive literature survey undertaken for aforthcoming ILO study on green jobs. It consists

of these rough job estimates: wind power, 670,000;solar PV, > 600,000; solar hot water, 870,000; bio-fuels, 1.5 million; and biomass, 600,000. The authoralso generated the 2008 figure for UNEP, GreenJobs, op. cit. note 20, p. 127.

39. Figure of 10 million is derived from an estimateof 3 million oil and gas extraction jobs and 7 mil-lion coal mining jobs. See ILO, “Promoting DecentWork in a Green Economy,” ILO Background Noteto UNEP, op. cit. note 6, and World Coal Institute,The Coal Resource. A Comprehensive Overview ofCoal (London: 2005).

40. Emissions from UNEP, op. cit. note 6; vehi-cles from Colin Couchman, IHS Automotive, Lon-don, e-mail to author, 31 May 2011.

41. Fuel efficiency fromUNEP,Green Jobs, op. cit.note 20; “Hybrid Car Statistics,” undated, atwww.all-electric-vehicles.com/hybrid-car-statistics.html.

42. Brazil from World Bank, Brazil Low CarbonCountry Case Study (Washington, DC: 2010), andfrom Associação Nacional dos Fabricantes de Veicu-los Automotores, Anuário da Indústria Automo-bilística Brasileira, Edition 2011 (São Paulo: 2011);compressed natural gas from International Associ-ation for Natural Gas Vehicles, “Natural Gas Vehi-cle Statistics,” at www.iangv.org/tools-resources/statistics.html, updated April 2011, and from NGVAmerica, “NGVs and Biomethane,” at www.ngvc.org/about_ngv/ngv_biomethane.html.

43. Motor vehicle employment from InternationalOrganization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers,“Employment,” at oica.net/category/economic-contributions/auto-jobs; rail vehicle manufactur-ing fromMichael Renner and Gary Gardner,GlobalCompetitiveness in the Rail and Transit Industry(Washington, DC: Worldwatch Institute, Septem-ber 2010), p. 15; urban transit employment fromInternational Association of Public Transport,“Employment in Public Transport: 13 Million Peo-ple Worldwide!” April 2011; railway employmentfrom International Union of Railways (UIC),Railand Sustainable Development (Paris: 2011).

44. Renner and Gardner, op. cit. note 43; high-speed rail from UIC, Km of High Speed Lines in the


Notes STATE OF THE WORLD 2012

World, at www.uic.org/IMG/pdf/20110701_b1_resume_km_of_hs_lines_in_the_world.pdf; BusRapid transit from Naoko Matsumoto, Analysis ofPolicy Processes to Introduce Bus Rapid Transit Sys-tems in Asian Cities from the Perspective of Lesson-drawing: Cases of Jakarta, Seoul, and Beijing (Tokyo:Institute for Global Environmental Strategies,undated).

45. Building share of energy use from IEA,WorldEnergy Outlook 2010 (Paris: 2010); share of elec-tricity use from IEA, World Energy Outlook 2009(Paris: 2009); projection from IEA and OECD,Energy Technology Perspectives 2010 Scenarios andStrategies to 2050 (Paris: 2010).

46. UNEP, Green Jobs, op. cit. note 20, p. 131.

47. Slum inhabitants from UN-HABITAT, Stateof the World’s Cities 2010/2011: Bridging the UrbanDivide (London: Earthscan, 2010).

48. See, for instance, ILO, Study of Occupationaland Skill Needs in Green Building (Geneva: 2011);Bracken Hendricks et al., Rebuilding America: ANational Policy Framework for Investment in EnergyEfficiency Retrofits (Washington, DC: Center forAmerican Progress and Energy Future Coalition,2009); Agence de l’Environnement et la Maîtrise del’Energie (ADEME), Activities Related to Renew-able Energy and Energy Efficiency: Markets, Employ-ment and Energy Stakes 2006–2007, Projections 2012(Paris: 2008).

49. McGraw Hill Construction, Green BuildingRetrofit and Renovation: Rapidly Expanding Mar-ket Opportunities through Existing Building (NewYork: 2009).

