"SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT"

"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts:

• the concept of needs, in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and
  
• the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs."
  

All definitions of sustainable development require that we see the world as a system—a system that connects space; and a system that connects time.
When you think of the world as a system over space, you grow to understand that air pollution from North America affects air quality in Asia, and that pesticides sprayed in Argentina could harm fish stocks off the coast of Australia.
And when you think of the world as a system over time, you start to realize that the decisions our grandparents made about how to farm the land continue to affect agricultural practice today; and the economic policies we endorse today will have an impact on urban poverty when our children are adults.
We also understand that quality of life is a system, too. It's good to be physically healthy, but what if you are poor and don't have access to education? It's good to have a secure income, but what if the air in your part of the world is unclean? And it's good to have freedom of religious expression, but what if you can't feed your family?
The concept of sustainable development is rooted is this sort of systems thinking. It helps us understand ourselves and our world. The problems we face are complex and serious—and we can't address them in the same way we created them. But we can address them.
It's that basic optimism that motivates Darmawangreenfund's staff, associates and board to innovate for a healthy and meaningful future for this planet and its inhabitants.

Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for future generations. The term was used by the Brundtland Commission which coined what has become the most often-quoted definition of sustainable development as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."^[1][2]
Sustainable development ties together concern for the carrying capacity of natural systems with the social challenges facing humanity. As early as the 1970s "sustainability" was employed to describe an economy "in equilibrium with basic ecological support systems."^[3] Ecologists have pointed to The Limits to Growth,^{[citation needed]} and presented the alternative of a "steady state economy"^[4] in order to address environmental concerns.
The field of sustainable development can be conceptually broken into three constituent parts: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and sociopolitical sustainability.

Scope and definitions

A representation of sustainability showing how both economy and society are constrained by environmental limits (2003)^[5]

Scheme of sustainable development: at the confluence of three constituent parts.(2006)^[6][7]

The natural resource of wind powers these 5MW wind turbines on this wind farm 28 km off the coast of Belgium.

The concept has included notions of weak sustainability, strong sustainability and deep ecology. Sustainable development does not focus solely on environmental issues.
In 1987, the United Nations released the Brundtland Report, which defines sustainable development as 'development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.'^[8]
The United Nations 2005 World Summit Outcome Document refers to the "interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars" of sustainable development as economic development, social development, and environmental protection.^[9]
Indigenous peoples have argued, through various international forums such as the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and the Convention on Biological Diversity, that there are four pillars of sustainable development, the fourth being cultural. The Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (UNESCO, 2001) further elaborates the concept by stating that "...cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature”; it becomes “one of the roots of development understood not simply in terms of economic growth, but also as a means to achieve a more satisfactory intellectual, emotional, moral and spiritual existence". In this vision, cultural diversity is the fourth policy area of sustainable development.
Economic Sustainability: Agenda 21 clearly identified information, integration, and participation as key building blocks to help countries achieve development that recognises these interdependent pillars. It emphasises that in sustainable development everyone is a user and provider of information. It stresses the need to change from old sector-centred ways of doing business to new approaches that involve cross-sectoral co-ordination and the integration of environmental and social concerns into all development processes. Furthermore, Agenda 21 emphasises that broad public participation in decision making is a fundamental prerequisite for achieving sustainable development.^[10]
According to Hasna Vancock, sustainability is a process which tells of a development of all aspects of human life affecting sustenance. It means resolving the conflict between the various competing goals, and involves the simultaneous pursuit of economic prosperity, environmental quality and social equity famously known as three dimensions (triple bottom line) with is the resultant vector being technology, hence it is a continually evolving process; the 'journey' (the process of achieving sustainability) is of course vitally important, but only as a means of getting to the destination (the desired future state). However, the 'destination' of sustainability is not a fixed place in the normal sense that we understand destination. Instead, it is a set of wishful characteristics of a future system.^[11]

Solar towers utilize the natural resource of the sun, and are a renewable energy source. From left: PS10 and PS20 solar towers.

