Green Economy

The green economy is one that results in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. Green economy is an economy or economic development model based on sustainable development and a knowledge of ecological economics.

A feature distinguishing it from prior economic regimes is the direct valuation of natural capital and ecological services as having economic value (see The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity and Bank of Natural Capital) and a full cost accounting regime in which costs externalized onto society via ecosystems are reliably traced back to, and accounted for as liabilities of, the entity that does the harm or neglects an asset.

For an overview of the developments in international environment policy that led up to the UNEP Green Economy Report, see Runnals (2011).

Green Sticker and ecolabel practices have emerged as consumer facing measurements of sustainability. Many industries are starting to adopting these standards as a viable way to promote their greening practices in a globalizing economy.