How to deliver on a fair, green economic future

Humanity faces mounting critical, interconnected global challenges: finding ways to reverse growing inequalities, adapting to the impacts of climate change, halting biodiversity loss, and more. These are systemic crises that require connected thinking. At present, our systems – including those that underpin our local and global economies – are not fit for purpose to deliver sustainable environmental and social progress.

Contemporary economic systems incentivise overconsumption and destroy natural wealth. A new economic vision is possible, and it starts with holistic, solutions-focused approaches.

This way of thinking has been broadly defined as a ‘green economy’, one that is low-carbon, resource efficient and socially inclusive. It involves equitable growth of employment and income, enhanced energy and resource efficiency, infrastructure and assets that support reduced carbon emissions and pollution, while reversing the loss of biodiversity and ecosystems.

These approaches need to be applied from local to global and supported by targeted public expenditure, policy reforms and changes in taxation and regulation.

Here, we explore some of the measures that could be taken to support transition towards a green economy.

Galvanising expertise

The inaugural Forum for Global Challenges, hosted at the International Convention Centre in central Birmingham, sought to catalyse solutions across core themes:

• Green Economy
• Food & nutrition
• Education & employment
• Gender Equality
• The future of cities
• Health & wellbeing
• Restoring nature
• Mobilities & migration
• Digital Equality
• Leadership

The hybrid event, with over 1,000 delegates, combined a face-to-face conference with a fully online interactive format. It brought private sector and public sector together, with policymakers, academics and experts from across the world taking part with keynote talks and workshops over a three-day programme.

Speakers included David Nabarro, Special Envoy on COVID-19 for the World Health Organization; Gabriela Ramos, Assistant Director-General for the Social and Human Sciences of UNESCO; Henry Dimbleby, Lead Author of the UK National Food Strategy 2021; and, Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS. Several winners and finalists of the Earthshot Prize 2021 also shared their entrepreneurial experience in responding to environmental challenges.

Imagining a sustainable economy

When looking to transform generations-old systems and ways of doing things, imagination is key. A true shift towards a fairer, greener economy will necessitate novel ideas and radical thinking.

A core tenet of a more equitable economy is to interrogate emerging sectors and technologies to ensure that they truly support communities, whether on a global scale or local.

At the Forum for Global Challenges, Professor Kate Raworth, creator of Doughnut Economics, presented four key questions that city planners and residents can ask to move their cities into the socially just and environmentally sustainable boundaries of the Doughnut Economics Model.

• How can we make it possible for all of our citizens to thrive?
• How can our city be as generous as the wildland next door?
• How can our city support the health of the whole planet?
• How can our city respect the wellbeing of all people?

An example of a project that embraces these questions can be found in Birmingham. Dr Imandeep Kaur, Co-founder and Director of Civic Square, outlined how the project embraces these four questions, bringing them to the neighbourhood level in order to engage local communities in city-building and regeneration. The organisation works with schoolchildren, families and residents to curate ideas on how to build sustainable, shareable spaces in Ladywood, Birmingham. As such it acts as a proof-of-concept for a grassroots or bottom-up approach to crafting sustainable spaces that meet the needs of residents and the environment.

On a macro-level, the Forum’s attendees also considered the role of climate finance provided to low-income countries. Often this green finance falls short of its intended goal, not reaching the communities and landscapes that would most benefit from it.

Dr Mao Amis, Co-founder and Executive Director of the African Centre for a Green Economy (AfriCGE), argued for the deployment of green business incubation and acceleration tools that would better direct these key resources to where they are most needed. This involves working with local entrepreneurs to promote their businesses where they directly benefit or protect local landscapes. Often, such businesses fall in the realm of ecotourism, or have circular-economy style models. The African Centre for a Green Economy, based in South Africa, works with these businesses in order to source seed funding, and help them find funding in the form of grants, equity and debt.

The above examples are just two of those put forward during the Forum for Global Challenges as a way of reimagining how we consider the Green Economy and realigning our thinking about local interventions. The core concepts lean on interdisciplinary principles to maintain a balance between different stakeholders. Realising these ideas on a larger scale will require buy in from even more policymakers and organisations – but such change stems from innovative projects.

