UNEP launches new textbook on the Green Economy

This text book on the green economy model is a systematic framework that speaks to policy advisers and business executives, and graduate students who will step into those positions in the coming years.

This textbook attempts to offer that systematic framework for the green economy model. It builds on and extends from the traditional economic growth model by articulating the contributions to productivity from investing in natural capital, clean technologies, and green skills, enabled by fiscal, finance, trade, and labour policies. 

As population numbers continue to grow and material resource use rises to unprecedented levels, the limits of today’s dominant model of economic growth have become increasingly apparent: extraction of material resources, including biomass, fossil fuels and non-metallic minerals has tripled since 1970, reaching an approximate 90 billion tonnes in 2019. A comprehensive overview of alternative economic models that center around environmental sustainability – published by UN Environment, the Zayed International Foundation for the Environment and Tongji University – hopes to help guide efforts to move to inclusive, green economies.

The official launch of The Inclusive Green Economy: Policies and Practice marks the successful completion of a long-standing collaborative project.

Nineteen million premature deaths are estimated to occur each year due to environmental and infrastructure-related risks and natural-resource use.

Resource extraction has also been identified as the leading cause of global biodiversity loss. This has led to an increasing number of countries to rethink their economic development model.

“Since Rio+20, an increasing number of countries are embarking on pathways towards inclusive green economies. I hope this book will help guide these efforts globally”,  Dr. Mohamad Ahmed Bin Fahad, Chairman of the Zayed International Foundation for the Environment highlighted in his welcome address at the launch.

An inclusive green economy is defined by UN Environment as one that is low-carbon, efficient and clean in production, but also inclusive, based on sharing, circularity, collaboration, solidarity, resilience, opportunity and interdependence. The handbook aims to offer a comprehensive framework for analysing inclusive green economy issues, such as investing in natural capital and clean technologies, as well as policies to enable investments. 

“With this collection – based on a wide range of thinking on the transition to an inclusive green economy – we hope to provide a useful resource for students and other stakeholders” Derek Eaton, co-editor of the publication, emphasised.

This new textbook makes an important contribution to our understanding of how poverty, inclusiveness and employment issues must be fully taken into account to ensure a fair and just transition to a green economy

Steven Stone, Chief of UN Environment’s Resources and Markets Branch

Commending UN Environment and its partners on their efforts, the Executive Director of the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), Nikhil Seth, further observed that “publications like the one launched today will be instrumental in transmitting novel ideas and concepts that can inspire leaders of tomorrow”.