Green development is generally differentiated from sustainable development in that Green development prioritizes what its proponents consider to be environmental sustainability over economic and cultural considerations. Proponents of Sustainable Development argue that it provides a context in which to improve overall sustainability where cutting edge Green development is unattainable. For example, a cutting edge treatment plant with extremely high maintenance costs may not be sustainable in regions of the world with fewer financial resources. An environmentally ideal plant that is shut down due to bankruptcy is obviously less sustainable than one that is maintainable by the community, even if it is somewhat less effective from an environmental standpoint.
Some research activities start from this definition to argue that the environment is a combination of nature and culture. The Network of Excellence "Sustainable Development in a Diverse World",^[12] sponsored by the European Union, integrates multidisciplinary capacities and interprets cultural diversity as a key element of a new strategy for sustainable development.
Still other researchers view environmental and social challenges as opportunities for development action. This is particularly true in the concept of sustainable enterprise that frames these global needs as opportunities for private enterprise to provide innovative and entrepreneurial solutions. This view is now being taught at many business schools including the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell University and the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan.
The United Nations Division for Sustainable Development lists the following areas as coming within the scope of sustainable development:^[13]
Sustainable development is an eclectic concept, as a wide array of views fall under its umbrella. The concept has included notions of weak sustainability, strong sustainability and deep ecology. Different conceptions also reveal a strong tension between ecocentrism and anthropocentrism. Many definitions and images (Visualizing Sustainability) of sustainable development coexist. Broadly defined, the sustainable development mantra enjoins current generations to take a systems approach to growth and development and to manage natural, produced, and social capital for the welfare of their own and future generations.
During the last ten years, different organizations have tried to measure and monitor the proximity to what they consider sustainability by implementing what has been called sustainability metrics and indices.^[14]
Sustainable development is said to set limits on the developing world. While current first world countries polluted significantly during their development, the same countries encourage third world countries to reduce pollution, which sometimes impedes growth. Some consider that the implementation of sustainable development would mean a reversion to pre-modern lifestyles.^[15]
Others have criticized the overuse of the term:

"[The] word sustainable has been used in too many situations today, and ecological sustainability is one of those terms that confuse a lot of people. You hear about sustainable development, sustainable growth, sustainable economies, sustainable societies, sustainable agriculture. Everything is sustainable (Temple, 1992)."^[15]

Environmental sustainability

Water is an important natural resource that covers 71% of the Earth's surface. Image is the Earth photographed from Apollo 17.

Environmental sustainability is the process of making sure current processes of interaction with the environment are pursued with the idea of keeping the environment as pristine as naturally possible based on ideal-seeking behavior.
An "unsustainable situation" occurs when natural capital (the sum total of nature's resources) is used up faster than it can be replenished. Sustainability requires that human activity only uses nature's resources at a rate at which they can be replenished naturally. Inherently the concept of sustainable development is intertwined with the concept of carrying capacity. Theoretically, the long-term result of environmental degradation is the inability to sustain human life. Such degradation on a global scale could imply extinction for humanity.

Consumption of renewable resources	State of environment	Sustainability
More than nature's ability to replenish	Environmental degradation	Not sustainable
Equal to nature's ability to replenish	Environmental equilibrium	Steady state economy
Less than nature's ability to replenish	Environmental renewal	Environmentally sustainable

The notion of capital in sustainable development

The sustainable development debate is based on the assumption that societies need to manage three types of capital (economic, social, and natural), which may be non-substitutable and whose consumption might be irreversible.^[16] Daly (1991),^[17] for example, points to the fact that natural capital can not necessarily be substituted by economic capital. While it is possible that we can find ways to replace some natural resources, it is much more unlikely that they will ever be able to replace eco-system services, such as the protection provided by the ozone layer, or the climate stabilizing function of the Amazonian forest. In fact natural capital, social capital and economic capital are often complementarities. A further obstacle to substitutability lies also in the multi-functionality of many natural resources. Forests, for example, not only provide the raw material for paper (which can be substituted quite easily), but they also maintain biodiversity, regulate water flow, and absorb CO2.
Another problem of natural and social capital deterioration lies in their partial irreversibility. The loss in biodiversity, for example, is often definite. The same can be true for cultural diversity. For example with globalisation advancing quickly the number of indigenous languages is dropping at alarming rates. Moreover, the depletion of natural and social capital may have non-linear consequences. Consumption of natural and social capital may have no observable impact until a certain threshold is reached. A lake can, for example, absorb nutrients for a long time while actually increasing its productivity. However, once a certain level of algae is reached lack of oxygen causes the lake’s ecosystem to break down suddenly.