50. See the website for the Directive, at www.epbd-ca.org; Meera Ghani, with Michael Rennerand Ambika Chawla, Low Carbon Jobs for Europe:Current Opportunities and Future Prospects (Brus-sels: WWF, 2009), p. 23.

51. UNEP,Global Green NewDeal: AnUpdate forthe G20 Pittsburgh Summit (Nairobi: 2009); WernerSchneider, “Green Jobs Creation in Germany,”PowerPoint presentation at Cornell University,Institute for Labor Relations workshop on ClimateProtection in Cities, States and Regions—Job Cre-

ation and Workforce Development, New York City,12May 2010; Political Economy Research Institute,A New Retrofit Industry: An Analysis of the JobCreation Potential of Tax Incentives for Energy Effi-ciency in Commercial Buildings and Other Compo-nents of the Better Buildings Initiative (Amherst,MA: University of Massachusetts, 2011).

52. Training programs from European Centre forthe Development of Vocational Training, Skills forGreen Jobs: European Synthesis Report (Luxembourg:Publications Office of the European Union, 2010);C. Martinez-Fernandez et al., Greening Jobs andSkills Labour Market Implications of Addressing Cli-mate Change (Paris: OECD, 2010); SingaporeBuilding and Construction Authority, 2nd GreenBuilding Masterplan (Singapore: 2009); India fromILO, op. cit. note 48, p. 111.

53. Extraction data from UNEP, Recycling Ratesof Metals: A Status Report (Nairobi: 2011); wastecollected from UNEP, op. cit. note 6.

54. Bureau of International Recycling, “OnceUpon a Time… The Story of BIR, 1948–2008,” atwww.bir.org/assets/Documents/publications/brochures/BIRthday.pdf.

55. Institute for Local Self-Reliance, “RecyclingMeans Business,” at www.ilsr.org/recycling/recyclingmeansbusiness.html; U.S. recycling employ-ment from R. W. Beck, Inc., U.S. Recycling Eco-nomic Information Study (Washington, DC:National Recycling Coalition, 2001); EU employ-ment from GHK, Links Between the Environment,Economy and Jobs, submitted to European Com-mission, DG Environment (London: 2007).

56. Collaborative Working Group (CWG) on SolidWaste Management in Low- and Middle-IncomeCountries and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Interna-tionale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), The Economics of theInformal Sector in Solid Waste Management (St.Gallen, Switzerland, and Eschborn, Germany:2011).

57. Melanie Samson, “Introduction,” in MelanieSamson, ed., Refusing to be Cast Aside: Waste Pick-ers Organising Around the World (Cambridge, MA:Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing andOrganizing (WIEGO), 2009).



58. The 1 percent and the 15 million estimatefrom Chris Bonner, “Waste Pickers Without Fron-tiers,” South African Labour Bulletin, vol. 32, no.4 (2008); additional calculation from PopulationReference Bureau, 2011 World Population DataSheet (Washington, DC: 2011).

59. Martin Medina, “The Informal Recycling Sec-tor in Developing Countries,” Gridlines, October2008; Sonia M. Dias, “Overview of the LegalFramework for Inclusion of Informal Recyclers inSolid Waste Management in Brazil,”WIEGOUrbanPolicies Briefing Note No. 8, May 2011; Sonia M.Dias and F. C. G. Alves, Integration of the InformalRecycling Sector in Solid Waste Management inBrazil (Berlin: GTZ, 2008); “Brazilian PresidentLaunches the “Cata Ação” Program,”AVINA 2009Annual Report, at www.informeavina2009.org/english/reciclaje.shtml; “Brazil Sanctions NationalPolicy that Formalizes the Work of 800,000 Recy-clers,” AVINA 2010 Annual Report, atwww.informeavina2010.org/english/reciclaje.shtml.

60. CWG and GIZ, op. cit. note 56; WIEGO,“Waste Pickers,” at wiego.org/informal-economy/occupational-groups/waste-pickers; WIEGO,“Laws & Policies Beneficial to Waste Pickers,” atwiego.org/informal-economy/laws-policies-beneficial-waste-pickers.

