Welcome to my second blog! What is it that made me put pen to paper or fingertips on key board this time?

The Climate Commission Wales ventured to Bangor and WISE Network (www.wisenetwork.org) hosted a breakfast as an opportunity for the Commissioners and local business to discuss ways forward for ‘green’ growth.

It’s been obvious for a long time that words like ‘green’ and ‘sustainability’ mean many things to many people. Rarely do they address the real issue, which is that we have the resources of one planet, that there isn’t a planet B. We are so locked into our current economic model that almost everyone, in public at least, want to be seen to be ‘realistic’ – i.e. business as usual with dab of green on it somewhere (as long as it doesn’t get in the way of ‘job creation’ or increase in GDP and so on).

In my introductory remarks I shared three wishes with the Commission as follows:

Please reassert what sustainability means and place it firmly in the context of ‘one planet’ living?

Please make it very clear that growth at all cost is not an option and boldly lead the discussion on the true green economics which requires investment in human and social capital not resource depletion. It isn’t possible to please everyone all of the time – some people will disagree.

Please remind the Welsh Government of the interconnectedness of all things and that they will have to be prepared for ‘messy’ solutions rather than silo-like non-solutions that may have unintended consequences.

That’s the summary. Below is a paper prepared with Dr Rhydian Fôn James.

The content, as with this blog is our own opinion and does not represent the opinions of anyone else or any organisations with which we might be affiliated.

What is the real colour of growth – a discussion paper prepared following the Climate Change Commission Wales Briefing, Bangor 2^nd October 2012

WISE Network[1] has been invited to sponsor the Climate Change Commission Wales’ breakfast briefing to business in North Wales. The Commission is promoting ‘the clean revolution’[2] which the Welsh Government signed up to in Rio, and wants to discuss with stakeholders how a low carbon economy can be achieved. The meeting was a lively affair and we look forward to reading a summary of the deliberations on the Cynnal Cymru[3] website soon.

Politicians are clearly in a cleft stick over the economy with the impression from most that nothing matters ‘as long as it creates jobs’. We are not politicians, our business is to create space for an open dialogue on what really matters and the aim of this paper is to pick up a ball that people such as Tim Jackson has been kicking around for some time[4].

What better excuse to prepare a discussion paper and where better to start that with than a response to the recently released report by the CBI: The Colour of Growth? [5]

The Colour of Growth

We are delighted that the CBI had taken the trouble to make a case for the economic potential of green business, and suggest ways to realise and maximise this potential.

At first glance, and in the context of accelerating climate change and the quickly disappearing Arctic icecap it would seem to be good news that the report has seen the light of day. It is certainly encouraging that an organisation such as the CBI is considering the ‘green’ agenda as an opportunity rather than a barrier to growth.

From ‘The Clean Revolution’ perspective there are positive signs:

• They accept that there are problems with volume of resource use
• There is a commitment to using energy effectively, especially how we produce goods
• There is a commitment to reducing carbon emissions
• And, as do the CBI, this group also views greening the economy as an opportunity

Warning lights start flashing in the CBI report, when, in the executive summary we learn that ‘green’ and ‘growth’ can go hand in hand: that the low-carbon economy can be an ’engine of growth’. This is certainly possible, but how green would it be?

The Clean Revolution tends to believe that the solution to the looming planetary crisis will be market led and as a result of technological innovation. It’s likely that this will not be enough – in our opinion to achieve the The Clean Revolution aspirations a more fundamental change to the way our economy works is required and a technological upgrade will not be sufficient.

The Real Colour of Growth

Could it be that there is a flaw in the CBI report in that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the current planetary crisis, and its consequent championing of ‘business as usual’ economics (albeit with a ‘green’ slant). We perceive a failure to understand, at a fundamental level, what green growth is. In this report, greenhouse gas (carbon) emissions are identified as the problem, and a low-carbon economy presented as the solution – in other words, for the CBI green simply means ‘low-carbon’ and is also interchangeable with the word sustainable.

On face value, the recommendations it makes for supporting green (low-carbon, sustainable) business in the UK to seize global market opportunities and investment are sensible within the profit-oriented context of mainstream economics. Based on a realistic economic analysis, there is every reason to believe that the suggestions contained in the report would see the UK leading in green business. Unfortunately, what those reading the report are encouraged to ignore is that ‘leading in green business’ as described will not address the underlying planetary crisis; at best it may paper over gaping holes in green policy for a few years and encourage investors to enrich themselves with what we would consider quasi-greenness. And, importantly, in the CBI’s view all growth is green as long as it does not increase GHG emissions, meaning that such growth can exacerbate environmental problems, even whilst being presented as a pro-active solution.

