Ziegler, Andreas R.; Kummer Peiry, Katharina; Baumgartner, Jorun --- "Introduction" [2016] ELECD 1440; in Kummer Peiry, Katharina; Ziegler, R. Andreas; Baumgartner, Jorun (eds), "Waste Management and the Green Economy" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016) 1

Book Title: Waste Management and the Green Economy

Editor(s): Kummer Peiry, Katharina; Ziegler, R. Andreas; Baumgartner, Jorun

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781783473809

Section Title: Introduction

Author(s): Ziegler, Andreas R.; Kummer Peiry, Katharina; Baumgartner, Jorun

Number of pages: 8

Abstract/Description:

Traditionally, economic development and environmental protection were seen as opposites. The academic discussion and the relevant policy debates in the 1980s and 1990s focused on which should take priority over the other, with environmentalists and economists opposing each other over this question. In the 1990s, the concept of Sustainable Development emerged as an attempt to achieve a balance between environmental protection and social and economic development. More recently, a number of concepts that aim at achieving a win-win situation between economic and environmental approaches and priorities have emerged. Over the last years, the international community has increasingly turned to the concept of a Green Economy with the aim of bringing the (seemingly) opposing values of economic development and environmental protection into a balance. In the absence of an internationally agreed definition, UNEP’s 2011 report ‘Towards a Green Economy’ defines Green Economy as ‘an economy that results in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities.’ In operational terms, a Green Economy is an economy that promotes investments in technologies that reduce carbon emissions and pollution, enhance energy and resource efficiency or prevent the loss of biodiversity. Interrelated concepts, such as ‘Green Growth’, ‘Green Taxation’, ‘Green Industry’, ‘Green Jobs’, ‘Green Accounting’, have developed within the frame of specific areas and have often broadened the concept of Green Economy for their specific purposes, all the while remaining based on it.