Page 273 - Special Topic Session (STS) - Volume 1

STS429 Margarita R.
hundreds of millions of people. However, economic growth in recent decades
has been achieved by depleting natural resources, allowing the degradation
and widespread loss of ecosystems and ignoring many people who, besides
living in poverty, depend directly on these resources and systems. According
to forecasts by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD), the world will lose in 2050 in comparison with 2000 from 61% to 72%
of flora and fauna if maintains the same level of production and consumption,
as well as 7.5 million square kilometres will be irreversibly destroyed.
The economic and environmental crisis have the same origin and are
reciprocally enhanced due to the current economic model which seeks short-
term benefits without considering ecosystems as scarce goods or the
consequences generated on the environment and society.
In response to this problem, a new economic paradigm emerges, the green
economy, which can contribute to obtaining material wealth without
increasing environmental risks, ecological scarcity or social inequality. The
concept of green economy is one of the global strategies to confront the
economic and environmental crises faced by contemporary societies.
The concept of green economy does not replace the concept of
sustainable development, but nowadays it is recognized that, in order to
achieve sustainability, it is necessary to change the current brown economic
model. Sustainability remains the vital long-term goal, but the green economy
is describing a pathway to sustainable development.
In this context, the present work approaches methodologically the
conceptualization, objectives, measurement and critiques to this new
economic paradigm.

2. What is a green economy?
The concept of Green Economy is not completely a new concept. It was
first introduced by the London Environmental Economics Centre in a
publication “Blueprint for a Sustainable Economy” in 1989 authored by David
Pearce, Anil Markandya, and Ed Barbier. However, the idea of a more
sustainable economy appeared before in the report of the Club of Rome “The
Limits to Growth” in 1972. At that time the concept did not receive wide
acceptance. With the outbreak of the financial crisis in 2007 and the failure of
most countries to move onto a sustainable development path, it has become
evidently clear that the current development paradigm is not yielding the
desired outcomes on all fronts: economic, social, and environmental.
The demand for a new model of sustainable development reappeared in
2009, when the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) defined the
green economy as “one that results in improved human well-being and social
equity, and significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological
scarcities”. The rise and spread of the concept of the “green economy” has

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