Excerpt from the publication:
Over the past year, billions of Euros have been spent in Europe, the US and other industrialised countries on so-called "recovery packages" to overcome the economic crisis. However, these unprecedented amounts of public money could also be focused on fostering an ecological transformation of our economies, and not on safeguarding the economic patterns that brought about the crisis in the first place. Needless to say, this is no easy task. The present report by the Wuppertal Institute is meant to take stock of the current situation and identify the most suitable areas, the most effective instruments and the best practices for promoting this transformation.
Greening recovery packages
The report by the Green European Foundation gives an overview of the "recovery packages" introduced by governments around the globe and reveals that the European Union is lagging behind the United States and Asia in terms of the Green share of those recovery plans. The authors show the economic and employment potential of a Green New Deal and that the EU has the possibility of leading the way.The report takes a pragmatic approach in the sense that it focuses primarily on how to "green" immediate recovery activities in specific economic areas, and how to support the creation of framework conditions which initiate a dynamic for ecological modernisation and structural change. It also identifies key elements for the implementation of a Green New Deal.
Policy recommendations
The report ends with a series of recommendations that urge the European Union and its Member States to focus their programmes on investments that will kick-start a Green economy and provide sustainable ways out of the crisis.