Market failure

Before flue gas desulfurization was installed, the air-polluting emissions from this power plant in New Mexico contained excessive amounts of sulfur dioxide.

If the degradation of natural and social capital has such important consequence the question arises why action is not taken more systematically to alleviate it. Cohen and Winn (2007)^[18] point to four types of market failure as possible explanations: First, while the benefits of natural or social capital depletion can usually be privatized the costs are often externalized (i.e. they are borne not by the party responsible but by society in general). Second, natural capital is often undervalued by society since we are not fully aware of the real cost of the depletion of natural capital. Information asymmetry is a third reason—often the link between cause and effect is obscured, making it difficult for actors to make informed choices. Cohen and Winn close with the realization that contrary to economic theory many firms are not perfect optimizers. They postulate that firms often do not optimize resource allocation because they are caught in a "business as usual" mentality.

The business case for sustainable development

The most broadly accepted criterion for corporate sustainability constitutes a firm’s efficient use of natural capital. This eco-efficiency is usually calculated as the economic value added by a firm in relation to its aggregated ecological impact.^[19] This idea has been popularised by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) under the following definition: "Eco-efficiency is achieved by the delivery of competitively priced goods and services that satisfy human needs and bring quality of life, while progressively reducing ecological impacts and resource intensity throughout the life-cycle to a level at least in line with the earth’s carrying capacity." (DeSimone and Popoff, 1997: 47)^[20]
Similar to the eco-efficiency concept but so far less explored is the second criterion for corporate sustainability. Socio-efficiency^[21] describes the relation between a firm's value added and its social impact. Whereas, it can be assumed that most corporate impacts on the environment are negative (apart from rare exceptions such as the planting of trees) this is not true for social impacts. These can be either positive (e.g. corporate giving, creation of employment) or negative (e.g. work accidents, mobbing of employees, human rights abuses). Depending on the type of impact socio-efficiency thus either tries to minimize negative social impacts (i.e. accidents per value added) or maximise positive social impacts (i.e. donations per value added) in relation to the value added.
Both eco-efficiency and socio-efficiency are concerned primarily with increasing economic sustainability. In this process they instrumentalize both natural and social capital aiming to benefit from win-win situations. However, as Dyllick and Hockerts^[21] point out the business case alone will not be sufficient to realise sustainable development. They point towards eco-effectiveness, socio-effectiveness, sufficiency, and eco-equity as four criteria that need to be met if sustainable development is to be reached.

Critique of the concept of sustainable development

Deforestation and increased road-building in the Amazon Rainforest are a significant concern because of increased human encroachment upon wilderness areas, increased resource extraction and further threats to biodiversity.

The concept of "Sustainable Development" raises several critiques at different levels.

Purpose

Various writers have commented on the population control agenda that seems to underlie the concept of sustainable development. Maria Sophia Aguirre writes:^[22]

"Sustainable development is a policy approach that has gained quite a lot of popularity in recent years, especially in international circles. By attaching a specific interpretation to sustainability, population control policies have become the overriding approach to development, thus becoming the primary tool used to “promote” economic development in developing countries and to protect the environment."

