If everyone lived the global middle class lifestyle of London or Shanghai it would require three planets to support us. And yet the average citizen of Bangladesh consumes the equivalent of just a third of a planet. What is needed is one planet living where people can live happy healthy lives within a fair share of the world’s resources having left sufficient space for wildlife and wilderness. Sustainable communities and businesses around the world show how one planet living is attractive and achievable. A simple approach and framework makes it easy to deliver it. This paper proposes that world leaders make a statement that recognises the planetary boundaries in a world with a large, growing human population and commit to take action through a multilateral framework to enable the world to define and deliver a safe operating space within the timeframe that science and morality deems necessary. Key components of this multilateral framework would include Global and National Roadmaps to enable citizens to achieve one planet living supported by a new “Intergovernmental Panel on Resources”, a peer reviewed “Solutions Bank” and a raft of policy solutions to support the transition to a one planet living with a fair and green economy.
This publication aims to develop a set of green economy principles based on some of the most prominent existing principles relating to sustainable development and the green economy from the existing literature.
The concept of green economy has received significant international attention over the past few years both as a tool to address the 2008 financial crisis as well as one of the two themes for the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20).
Green economy has been proposed as a means for catalysing national policy development and international cooperation to respond to climate change related crises and support sustainable development.