March 2011 Newsletter

Contents this month: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Shape and direction our evolving workplan, Oliver Greenfield, Convenor, GEC Mobilising plans emerging for National Dialogue in Chile, Hernan Blanco Building spotlight on our IISD led Public Procurement Project, Oshani Perrari Influencing spotlight on the road to Rio March prep con, Tom Bigg, IIED Notable news UNEP Towards a green economy report

1. Shape and direction, Oliver Greenfield, Convenor, GEC Hello. This is the first official day of my Convenor role, so I would like to take the opportunity to share some thoughts on the shape and direction of the Coalition

In essence we have developed three main themes of work: 1. Mobilising an informed, active and collaborative movement 2. Building consensus among our coalition on why we need change, what are the components, opportunities and benefits of green economies and what are the change areas for our shared influence 3. Influencing collectively and collaboratively Within each one of these themes we are already have established a good base of work which we build on going forward. Under Mobilising: We have our coalition members. The task going forward is keep building, inviting in those organisations and individuals that can add to our knowledge and influence, and for existing coalition members to see more opportunities to contribute their work. We have our national dialogues (first phase of Brazil, India, Caribbean complete, and Mali underway). Our task is to do more dialogues, ensure they are just the start of national green economy processes and ensure that the lessons are being learned for our global picture. See update on plans in Chile below. Under Building: We have already achieved a shared critique, visions of the future and agreement on initial focal areas of intervention: big picture, governance and accountability, public procurement, green jobs. The tasks going forward are to develop these work areas collaboratively, support the lead organisations, until we have a shared set of policies, which we take forward to influence. We will surely welcome more coalition contributions and new expertise to this work.
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Under influence: RIO: Last week a number of GEC organisations were at the UNEP governing council. The commitment to green economy, the need for it to be defined both nationally and internationally, for it to include an enlarged role for civil society both in definition and action, and that the road to RIO+20 for green economy is now firmly endorsed by the council, all play firmly to our, the world's largest civil society green economy movement, importance. So we will and must work towards our collaborative asks and ideas to influence that opportunity. In addition, it is important for us to remind ourselves of our initial and still valid influencing thinking. Fundamentally our green economy coalition is about changing economic decision making. We originally agreed to do this by focussing on those bodies that have the most economic power: internationally - the G20, OECD, the World Bank, IMF and also, in our early work we identified that most economic power is still held with nation states (Here again we see the importance of our national dialogues), and with corporations and financial centres. This we called our 'Corridors of power' strategy. The tasks going forward under influence: is to clarify our RIO asks, and to further define our 'Corridors of power' strategy, and ensure we have the resources to address both themes and to exploit the relationship between them.

In this months newsletter my thanks to Tom Bigg, IIED, for his leadership forging our RIO and NY prep con work; to Oshani Perera IISD for her piece on our public procurement project, and to Hernan Blanco for his contributions on plans for a Chile National dialogue. As you can see there is much work to build on and much more work to do. As ever your thinking and contributions to our direction and activities are not only desired but vital. We welcome your help. Finally, we will shortly set some dates (around for May time) for us to meet across the breadth of our work and to take our plans to the next level of definition. We shall be in touch. I hope to meet you in NY later this week or, if not at our next Coalition meeting (tbc). Good health Oliver Greenfield, [email protected]

2. Mobilising Plans emerging for National Dialogue in Chile, Hernan Blanco What is the Green Option for Chilean development? CIPMA, an applied research center, together with AVINA Foundation and the Association of Electric Power Companies are leading a series of dialogues on how Chile could foster a green economy. Five thematic workshops on cities, forestry, energy, food and mining will precede a final seminar which will take place in April 2011. For each sector, a group of experts have met in advance and have contributed to a discussion paper which is presented in the workshops and made available for comments by the interested public. The first three workshops already took place. Around 25 representatives from the public, private and civil society sectors have attended each workshop. The workshops have sought to answer two questions: what the green economy means in the specific sectors, and what some ideas and experiences are for making progress towards greener sectors.
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National think-tanks as well as relevant NGOs, including a representative from IIED in the country, are part of an advisory board which in turn acts as a convening group for the dialogues. Concrete political messages, shaped as policy recommendations for seizing the opportunities of a greener economy, will be conveyed to the government and other relevant actors after April. More information available in Spanish at www.encuentropcionverde.cl. And from Hernan Blanco [email protected]

3. Building spotlight on our Public Procurement Project, Oshani Perera, IISD Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) presents a critical point of intervention for the GEC as the purchasing power of governments is large enough to trigger large scale sustainable consumption. Procurement represents as much as 45 per cent of government budgets, which is around 13 to 20 per cent of GDP in industrialised countries, and even more elsewhere - 35 per cent in South Africa; 43 per cent in India, 47 per cent in Brazil, 52 per cent in Ghana, 49 per cent in Mauritius and 46 per cent in Cost Rica. Just imagine the impact if governments began to specify that the goods and services they buy need to be designed, produced and delivered with the environment and society in mind? And that the enterprises that do business with the government need to demonstrate responsible management practices? The GEC framework for sustainable public procurement IISD is suggesting that GEC proposes a framework to promote and assist governments and public sector agencies to design and implement sustainable procurement policies. The frameworks will consist of: GEC charter on sustainable procurement that would commit to assisting signatory governments/public agencies integrate environmental and social criteria into at least 40% of their procurement decisions by 2020. An advisory service that would work with signatory governments/public agencies and assist them design and implement national/provincial SPP policies and strategies in an incremental manner. A research service that will publish on emerging SPP issues. For example: the role of publicprivate partnerships and service contracts in public procurement, institutional arrangements for crowding in private finance to boost the efficiency of public services and strategies to lower the purchasing costs of greener goods and services. IISD will be leading the GEC framework on sustainable public procurement. Information on IISDs experience in this area can be found at www.iisd.org/markets/procurement/ Or by contacting Oshani Perera [email protected]