Mary Jo Anderson suggests that the real purpose of sustainable development is to contain and limit economic development in developing countries, and in so doing control population growth.^[23] It is suggested that this is the reason the main focus of most programs is still on low-income agriculture. Joan Veon, a businesswoman and international reporter, who covered 64 global meetings on sustainable development posits that:^[24]

"Sustainable development has continued to evolve as that of protecting the world's resources while its true agenda is to control the world's resources. It should be noted that Agenda 21 sets up the global infrastructure needed to manage, count, and control all of the world's assets."

Consequences

The retreat of Aletsch Glacier in the Swiss Alps (situation in 1979, 1991 and 2002), due to global warming.

John Baden^[25] views the notion of sustainable development as dangerous because the consequences have unknown effects. He writes: "In economy like in ecology, the interdependence rule applies. Isolated actions are impossible. A policy which is not carefully enough thought will carry along various perverse and adverse effects for the ecology as much as for the economy. Many suggestions to save our environment and to promote a model of 'sustainable development' risk indeed leading to reverse effects."^[26] Moreover, he evokes the bounds of public action which are underlined by the public choice theory: the quest by politicians of their own interests, lobby pressure, partial disclosure etc. He develops his critique by noting the vagueness of the expression, which can cover anything : .  It is a gateway to interventionist proceedings which can be against the principle of freedom and without proven efficacy. Against this notion, he is a proponent of private property to impel the producers and the consumers to save the natural resources. According to Baden, “the improvement of environment quality depends on the market economy and the existence of legitimate and protected property rights.” They enable the effective practice of personal responsibility and the development of mechanisms to protect the environment. The State can in this context “create conditions which encourage the people to save the environment.”^[27]

Vagueness of the term

A sewage treatment plant that uses environmentally friendly solar energy, located at Santuari de Lluc monastery.

Some criticize the term "sustainable development", stating that the term is too vague. For example, both Jean-Marc Jancovici^[28] or the philosopher Luc Ferry^[29] express this view. The latter writes about sustainable development: "I know that this term is obligatory, but I find it also absurd, or rather so vague that it says nothing." Luc Ferry adds that the term is trivial by a proof of contradiction: "who would like to be a proponent of an “untenable development! Of course no one! [..] The term is more charming than meaningful. [..] Everything must be done so that it does not turn into Russian-type administrative planning with ill effects."

Basis

Sylvie Brunel, French geographer and specialist of the Third World, develops in A qui profite le développement durable (Who benefits from sustainable development?) (2008) a critique of the basis of sustainable development, with its binary vision of the world, can be compared to the Christian vision of Good and Evil, a idealized nature where the human being is an animal like the others or even an alien. Nature – as Rousseau thought – is better than the human being. It is a parasite, harmful for the nature. But the human is the one who protects the biodiversity, where normally only the strong survive.^[30]
Moreover, she thinks that the ideas of sustainable development can hide a will to protectionism from the developed country to impede the development of the other countries. For Sylvie Brunel, the sustainable development serves as a pretext for the protectionism and "I have the feeling about sustainable development that it is perfectly helping out the capitalism".^[30]

"De-growth"

The proponents of the de-growth reckon that the term of sustainable development is an oxymoron. According to them, on a planet where 20% of the population consumes 80% of the natural resources, a sustainable development cannot be possible for this 20%: "According to the origin of the concept of sustainable development, a development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, the right term for the developed countries should be a sustainable de-growth".^[31]

