Green Economy

An ecological crisis that is becoming increasingly hard to ignore is confronting policymakers with a dilemma: they are being called upon to protect the conditions for life on Earth without overly hampering industrial production and economic growth.

Corporations whose business models require the exploitation and destruction of nature are increasingly marketing products as carbon-neutral and deforestation-free. This is made possible by the concept of “compensation instead of reduction”. How does it work?  

Ralf Fuecks on Green Growth, Smart Growth – A New Approach to Economics, Environment & Innovation at the 37th Vikram Sarabhai Memorial Lecture in Ahmedabad, October 7th, 2015.

The attempt to connect environmental and economic objectives turn out more difficult than expected. The green transformation must be seen as a political task.

Even within the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the various concepts of a sustainable, environmentally friendly and participatory economy are the subject of intense debate. A introduction on the background of this book by the foundations presidents Barbara Unmüßig and Ralf Fücks.

Green Economy is a source of both hope and controversy. For some, it points the way out of permanent environmental and economic crises and promises to reconcile – a long cherished Utopia – ecology and economics. It fosters the hope that we can hang on to our current high standard of material prosperity.

“Business as usual” is not a realistic option, as even the international mainstream of the World Bank, UNEP and OECD acknowledge, an admission which has in turn boosted the Green Economy’s career prospects.

Green Economy sets out to rectify the failure of classical economics witnessed with regard to climate change and biodiversity loss by assigning a monetary value to nature and by integrating ecosystem services into the market system.

Aviation is a good example of how emissions reduction targets can be met without cutting emissions.

Economic sciences are not the same as evolutionary theory. But why do we consider economy as nature given? We don't have to, says ecologocial economist Irene Schöne.

The climate agreement from Paris embodies the reign of CO2 balances and reinforced so another chapter in the long history of capitalist quantification.

Without active U.S. participation in the global energy transformation, reaching the goals agreed upon in Paris will be almost impossible. If nothing else will convince the majority in the U.S. Congress, then the China factor should.

Thomas Fatheuer, Lili Fuhr and Barbara Unmüßig of the Heinrich Böll Foundation set out to explore the basic assumptions, hypotheses and proposed solutions of the green economy and to illustrate and criticize their effects in practice.

Rural women increasingly come to be seen as vital agents in response to climate change. Disproportionately affected by it's impacts, these women also have a critical role in combating the weather changes, analyses Camila Moreno.

Bloody wars are waged, democracy and human rights are challenged, climate change advances: Within a world out of joint, what are the international norms, political actors and concrete initiatives breathing life into a Green vision for peace, social justice and environmental stability?

Is our economy essentially wrong? It beliefs in abundant material resources and meanwhile infinite immaterial resources like knowledge and design are maintained artifically scarce, but there is an alternative.

The expert symposium "Financing the Green Transformation" (May 5th, 2014) discussed how financial markets and investment practices could be transformed into more stable and sustainable systems. This documentation sums up the most important findings.

How far can a value be placed on the “services” of nature? Thomas Fatheuer provides a readily under-standable introduction to the subject and illuminates the concepts and instruments that fol-low from the idea of monetarizing nature. In his first chapter he explains the context of the debate.

The "natural capital" concept is a trending topic and even companies like Coca-Cola attended the World Forum on Natural Capital 2013 in Edinburgh. But how does natural capital accounting really work?

Large-scale wind farms and solar power plants are springing up everywhere one looks. That’s good for the climate, but small-scale farmers and the poor are becoming the pawns of hard-nosed business interests around the world.