Constructing the green economy: integrating sustainability for governance?

根据联合国环境规划署（2011:14）的说法，“对我们主流经济模式的幻灭”导致绿色经济进入了多个治理层面的公共政策话语，这一概念需要“另一种范式，在这种范式中，财富的增加不会导致环境风险、生态稀缺和社会差距的增加”。这种幻灭在很大程度上是由气候变化、生物多样性丧失和不可持续的消费构成的威胁造成的，这些威胁在未来必将加剧，对现有的社会经济制度构成挑战。因此，更充分地整合环境问题的绿色经济将涉及当前治理结构的重大变革，以重新定位市场，改变消费模式和重新分配资源，以加强环境保护和社会福祉，这是最近全球倡议中认识到的一个因素，如联合国的全球绿色新政和绿色经济计划（UNEP 2009, 2011）。在欧盟内部，促进绿色/低碳经济增长现在是2010年里斯本战略（里斯本2020）中就业和竞争力的战略重点（CEC 2010）。此外，绿色经济是即将于2012年召开的联合国20 +20可持续发展会议的战略主题，将确保其始终处于未来治理优先事项的前沿。然而，绿色经济仍然是一个有点模糊和潜在争议的概念，需要进一步的实证和理论解释，以便提供规范的政策战略。对于一些环保主义者来说，绿色经济仍然存在争议，因为它似乎降低了长期可持续性问题，有利于经济关注，同时赞同以技术为中心的发展观点（Jackson 2009）。这是我们在研究系列研讨会中试图探讨的一个关键问题。在这方面，该系列研讨会旨在建立在申请人对绿色预算的现有调查（如Russel和Benson 2011； O'Riordan 2011）和其他人的基础上，进一步对欧盟国家如何构建和整合绿色经济概念进行实证、理论和规范研究。该系列研讨会还力求激发辩论，并就潜在的治理解决办法提出初步的政策相关建议。几个可审计的目标是实现这一目标的核心。首先，研讨会计划将建立一个学者和决策者的国际网络，以产生和分享关于绿色经济的研究。其次，该项目将涉及多个学术和非学术合作伙伴。第三，组织者将通过更传统的出版物传播研究成果，并通过反馈会议和政策说明向合作伙伴传播研究成果。第四，研讨会将促进与地方、国家和国际政策界的积极对话，以便更广泛地传播调查结果并提出与政策有关的建议，以促进未来的治理。最后，这项研究将提升ESRC和参与组织的国际形象。因此，研究方案的两个主要优势将是其独创性和相关性。鉴于前者，绿色经济问题相对较新，学术新颖，是一个新兴的备受瞩目的全球政策议程。此外，它的跨领域性质需要跨越传统学术界限的新方法。因此，研究研讨会将通过产生新的研究和跨学科比较见解来解决知识方面的重大差距。鉴于后者，该系列将通过申请中确定的各种伙伴组织，直接参与地方、区域、国家、欧盟和全球层面的新政策讨论（见“支持案例”）。这项研究对于即将到来的2012年bbb20峰会来说尤其及时。

According to UNEP (2011: 14) 'disillusionment with our prevailing economic paradigm' has led to the green economy entering public policy discourses at multiple governance levels, a concept that necessitates 'an alternative paradigm in which increased wealth does not lead to growing environmental risks, ecological scarcities and social disparities'. Much of this disillusionment results from threats posed by climate change, biodiversity loss and unsustainable consumption which are set to intensify in future, providing challenges to existing socio-economic systems. Greening economies to more fully integrate environmental concerns will therefore involve major transformations in current governance structures to reorient markets, shift consumption patterns and redistribute resources to enhance environmental protection and social well-being, a factor recognised in recent global initiatives such as the United Nations' global Green New Deal and Green Economy programmes (UNEP 2009, 2011). Within the European Union, facilitating green/low carbon economic growth is now a strategic priority in the 2010 Lisbon Strategy (Lisbon 2020) for jobs and competitiveness (CEC 2010). In addition, the green economy is a strategic theme in the upcoming UN Rio+20 Conference on sustainable development in 2012, ensuring it remains at the forefront of future governance priorities. However, the green economy remains a somewhat nebulous and potentially contested concept, in need of further empirical and theoretical explication in order to provide normative policy strategies. For some environmentalists the green economy remains controversial since it appears to downgrade long term sustainability issues in favour of economic concerns, while endorsing a techno-centric development view (Jackson 2009). This is a critical issue we seek to examine in the research seminar series.In this respect, the seminar series aims to build on the existing investigations of the applicants into green budgeting (e.g. Russel and Benson 2011; O'Riordan 2011) and others, to generate further empirical, theoretical and normative research into how the green economy concept is being framed and integrated in EU states. The seminar series also seeks to stimulate debate and provide tentative policy relevant recommendations on potential governance solutions. Several auditable objectives are central to this aim. Firstly, the seminar programme will establish an international network of scholars and policy-makers to generate and share research on the green economy. Secondly, the programme will involve multiple academic and non-academic partners in this process. Thirdly, the organisers will disseminate research outputs via more traditional publication outputs and to partners through a feedback session and policy note. Fourthly, the seminars will stimulate active dialogues with local, national and international policy communities in order to more widely disseminate findings and generate policy relevant recommendations to facilitate future governance. Finally, the research will promote the international profile of the ESRC and participant organisations.Two of the major strengths of the research programme consequently will be its originality and relevance. In view of the former, the issue of the green economy is relatively new, academically novel and is an emerging high-profile global policy agenda. Its cross-cutting nature, moreover, necessitates new ways of working across traditional academic boundaries. The research seminars will therefore address significant gaps in knowledge through generating new resarch and cross-disciplinary comparative insights. In view of the latter, the series will directly input into emerging policy discussions at local, regional, national, EU and global levels via the various partner organisations identified in the application (see 'Case for Support'). The research will be particularly timely in respect of the upcoming Rio+20 event in 2012.