Sustainable development in economics

The Venn diagram of sustainable development shown above has many versions,^[32] but was first used by economist Edward Barbier (1987).^[33] However, Pearce, Barbier and Markandya (1989)^[34] criticized the Venn approach due to the intractability of operationalizing separate indices of economic, environmental, and social sustainability and somehow combining them. They also noted that the Venn approach was inconsistent with the Brundtland Commission Report, which emphasized the interlinkages between economic development, environmental degradation, and population pressure instead of three objectives. Economists have since focused on viewing the economy and the environment as a single interlinked system with a unified valuation methodology (Hamilton 1999^[35], Dasgupta 2007^[36]). Intergenerational equity can be incorporated into this approach, as has become common in economic valuations of climate change economics (Heal,2009)^[37]. Ruling out discrimination against future generations and allowing for the possibility of renewable alternatives to petro-chemicals and other non-renewable resources, efficient policies are compatible with increasing human welfare, eventually reaching a golden-rule steady state (Ayong le Kama, 2001^[38] and Endress et al.2005^[39]). Thus the three pillars of sustainable development are interlinkages, intergenerational equity, and dynamic efficiency (Stavins, et al. 2003).^[40]
Arrow et al. (2004)^[41] and other economists (e.g. Asheim,1999^[42] and Pezzey, 1989^[43] and 1997^[44]) have advocated a form of the weak criterion for sustainable development – the requirement than the wealth of a society, including human-capital, knowledge-capital and natural-capital (as well as produced capital) not decline over time. Others, including Barbier 2007,^[45] continue to contend that strong sustainability – non-depletion of essential forms of natural capital – may be appropriate.

See also

	Sustainable Development portal
	Environment portal
	Ecology portal
	Earth sciences portal
	Energy portal

• Applied Sustainability
• Bright green environmentalism
• C. Arden Pope
• Carrying capacity
• Centre for Development and Population Activities
• Civilization
• Clean tech law
• Cleaner Production
• Conservation biology
• Conservation development
• Conservation ethic
• Cultural landscape
• Ecological economics
• Ecologically sustainable development
• Environmental issue
• Green building
• Green Globe
• Hydroelectricity
• Industrial Ecology
• Living Planet Index
• Limits to growth
• Geothermal energy
• Maximum sustainable yield
• Micro-Sustainability
• Natural environment
• Natural landscape
• Nature
• Outline of sustainability
• List of sustainability topics
• Passive solar building design
• Renewable energy
• Residential cluster development
• Solar energy
• Strategic Sustainable Development
• Sustainable forest management
• Sustainable living
• Sustainable yield
• Sustainopreneurship
• World Cities Summit
• Zero carbon city

]

Organizations and research

• 2010 International Year of Biodiversity
• 2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership
• Afrique verte
• Agronomy for Sustainable Development
• Appropedia
• Dashboard of Sustainability
• Earth Charter
• Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei
• Greenhouse Development Rights
• Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES)
• Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development (ITSSD)
• International Institute for Environment and Development
• International Institute for Sustainable Development
• International Mountain Day - Dec. 11
• International Organization for Sustainable Development
• National Center for Appropriate Technology
• National Strategy for a Sustainable America
• Sovereignty International
• Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future
• Sustainable Tourism CRC
• The Earth Institute
• The Venus Project
• United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development
• World Citi

"CARBON CREDIT CAPITAL"

Carbon Credit Capital is a renewable energy financial services and project development company dedicated to using carbon finance to catalyze greenhouse gas reduction projects.
We identify and attract financing and bring our expertise in carbon finance and clean energy to local project development teams.
We are based in JAKARTA.
Please Contact us to see how our services can be of value to your enterprise.

"CARBON CREDIT"

What Does Carbon Credit Mean?
A permit that allows the holder to emit one ton of carbon dioxide. Credits are awarded to countries or groups that have reduced their green house gases below their emission quota. Carbon credits can be traded in the international market at their current market price. 

 

Investopedia explains Carbon Credit
The carbon credit system was ratified in conjunction with the Kyoto Protocol. Its goal is to stop the increase of carbon dioxide emissions.

For example, if an environmentalist group plants enough trees to reduce emissions by one ton, the group will be awarded a credit. If a steel producer has an emissions quota of 10 tons, but is expecting to produce 11 tons, it could purchase this carbon credit from the environmental group. The carbon credit system looks to reduce emissions by having countries honor their emission quotas and offer incentives for being below them.

