Constructing the green economy: integrating sustainability for governance?

根据环境署(2011：14)的说法，“对我们普遍的经济范式的幻想破灭”导致绿色经济进入多个治理层面的公共政策讨论，这一概念要求“有一种替代范式，其中财富的增加不会导致日益严重的环境风险、生态稀缺和社会差距”。这种幻灭在很大程度上是气候变化、生物多样性丧失和不可持续消费构成的威胁造成的，这些威胁将在未来加剧，给现有的社会经济体系带来挑战。因此，将绿色经济更充分地纳入环境关切将涉及对当前治理结构的重大变革，以重新定位市场、转变消费模式和重新分配资源，以加强环境保护和社会福祉，这是联合国全球绿色新政和绿色经济方案等最近的全球倡议中承认的一个因素(环境署，2009,2011年)。在欧洲联盟内部，促进绿色/低碳经济增长现在是2010年《里斯本战略》(里斯本2020)关于就业和竞争力的战略优先事项(CEC 2010)。此外，绿色经济是即将于2012年举行的联合国里约+20可持续发展大会的战略主题，确保它继续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些模糊和可能存在争议的概念，需要进一步的经验和理论解释，以便提供规范性的政策战略。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发展问题的评级，转而关注经济问题，同时支持以技术为中心的发展观点(Jackson，2009)。这是我们试图在研究研讨会系列中研究的一个关键问题。在这方面，研讨会系列旨在以申请者对绿色预算编制的现有调查(例如，Russel和Benson 2011；O‘Riordan 2011)和其他研究为基础，对欧盟国家如何框架和整合绿色经济概念进行进一步的实证、理论和规范研究。研讨会系列还力求激发辩论，并就潜在的治理解决办法提出与政策相关的暂定建议。几个可审计的目标是这一目标的核心。首先，研讨会方案将建立一个学者和政策制定者的国际网络，以产生和分享关于绿色经济的研究成果。其次，该方案将有多个学术和非学术合作伙伴参与这一进程。第三，组织者将通过更传统的出版物成果传播研究成果，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和参与机构的国际形象。因此，研究计划的两个主要优势将是其原创性和相关性。鉴于前者，绿色经济问题相对较新，在学术上具有新颖性，是一个新兴的高调全球政策议程。此外，它的交叉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、欧盟和全球各级的新兴政策讨论(见“支持案例”)。对于即将在2012年举行的里约+20会议，这项研究将特别及时。

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.