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4. Influencing Rio, NY prep con; prepared by Tom Bigg, IIED The Green Economy Coalition Positioning and Inputs for the 2012 Rio Summit Whats the current state of Rio+20 preparations and how does our message / profile best fit? A number of GEC members were at the January meeting, and gave broadly consistent feedback on the tone of the meeting: On all sides there is confusion about what a green economy means, and a lack of ownership and enthusiasm about Rio +20. Many G77 governments are suspicious that GE is no more than the latest repackaging of Washington Consensus thinking and approach and there is little in the positions taken by OECD governments to suggest they think differently. Above all, the debate on GE in the UN New York context is arid and is insufficiently linked to debates and action already happening in many countries and regions. Our analysis last May was broadly right on how GEC should approach the Summit and we should keep this framework as the analytical basis for our plans (see here). Few other organisations or networks have come up with clear policy expectations for the Summit, so this also gives us a platform and credibility in the 2012 process. We also need to think about how the Coalition, or a subset of its members, can take forward some of the areas of focus sketched out in the 2010 document. We should be clear on the difference between national action and international commitment. For countries such as India there is much going on in-country but a huge resistance to agreeing new international obligations. We should be clear on the connection between sustainable development and GE explaining that our fundamental purpose is to achieve progress towards SD but that GE provides a means to move forward, engaging mainstream economic actors while focusing on SD goals and values. This approach was strongly argued for at each of the national dialogues. We should make clear that we are promoting a Southern agenda in the Summit process, and that our take on GE does not entail blocking development or limiting growth per se. Actions and Outputs for GEC Here is an initial outline of how we could approach the 2012 process: For the March PrepCom From the conference call we know that the following will be in New York: George (DA); Aron, Rubens (VC); Cletus Springer (for Caribbean Dialogue); Tom (IIED); Oliver (GEC). Please can other GEC member representatives let Tom know if they will be there. a. Side event during 2nd PrepCom: title Green Economy: Ears to the Ground. Aim is to present main priorities, reflections, examples coming from the four dialogues. Meeting will be on 4 March, 1:152:45. Contact Tom for more information. b. Publications aimed at 2nd PrepCom: short summaries from each dialogue following the same structure to highlight main issues discussed and ideas put forward. Final text by early March. c. Meetings with key people / organisations: with clear agenda to discuss and proposals for future GEC links to Rio +20 process. Various meetings already set up. d. Engage other GEC members who will be in NY: Please let Tom know if you or a colleague will be at the meeting, and also your plans for the event (side meetings, publications etc). We will organise a GEC strategy discussion on the afternoon of the 8th for GEC people present please let Tom know if this will work for you.
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Longer-Term: We will also gauge interest from a range of people and organisations in some more ambitious products the Coalition could develop, as discussed at our 2010 strategy meeting and subsequently. To include: e. GE analysis aimed at wide Rio +20 audience: building on our GEC shared analysis and also the big picture work led by WWF. The aim here is to fill the vacuum thats evident in UN discussions so far and set out the Coalitions transformational agenda, clarify links between SD and GE, and frame tests we can apply to gauge the viability of proposed GE initiatives and policies. Scope here to coordinate with UNEP given their communication plans for the Green Economy Report. To include input from the relevant lead people on the principal areas flagged at our strategy meeting last July (jobs; sustainable procurement; governance). Steve and Oliver to lead this draft to be circulated by mid-April. f. Compendium of ways to move towards GE: with c.100 examples drawn from across the Coalition & from the dialogues building on the glimpses work already pulled together by WWF and others. g. Top priorities for action and support: in addition to the above we could identify our top 10 best bets for major change and work these up in more detail, as proposals that could be funded / supported by different actors involved in Rio +20 (as a positive outcome, probably in contrast to the negotiations). A number of European governments are already interested in potential here and might be willing to host meeting(s) to explore in detail in the run-up to the Summit. h. More detailed analysis of how GE challenges the mainstream: building on feedback from national dialogues (above).

5. Notable news: UNEP report Towards a green economy

The Green Economy Coalition offers its congratulations to one of its founding members, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), for delivering this excellent and timely report, pulling together significant effort across disciplines and sectors. It sets out clearly the policy levers to accelerate the transition to green economies, at national and international levels. Many of our coalition organisations have contributed to the report: including International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) coordinated the work on the forest sector, with partners in other countries, and significant International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) contributions to the enabling conditions. The report highlights a number of areas that are the focus for shared projects: public procurement, green jobs, and accounting and accountability. It does a very good job laying out the whole green economy narrative of why we need a green economy, what green economies would look like and all the major policy levers to get there this mirrors and contributes to our ambitious Big Picture project. This landmark report now needs response across geographies. Countries and their various stakeholders need to absorb and respond to the green economy in their own ways, but also importantly together. Report available on the UNEP website, towards a green economy a synthesis for policy makers.
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