"GREEN ECONOMICS

A green economy is a economy or economic development model based on sustainable development and a knowledge of ecological economics.
Karl Burkart defines a green economy as based on six main sectors:^[1]

• Renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal, marine including wave, biogas, and fuel cell)
• Green buildings (green retrofits for energy and water efficiency, residential and commercial assessment; green products and materials, and LEED construction)
• Clean transportation (alternative fuels, public transit, hybrid and electric vehicles, carsharing and carpooling programs)
• Water management (Water reclamation, greywater and rainwater systems, low-water landscaping, water purification, stormwater management)
• Waste management (recycling, municipal solid waste salvage, brownfield land remediation, Superfund cleanup, sustainable packaging)
• Land management (organic agriculture, habitat conservation and restoration; urban forestry and parks, reforestation and afforestation and soil stabilization)

The Global Citizens Center, led by Kevin Danaher, defines green economy in terms of a "triple bottom line," an economy concerned with being:^[2]

(1) Environmentally sustainable, based on the belief that our biosphere is a closed system with finite resources and a limited capacity for self-regulation and self-renewal. We depend on the earth’s natural resources, and therefore we must create an economic system that respects the integrity of ecosystems and ensures the resilience of life supporting systems.

(2) Socially just, based on the belief that culture and human dignity are precious resources that, like our natural resources, require responsible stewardship to avoid their depletion. We must create a vibrant economic system that ensures all people have access to a decent standard of living and full opportunities for personal and social development.

(3) Locally rooted, based on the belief that an authentic connection to place is the essential pre-condition to sustainability and justice. The Green Economy is a global aggregate of individual communities meeting the needs of its citizens through the responsible, local production and exchange of goods and services.

In the midst of the global economic crisis, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) called for a global Green New Deal according to which governments were encouraged to support its economic transformation to a greener economy.^[3]
Green economy includes green energy generation based on renewable energy to substitute for fossil fuels and energy conservation for efficient energy use. The green economy is considered being able to both create green jobs, ensure real, sustainable economic growth, and prevent environmental pollution, global warming, resource depletion, and environmental degradation.
Because the market failure related to environmental and climate protection as a result of external costs, high future commercial rates and associated high initial costs for research, development, and marketing of green energy sources and green products prevents firms from being voluntarily interested in reducing environment-unfriendly activities (Reinhardt, 1999; King and Lenox, 2002; Wagner, 203; Wagner, et al., 2005), the green economy is considered needing government subsidies as market incentives to motivate firms to invest and produce green products and services. The German Renewable Energy Act, legislations of many other EU countries and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, all provide such market incentives.
However, there are still incompatibilities between the UN global green new deal call and the existing international trade mechanism in terms of market incentives. For example, the WTO Subsidies Agreement has strict rules against government subsidies, especially for exported goods. Such incompatibilities may serve as obstacles to governments' responses to the UN Global green new deal call. WTO needs to update its subsidy rules to account for the needs of accelerating the transition to the green, low-carbon economy. Research is urgently needed to inform the governments and the international community how the governments should promote the green economy within their national borders without being engaged in trade wars in the name of the green economy and how they should cooperate in their promotional efforts at a coordinated international level.

"GREEN ECONOMICS

What Does Green Economics Mean?
A methodology of economics that supports the harmonious interaction between humans and nature and attempts to meet the needs of both simultaneously. The green economic theories encompass a wide range of ideas all dealing with the interconnected relationship between people and the environment. Green economists assert that the basis for all economic decisions should be in some way tied to the ecosystem.

 

 

Investopedia explains Green Economics

Green economists perceive nature as being extremely valuable and seek to maintain it. Supporters of this branch of economics are concerned with the environment and believe that actions should be taken to protect nature and encourage the positive co-existence of both humans and nature. Emphasis is placed on creating value through quality rather than on accumulating material items and money.

     

WHAT IS GREEN ECONOMICS?

Green economics is the economics of the real world—the world of work, human needs, the Earth’s materials, and how they mesh together most harmoniously.  It is primarily about “use-value”, not “exchange-value” or money.  It is about quality, not quantity for the sake of it.  It is about regeneration---of individuals, communities and ecosystems---not about accumulation, of either money or material.  

