Green Growth is Better, Safer Growth

Evidence mounts that green growth is better, safer growth

© WWF-Canon / Hartmut JUNGIUS: Investment in low carbon development can sustain ecomomic growth as well as and more securely than business as usual, UNEP has found

21 February 2011 - More and more evidence is accumulating that a clean and green economy is most likely to deliver a more secure, prosperous and less tumultuous future for humanity, WWF said yesterday.

WWF International Director General Jim Leape was commenting on today’s release of the major United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) report Towards a Green Economy which shows that appropriate policies and relatively modest redirections of global investment flows could grow the global economy at equivalent or greater levels than current forecasts.

The more and more sustainable economy that would result would also be less affected by scarcities and disruption than the existing, resource-depleting, high carbon “brown” economy, the report said. {continued}

UNEP's ground-breaking report: Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication

The Report is compiled by UNEP’s Green Economy Initiative in collaboration with economists and experts worldwide. It demonstrates that the greening of economies is not generally a drag on growth but rather a new engine of growth; that it is a net generator of decent jobs, and that it is also a vital strategy for the elimination of persistent poverty. The report also seeks to motivate policy makers to create the enabling conditions for increased investments in a transition to a green economy. {Links to each section of report}