Making a Green Economy happen

Getting from idea to implementation relies on making progress across the board, in our technological capabilities, in our decision-making and regulatory systems, and more. At the Forum for Global Challenges, attendees discussed different pathways to getting Green Economy solutions deployed effectively and swiftly.

Ed Cox, Director of Inclusive Growth and Public Service Reform at the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), explained how the West Midlands Greener Together Forum is helping to involve civil society groups and local people in decision-making around sustainability.

This forum is open several times a year, with the aim of enabling the WMCA to inform their own sustainability plans with the views of the broader public, and of civil society organisations in the region.

It helps to connect the region’s people with the WMCA’s five-year plan to deliver a 33% reduction in carbon use across local transport, homes and businesses by 2026, to create more circular and resource efficient economy, and to protect, restore and enhance the natural environment.

Whereas this highlights a means of transforming decision-making, pioneering research will also have a part to play in making the Green Economy a reality.

Dr Xinfang Wang, from the School of Chemistry at the University of Birmingham, explained how most existing energy solutions today are technology-driven, but this rarely takes into account the contexts of local areas and needs of rural populations. Focus group discussions, facilitated by researchers, were recommended help to understand the specific needs and capabilities of each community and ascertain how these relate to energy needs.

The original research explored access to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy in rural areas of Tlamacazapa, Mexico. It found that a lack of stable electricity access caused issues of night-time safety, an inability to work due to lack of lighting in the home and workspace, educational disruptions to children's learning and ability to complete homework, and constraints to religious worship due to lack of electricity in religious buildings.

From these focus group findings the research team was able to craft a series of renewable energy solutions that would benefit the village based on their needs and energy requirements, and suggested the use of solar photovoltaics coupled with energy storage.

The use of a capabilities approach to identify needs and propose solutions was seen as an effective solution because it responds to the specific needs of a community, ensuring that the technological solutions provided are context-appropriate.

Sharing ideas and seeking new ways forward

Across the Green Economy theme alone there were dozens of other solutions discussed across the plenary sessions and workshops.

In the strand on Measuring Progress in Green Economy, Lord David Willetts, President of Resolution Foundation, introduced an idea on how to reform current economic measures to take green economy metrics into account. He pointed to the work of Professor Partha Dasgupta as evidence that it is possible to incorporate natural capital into economic models by giving it a value, and the work of Nick Stern that considers how we might value the future. Lord Willetts also stressed the need to consider the distributional impacts of climate change policies.

For example, in assessing the ways in which energy taxes might disproportionately affect poor households, it could be argued that an income tax should be used to fund the climate transition. Each of these three elements - changing the discount rate, valuing natural capital and considering distributional impact of sustainability tools and policies - are assessments that can be inserted into a reformed but fundamentally classical economic model to gear it towards a just and equitable green transition.

When discussing Financing a Fair Green Transition, Manjula Lee, Founder and Chief Executive of World Wide Generation explained how the Blue Carbon Initiative is leading the way in using data modelling systems to make predictions about the viability of sustainability solutions.

Their modelling has indicated that kelp and seagrass can sequester carbon at a faster rate than trees (and bioproducts from the sequestered seaweed can be used in biofuel). Had the modelling been available decades sooner, these practices could have been developed much further by now. Modelling offers an indication of which practices are the most efficient and effective, but it requires accurate and reliable data to ensure that it can provide helpful conclusions.

Soukenya Gueye, from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, presented Natura&Co as a best practice example of Creating Value in a Green Economy.

The cosmetics brand uses knowledge from Indigenous Peoples in Brazil to bolster the development of the circular economy. Their work ensures that the forest commodities they use are grown in a regenerative way. The approach provides financial and social return to Indigenous Peoples, while protecting natural spaces and making the business commercially viable.

Here we have touched on a small fraction of the many hundred core solutions discussed at the Forum across the themes.

The University of Birmingham, led by its Institute for Global Innovation, was uniquely placed to convene this Forum, held in the run-up to Birmingham hosting the Commonwealth Games. The Institute's remit and experience in facilitating impactful, solutions-oriented, interdisciplinary research that tackles global challenges enabled the organising team to identify cutting-edge issues, solutions and entrepreneurs. The resulting solutions compendium reflects the forward-thinking global dialogue of the Forum for Global Challenges.

You can explore more of the solutions via our website, to be inspired and motivated, and build on these to help make the world a better place, for people and nature, together.