61. Chris Bonner, “Foreword,” in Samson, op. cit.note 57.

62. Box 1–2 based on the following: U.S.-Chinawind case from United Steelworkers’ Section 301Petition, from Jonathan Watts, “China Moves toDefuse Trade Row with US over Green Technol-ogy,” (London) Guardian, 23 December 2010,from Doug Palmer and Leonora Walet, “ChinaAgrees to Halt Subsidies to Wind Power Firms,”Reuters, 7 June 2011, from Kevin Gallagher, “USShould Exercise Green Power,” (London)Guardian, 6 January 2011, from Ed Crooks,“Washington’s Energy Rift with China Unpopular,”Financial Times, 19 October 2010, and from DaleJiajun Wen, “Pointing the Finger the Wrong Way,”China Dialogue, 19 October 2010; U.S.-Chinasolar trade case from Keith Bradsher, “U.S. SolarPanel Makers Say China Violated Trade Rules,”New York Times, 20 October 2011, from KeithBradsher, “Chinese Trade Case Has Clear Targets,

Not Obvious Goals,”New York Times, 21 October2011, from James Kanter, “Trade Disputes HurtRenewable Energy, Chinese Executive Asserts,”New York Times, 27 October 2011, and fromStephen Lacey, “Chinese Cheaters? How ChinaDominates Solar,”Grist, 10 September 2011; Japan-Ontario case from Todd Tucker, “CorporationsPush for WTO Attack on Green Jobs,” Eyes onTrade, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, 24June 2011, from Gloria Gonzalez, “EU Joins Japanin Attacking Ontario’s Renewables Tariff,” Envi-ronmental Finance, 15 August 2011, from ShiraHonig, “Japan Renewable Feed-in-Tariff Passes,While Ontario Faces Battles,” Climatico, 7 Sep-tember 2011, from John Landers, “Legal Issuesfor Ontario’s Feed-in-Tariff Policies,”Energy Trend,18 August 2011, and from Paul Gipe, “Japan Feed-in Tariff Policy Becomes Law,” Wind-Works, 27August 2011.

63. DESA, op. cit. note 22, pp. xx–xxi, withdetailed discussion in Section VI (pp. 161–86).

64. Energy Conservation Center, atwww.eccj.or.jp/top_runner/index.html. The WorldEconomic and Social Survey discusses Japan’s expe-rience and suggests a global top runner program; seeDESA, op. cit. note 22, pp. 47, 61.

65. “Increasing Price with Volume,” in UNEPand GRID-Arendal, Vital Water Graphics, 2nd ed.(Arendal, Norway: 2008).

66. David Schweickart, “A New Capitalism—or aNew World?” World Watch, September/October2010; Tom Prugh, “Band-aids for Capitalism? OrSomething Completely Different?” (blog),World-watch Green Economy, 28 August 2009.

Chapter 2. The Path to Degrowth inOverdeveloped Countries

1. Number of participants from “Degrowth Con-ference Barcelona 2010,” at degrowth.eu. Box 2–1from the following: Serge Latouche, “Growing aDegrowth Movement,” in Worldwatch Institute,State of the World 2010 (New York: W. W. Norton& Company, 2010), p. 181; Serge Latouche,Farewell to Growth (Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press,2009), pp. 8–9; Tim Jackson, Prosperity Without

Movi ng Towar d SuSTai nab le ProS Pe r iTy

Th e wor ldwaTch i n STiTuTe

State of the World 2012

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science | environment

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STaTe of The world Moving Toward

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in 1992, governments at the rio earth summit made a historic commitment to sustainable development—an economic system that promotes the health of both people and ecosystems. twenty years and several summits later, human civilization has never been closer to ecological collapse, one third of humanity lives in poverty, and another 2 billion people are projected to join the human race over the next 40 years. How will we move toward sustainable prosperity equitably shared among all even as our population grows, our cities strain to accommodate more and more people, and our ecological systems decline?

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Moving Toward Sustainable Prosperity