In 2009, Ministers from the 34 OECD countries signed a Green Growth Declaration, committing to “strengthen their efforts to pursue green growth strategies as part of their responses to the crisis and beyond, acknowledging that green and growth can go hand-in-hand.� To date, 44 countries have adhered to the Declaration.
policy Perspectives
Measuring the transformation of the economy: green growth indicators Building on this Declaration, the OECD launched in May 2011 its Green Growth Strategy which provides recommendations and measurement tools to support countries’ efforts to achieve economic growth and development. The strategy proposes a flexible policy framework that can be tailored to different country circumstances and stages of development.
OECD definition of green growth The OECD defines green growth as a model that aims at fostering economic growth and development while avoiding unsustainable pressure on the quality and quantity of natural assets, thus ensuring that these assets continue to provide the resources and environmental services on which our well-being relies.
Greening growth is necessary in order to overcome risks related to the business-as-usual scenario, which erodes natural capital at a pace that threatens development. The green growth concept does not replace the sustainable development one: it is meant to be one of the practical mechanisms for realising the goals of sustainable development (OECD, 2012).
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