Green Economics – Time for a Different Field of Study?
This week marked the first event of its kind in Copenhagen – The World Business Summit on Climate Change – the focus of which was exploring how the next global treaty can be shaped to encourage business action on climate change. It seemed to me that the most productive speeches/comments that I heard (on the web, thanks to streaming video – kudos to conference organizers for such a great website) were made by the Danish Minister of Climate and Energy, Connie Hedegaard and Al Gore.
I found the business leaders seemed more interested in marketing than bringing new ideas to the table. This might be a function of the public nature of the meeting. Perhaps it would have been a better idea to hold this meeting away from the public and media eye, so that frank discussions could take place rather than what seemed like endless self-promotion.
This is why I believe the most important statements came from Connie Hedegaard and Al Gore. Ms Hedegaard was clear that business opposition to efforts on the part of politicians to come to an agreement on a worldwide climate change solution will derail the entire process. Business must be part of the solution and not oppose the needed changes as they have done in the past with outcries of increased costs and job losses.
Al Gore got off to a slow start, I thought, in his speech but made one of the more important points at the conference. The world needs to start looking at how economies and business success are measured. Resource depletion should be accounted for in measuring economic output not just in financial accounting. I would argue that investment in infrastructure should be looked at not merely in the P&L way that most “conservative” economists would use, but also consider the Asset that is created by this investment. This involves the use of a more “green” economic model.
Green Economics in the past has been a very fringe branch of study. It would appear to be time to marry the study of environmental and natural resource economics into the mainstream along with accounting and business management. This would allow the development and study of better ways of measuring and modeling “sustainable business” and “sustainable economies“.
There is currently a program at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada that is taking this “greener” approach to business and economics. They are offering a graduate diploma in Business and the Environment. The certificate program will be offered to students in the Schulich School of Business MBA program and students in the Masters of Environmental Studies program. Its focus will be the transition to sustainability in the corporate sector. This program sounds like a great start to sustainability becoming a part of decision making in business. We would be interested in hearing from other educators on plans to implement programs in green business or economics at their schools.
Short URL: http://www.mygreeneducation.com/?p=2702
Posted by Tracey A. Smith
on May 28 2009. Filed under Environmental, Government Regulation.
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