The report restricts itself to two problems: climate change and energy insecurity. In reality, the ecological crisis facing planet earth is far more serious. Energy insecurity is an entirely social crisis precipitated by a wider crisis of resource use and provisioning, whereby too much is used in an unsustainable way, distributed unwisely and in ecologically damaging ways, and without consideration of wider ecological and environmental implications. The crisis of resource use may also be viewed as one of overconsumption, mostly in developed nations; of fossil fuels, of food; of water; of most resources that are virtually ‘essential’ for the modern, ‘21^st-century’ life. The limits of consumption have been, or will soon be, reached. These limits are either denied or ignored and more recently artificially breached – more arable land brought into production from cleared rainforest, more oil from drilling an ice-free Arctic and so on. The inevitable consequences will be feedback from the expanded resource use into further climate change and deepening ecological crisis, and the only check on this feedback will be the decline in availability and eventual exhaustion of resources. Sadly, however, the CBI report fans the flames of the fallacy that limitless growth is possible, as long as it is low-carbon.

Likewise, ‘The Clean Revolution’ seems bound to conventional economics i.e. the economic ‘opportunity’ is tied to company profit and the economic prosperity to growth in GDP.

This link negates the positive aspects of TCR as a conventional economic goal essentially binds us to increase our dependency on natural resources.

The CBI has included a case study to help us illustrate this point nicely. Sainsbury’s, the supermarket chain, we are told has been able to expand its estate without increasing its use of energy. Growth without increasing energy consumption is thus seen as ‘a good thing’, despite the fact that the energy savings that have been made are dwarfed by the increase in floor space and the use of resources has increased to achieve this growth. The report’s championing of this achievement suggests that the CBI sees economic growth – any growth – as its top priority. This conclusion is further supported by the report’s contradictory suggestion that energy-intensive industries be exempt from the costs of Electricity Market Reform[6].

Unless somebody can convince us otherwise, it seems to us that the green growth envisioned by the report is no different to the unfettered, limitless growth espoused by neoliberal thinking, with little or scant regard for the environmental impacts of this growth. Whilst not quite a vision of ‘growth at all costs’, the report seems to believe that making small reductions in energy-use, slowly decarbonizing commercial and industrial endeavour, embracing technological innovation and developing new products is all that is required to enable business as usual.

It is disappointing therefore to note that whilst passing the test of mainstream economics, the report does not pass muster on green economics.

Truly ‘green’ economics

Any discussion of real change brings with it a sharp intake of breath. But if we can’t lead a dialogue on the change that’s required is, who will? We can easily conclude that in the current climate politicians (who are undeniably in a cleft stick) like turkeys will not vote for Christmas.

‘Green economics’ is the economics of the real world—the world of work, human needs, the Earth’s materials, and how they come together in harmony not discord. First and foremost it is about “use-value”, not “exchange-value” or money. It is about quality, not quantity for the sake of it. It is about regeneration and respect for individuals, communities and ecosystems not about accumulation (of either money or material). Respect for ecosystems is a key concept here, as green economics recognises that the environment in which we live is a set of interdependent ecosystems, and that if we damage any one of these we are undermining the house of cards that supports our own society.

Green economics treats economies as one facet – no more or less important than others – of society, which in turn exists within, and is dependent on, the surrounding environment. In this context, green is not interchangeable with low-carbon or ‘sustainable’ though related; it is possible for a development to be low-carbon and/or sustainable without being green in the ‘green economics’ sense. For example, biomass plants are carbon-neutral and may be sustainable according to the conventional CBI definition, but the impact of growing energy crops on local ecosystems may be undesirable from the ‘green economics’ perspective by failing a more holistic view of the impact of such an activity on people and their environment. As such it cannot therefore be considered ‘green’.

Real green growth can only occur within such a framework. Any growth causing environmental or ecological damage, whether or not it is mitigated, is not green, and neither is growth causing social damage such as increasing inequality or exploitation of workers. This discussion of greenness as a social issue may seem unusual, but green economists see issues such as equity and fairness as key to building a society that respects the environment – with an example being the economic pressure on low earners to consume unsustainably-sourced goods. Most growth is not green, even if it can be achieved without increasing energy consumption and thus GHG emissions. This is because growth involves increases in the use of some resource. Increasing the use of any natural resource will result in some degree of environmental degradation or ecological damage. The only possible green growth is growth in social resource use – ways for people to work together more effectively without being exploited, human capital growth through better education and training, and scientific innovation. That is, green growth depends entirely on the development of society and not the exploitation of nature.

It should be noted that this definition of green growth does not mean that industrial advancement – green technology and manufacturing processes – or agronomic development is not worth researching, if it can be ensured that these developments do not lead to damage to the network of ecosystems upon which society rests. However, such advances have limitations, and should be pursued in tandem with social change, with an emphasis on changing patterns of supply, provisioning and consumption.

Rhydian Fôn James & Einir Young