The industrial or capitalist definition of wealth has always been about the accumulation of money and matter.  Any use-values generated (i.e. social needs met) have been secondary—a side-effect, by-product, spin-off or trickle-down—to the primary goal of monetary accumulation.    For two centuries, the quest to accumulate money or capital drove a powerful industrialization process that actually did spin off many human benefits, however unfairly distributed.  But blind material and monetary growth has reached a threshold where it is generating more destruction than real wealth.  A postindustrial world requires an economics of quality, where both money and matter are returned to a status of means to an end.  Green economics means a direct focus on meeting human and environmental need.

Tinkering with money, interest rates, or even state regulation is insufficient in creating sensible economies.  One can scarcely imagine a more inefficient, irrational and wasteful way to organize any sector of the economy than what we actually have right now.  Both the form and the content of sustainable agriculture, of green manufacturing, of soft energy, etc. are diametrically opposed to their current industrial counterparts, which are intrinsically wasteful.   There is no justifiable rationale to be producing vast quantities of toxic materials; or generating more deskilled than skilled labour; or displacing labour rather than resources from production; or extending giant wasteful loops of production & consumption through globalization.  These are economic inefficiencies, economic irrationalities that can only be righted by starting from scratch—to look at the most elegant and efficient ways of doing everything.  As green economist Paul Hawken writes, our social and environmental crises are not problems of management, but of design.  We need a system overhaul.

Green economics is not just about the environment.  Certainly we must move to harmonize with natural systems, to make our economies flow benignly like sailboats in the wind of ecosystem processes.  But doing this requires great human creativity, tremendous knowledge, and the widespread participation of everyone.  Human beings and human workers can no longer serve as cogs in the machine of accumulation, be it capitalistic or socialistic.  Ecological development requires an unleashing of human development and an extension of democracy.  Social and ecological transformation go hand-in-hand.  

            Green economics and green politics both emphasize the creation of positive alternatives in all areas of life and every sector of the economy. Green economics does not prioritize support for either the "public" or the "private" sector. It argues that BOTH sectors must be transformed so that markets express social and ecological values, and the state becomes merged with grassroots networks of community innovation. For this to happen, new economic processes must be designed, and new rules of the game written, so that incentives for ecological conduct are built into everyday economic life. The state can then function less as a policeman, and more as a coordinator. This is a very different kind of "self-regulation" than current profit- and power- driven market forces. The basis for self-regulation in a green economy would be community, and intelligent design which provides incentives for the right things.

           Here are ten interrelated principles that cover key dimensions of a green economy:

1. The Primacy of Use-value, Intrinsic Value & Quality: This is the fundamental principle of the green economy as a service economy, focused on end-use, or human and environment needs. Matter is a means to the end of satisfying real need, and can be radically conserved. Money similarly must be returned to a status as a means to facilitate regenerative exchanges, rather than an end in itself. When this is done in even a significant portion of the economy, it can undercut the totalitarian power of money in the entire economy.

2. Following Natural Flows: The economy moves like a proverbial sailboat in the wind of natural processes by flowing not only with solar, renewable and "negawatt" energy, but also with natural hydrological cycles, with regional vegetation and food webs, and with local materials. As society becomes more ecological, political and economic boundaries tend to coincide with ecosystem boundaries. That is, it becomes bioregional.

3. Waste Equals Food: In nature there is no waste, as every process output is an input for some other process. This principle implies not only a high degree of organizational complementarity, but also that outputs and by-products are nutritious and non-toxic enough to be food for something.

4. Elegance and Multifunctionality: Complex food webs are implied by the previous principle--integrated relationships which are antithetical to industrial society's segmentation and fragmentation. What Roberts & Brandum (1995) call "economics with peripheral vision", this elegance features "problem-solving strategies that develop multiple wins and positive side-effects from any one set of actions".

5. Appropriate Scale / Linked Scale: This does not simply mean "small is beautiful", but that every regenerative activity has its most appropriate scale of operation. Even the smallest activities have larger impacts, however, and truly ecological activity "integrates design across multiple scales", reflecting influence of larger on smaller and smaller on larger (Van der Ryn and Cowan, 1996).

