//NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN AUSTRALIA, CANADA, NEW ZEALAND, CZECH EPUBLIC, IRELAND, POLAND, THE UNITED STATES, AND THE UNITED KINGDOM//: THE GREEN GOLD RUSH

By Mark Sommer and - - Reprint | | Print |

This column is available for visitors to the IPS website only for reading. Reproduction in print or electronic media is prohibited. Media interested in republishing may contact romacol@ips.org.

ARCATA, CALIFORNIA, Jan 1 2007 (IPS) - The conundrum that has long obstructed progress on global warming and a broader transition from a petro-centric to a biocentric economy — can environmental imperatives be addressed within a profit-driven economic system? — may finally be giving way to a tidal wave of global green innovation, writes Mark Sommer, host of \’A World of Possibilities,\’ an award-winning,internationally syndicated radio programme that can be heard at www.aworldofpossibilities.com. In this article, Sommer writes that November\’s flush of Democratic victories was less an endorsement of the party than a rejection of the oil-igarchy that has blocked effective action on a wide range of issues. In its wake, the pent-up demand for new products and services to serve a post-carbon economy may now begin to trigger a potent market-driven response from industry, academia, consumers, and after all others, policymakers. The greening of the global economy will likely be led not by the environmental activists whose persistence was so essential to raising initial public awareness but by some of the very corporate behemoths who were rightly criticised for their inaction and some of the very conservatives (though not of the Bush variety) who have long held that environmental goals and economic realities are innately incompatible.

The conundrum that has long obstructed progress on global warming and a broader transition from a petro-centric to a biocentric economy — can environmental imperatives be addressed within a profit-driven economic system? — may finally be giving way to a tidal wave of global green innovation.

November’s flush of Democratic victories was less an endorsement of the party than a rejection of the oil-igarchy that has blocked effective action on a wide range of issues. In its wake, the pent-up demand for new products and services to serve a post-carbon economy may now begin to trigger a potent market-driven response from industry, academia, consumers, and after all others, policymakers.

If emerging trends hold true, the greening of the global economy will be led not by the environmental activists whose persistence and commitment were so essential to raising initial public awareness but by some of the very corporate behemoths who were rightly criticised for their inaction and some of the very conservatives (though not of the Bush variety) who have long held that environmental goals and economic realities are innately incompatible.

‘Climate change is inevitable,’ says Joseph Romm, a former US Assistant Secretary of Energy, ‘and once you know something is inevitable you really want to go first.’ He predicts that by 2050 every sector of the global economy will have turned green, with the emergence of a new ‘supersector’ focused entirely on the development of carbon reduction technologies. The ‘green rush’ to exploit the rapidly-growing global marketplace for environmentally benign technologies will be no more high-minded and no less ruthlessly competitive than previous gold rushes, replete with the false advertising, unmet expectations, technological dead-ends, and financial reverses that accompany most explosions of innovative activity.

‘Green China will be a greater threat to the United States than Red China ever was,’ predicts New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, as China aggressively moves, both for economic opportunity and from environmental necessity, to invent low-cost, scalable green technologies that could capture a large share of the global green marketplace. Disdaining the ‘moralism’ of the green movement, Friedman calls for a tough-minded ‘geo-greenism’ based on hard-headed national security considerations — ‘living green instead of fighting reds’.

No better example of the sudden, almost religious conversion of once adamant corporate and political opponents of environmentalism can be found than in the case of Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer. Following a revival-like shareholders’ meeting in fall 2005 that included an impassioned speech by former Vice President Al Gore, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott committed his company to a set of astonishingly ambitious environmental goals — spending USD 500 million/year to reach specific benchmarks; increasing the fuel efficiency of Wal-Mart’s 7,000 trucks by 25 percent in the next three years and doubling it in ten; cutting greenhouse gas emissions at stores and distribution centres by 20 percent in seven years; cutting solid waste from domestic stores by 25 percent in the next three years; and offering vast quantities of organic produce and products at just 10 percent above conventionally grown foods. ‘By their size, they’re forcing manufacturers to come up with more earth-friendly, energy-efficient products, which then become the industry norm,’ writes environmental real estate consultant Charles Lockwood.

Wal-Mart’s many critics, who have long faulted the company’s labour and healthcare as well as environmental practices, are wary but hopeful that its initiatives reflect a real if wholly self-interested shift. Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, believes that Wal-Mart is making a sincere and significant commitment, even as he remains sceptical that it can actually achieve its most ambitious goals.

At the same time, by its very size Wal-Mart could pre-empt the emergence of a more diverse, small-scale green products and services industry, as it has often done through aggressively low pricing. And shipping organic produce from China to the US and other far distant markets, the only means by which Wal-Mart could keep prices down, would generate more greenhouse gases than all it does to reduce energy use in its day-to-day operations.

Another powerful and unexpected ally in the green shift is the global insurance industry, second largest in the world, which stands to lose trillions if cataclysmic climate change predictions come true. With its political and financial clout, it has a unique ability to exert influence on policymakers, corporations, and individual behaviour. US-based Traveler’s Insurance has begun cutting premiums for green buildings that save energy and emit fewer greenhouse gases. Swiss Re is investing in new solar technologies, Munich Re in renewable energy.

With its unparalleled dynamism and capacity for innovation, green capitalism is likely to seize new market opportunities with the same alacrity and avarice with which it pursues every other profitable enterprise. Only if the values behind it also shift ‘ either through internal conversion or through external vigilance will green gold turn out to be something more than fool’s gold. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)