“Once regarded as irrelevant to economic activity, environmental problems are drastically rewriting the rules for business, investors, and consumers, affecting over $100 billion in annual capital flows,” say Worldwatch Institute project co-directors Gary Gardner and Thomas Prugh.
The world’s first global, sustainable market is becoming a reality according to a new report from the Worldwatch Institute. Environmental initiatives, revolutionary industrial production methods and a surge in environmentally focused investment groups are all highlighted among the increasingly important role that environmental issues play in the new world economy.
Another sign of dramatic change is the 575 environmental and energy hedge funds now in existence, most of them formed in the last few years. “Clean tech” has rapidly grown to be the third largest recipient of venture capital, trailing only the Internet and biotechnology. And 54 banks, representing 85 percent of global private project finance capacity, have endorsed the Equator Principles, a new international standard of sustainability investment.
The report also highlights how the current global economy is outpacing its “ecological base” using up natural resources at an unsustainable rate but notes that we possess the power and tools to change its course.
“Continued human progress now depends on an economic transformation that is more profound than any seen in the last century,” says Worldwatch president Christopher Flavin. “We should be practicing a sustainable approach to economics that takes advantage of the capability of markets to allocate scarce resources while explicitly recognizing that our economy is dependent on the broader ecosystem that contains it.”
Read the Worldwatch article at Adam Smith, Meet Mom Earth, more on the report at State of the World 2008: Innovations for a Sustainable Economy (full report available for purchase: $15 e-book, $18.95 paperback)
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