6. Diversity: In a world of constant flux, health and stability seem to depend on diversity. This applies to all levels (diversity of species, of ecosystems, of regions), and to social as well as ecological organization.

7. Self-Reliance, Self-Organization, Self-Design: Complex systems necessarily rely on "nested hierarchies" of intelligence which coordinate among themselves in a kind of resonant dance. These hierarchies are built from the bottom up, and--in contrast to civilization's social hierarchies--the base levels are the most important. In an economy which moves with ecosystem processes, tremendous scope for local response, design and adaptation must be provided--although these local and regional domains must be attuned to larger processes. Self-reliance is not self-sufficiency, but facilitates a more flexible and holistic interdependence.

8. Participation & Direct Democracy: To enable flexibility and resilience, ecological economic design features a high "eyes to acres" ratio (Van der Ryn & Cowan, 1996)--that is, lots of local observation and participation. Conversely, ecological organization and new information/communications technologies can provide the means for deeper levels of participation in the decisions that count in society.

9. Human Creativity and Development:  Displacing resources from production and tuning into the spontaneous productivity of nature requires tremendous creativity.  It requires all-round human development that entails great qualities of nurture.  These are qualities of giving and real service that have been suppressed (especially in men) by the social and psychological conditioning of the industrial order.   In green change, the personal and political, the social and ecological, go hand-in-hand.  Social, aesthetic and spiritual capacities become central to attaining economic efficiency, and become important goals in themselves. 

10. The Strategic role of the Built-environment, the Landscape & Spatial Design: As Permaculturalist Bill Mollison  has emphasized, the greatest efficiency gains can often be achieved by a simple spatial rearrangement of system components. Elegant, mixed-use integrated design which moves with nature is place-based. In addition, our buildings, in one way or another, absorb around 40 per cent of materials and energy throughput in North America. Thus, conservation and efficiency improvements in this sector impact tremendously on the entire economy.
 

Green economic conversion must be radical, but it must also be incremental and organic. How is this possible? Rodale cites the need for a kind of economic succession which mimics ecological landscape change. We need "pioneer enterprises" which can thrive in today's hostile economic landscape, but also prepare the ground for more ecological and egalitarian enterprises to come. A vision of what each sector of the economy would look like in an ecological economy--based on the specifics of each place--is a starting point. This vision must be coupled with practical action in each of these sectors, gradually moving toward this vision. Enough practical activity can eventually generate the impetus for state action to level the playing field for ecological alternatives.

"GREEN FUND"

What Does Green Fund Mean?
A mutual fund or other investment vehicle that will only invest in companies that are deemed socially conscious in their business dealings or directly promote environmental responsibility. A green fund can come in the form of a focused investment vehicle for companies engaged in environmentally supportive businesses, such as alternative energy, green transport, water and waste management, and sustainable living. 

Investopedia explains Green Fund
A green fund's strategy can be based on avoiding negative company criteria (businesses such as guns, alcohol, gambling, pornography, animal testing, etc.), choosing positive company criteria (environmental programs, energy conservation, fair trade, etc.), or a combination of both strategies.

Based on performance, it is not yet clear whether green funds and socially responsible investing can consistently create better returns for investors. But they do represent a proactive step toward environmental consciousness, which many investors appreciate.

Socially conscious investing is on the rise, which is due largely to increased worldwide exposure to the issue, as well as increased federal funding for alternative energy and other programs. 

The Purpose of the Green Fund

The Green Fund was established to financially assist registered community groups and organizations that are primarily concerned with and engaged in activities related to the remediation – remedying environmental damage, reforestation – replanting with trees and conversation of the environment – preservation of the natural environment and wildlife.

"GREEN FUND "

What Does Green Fund Mean?
A mutual fund or other investment vehicle that will only invest in companies that are deemed socially conscious in their business dealings or directly promote environmental responsibility. A green fund can come in the form of a focused investment vehicle for companies engaged in environmentally supportive businesses, such as alternative energy, green transport, water and waste management, and sustainable living.