This briefing summarises projected growth patterns of the Global Green Economy, which in turn provides a case for businesses to invest in the emerging green industry which is predicted to be a dominant economic force. This paper does not focus on the pragmatic details of “greening an individual business” but rather provides an overview of the Green Economy as a whole entity.

The researchers from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy conclude that about US$400 billion should be spent worldwide on ‘green’ policies and investments which also help economic recovery and lay the foundations of sustainable low-carbon growth. The report, ‘An outline of the case for a ‘green’ stimulus’, points out that this sum represents about 20 per cent of the US$2 trillion, or 4 per cent of global gross domestic product, that governments might spend in the next 18 months on fiscal stimulus packages to lessen the economic downturn.

This article looks at inherent problems associated with seeking economic growth above all else.  In particular it advocates the creation of a more stable system; one that does not constantly need extra-resources, which the world can no longer supply. John Fullerton is a former Managing Director of JPMorgan, where he worked for 18 years in New York, London, and Tokyo, and subsequently was CEO of an energy focused hedge fund. He is now seeking to launch an investment fund for high impact sustainability initiatives and is working on “The Purpose of Capital,” a book about the role of investment capital in sustainable economics. He is a friend and supporter of the E. F. Schumacher Society in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. John can be reached at john@level3cap.com.

The Ubuntu Declaration is the product of the recent Emergency Congress, with Rights and Humanity, the South African Human Rights Commission and Tomorrow's Company. The Declaration sets out a holistic and systemic policy framework for what to do now to protect the world's poorest peoples, how to reform the global financial system, and how to create the conditions for sustainable development and effective growth. It starts by recognising  - as we would describe it - the importance of 'the triple context': that we all need to bring the economic, social and environmental systems into balance. The Ubuntu declaration consciously and clearly argues for the alignment of the development agenda alongside tackling the climate crunch, the credit crunch  and the threat to  biodiversity.   Amongst other things It calls for one third - $750bn - or current world stimulus packages to be focussed to the green agenda: recongising that this will be the most efficient in creating jobs and building a...

Qualitative Growth by Fritjof Capra and Hazel Henderson has been published by Tomorrow’s Company with the ICAEW.  This paper not only builds on our mission to understand better business success and how it can best be achieved, but also sets this in what Tomorrow's Company describe as the triple context: that sustainable value creation will be rooted in harnessing the full opportunity of recognising the links between the economic, social and environmental sub-systems on which we all depend for our lives and prosperity. Although sustainability is a growing issue, it is not well understood. As the subject is prioritised by business, governments and civil society, the need to clarify how to do it, how to measure and report on it and how to assure sustainability information become key issues. In the ICAEW landmark publication Sustainability: the role of accountants the ICAEW argued that these areas of expertise – building and managing flows of valuable, reliable and trusted information...