A critical review and considerations:Green economy, what is it?

Shaping society to serve sustainability— minor adjustments or a paradigm shift?Trying to think as if the results mattered….

Professor Harald SverdrupChemical Engineering, Lund University, 221 00 Lund, Sweden

Harald.sverdrup@chemeng.lth.se

Growth, de-growth and sustainability

Exponentialgrowth

Overshoot and contraction

Overshoot andcollapse

ApproachingSteady state

Approachingdynamicstability

Options available

1. …make more with growth in resource use2. …make more with the same resource use3. …make the same with less resource use4. …make less with significantly less resource use

We talk about 4, hope for 3, try to get 2 and end up with 1

Running out of everything at the present speed of consumption

Renewable energy

technologies need a lot of

metals

Everything is linked

Wealth, resources and the trophic levels in the human ecosystem

Human ecosystem

Remember Tainter’s syndrome

The basic Ehrlich equation

Impact = P * A * (1-XR) * E

• P is population size, the number of consumers; • A is affluence or net consumption per capita;• XR is the degree of recycling of the amount supplied

to society, depending on technology and organization;

• E is the resource efficiency of producing the affluence A, depending on technology.

The world description is incomplete

• Thermodynamics forbids growth forever; – GROWTH IS OVER

• The issues of future generations and intergenerational issues needs to be addressed

• Address systems overshoot• The banking system and financial system

description is naïve and lacking in understanding• Big business is totally out of control from a

perspective of government and parliaments

The systems dimension is missing • There is no systems analysis of the whole. • Do connect simultaneously; – energy, metals, materials, – population dynamics, soils, food, – social resilience, social values.

• Present economic models, econometrics and economic equilibrium modelling are gravely dysfuntional. – consistently fail on field tests– lack prediction capability– correlation has been systematically mistaken for

causality.

Building completely new models:Sustainable Germany by 2040

Dynamic Integrated Assessment Model being built 2014-2016. Models the world trade, major resources, population dynamics and economics in 38 countries/regions, for 60 major commodities and 20 different services.

The proposal• Good start, many good points have been

made• Such a project is absolutely necessary.• The economic understanding is simple and

and still has some faulty assumptions• The proposal has essential and necessary

parts, but is insufficient in design and scope

Research tools needed

• Use systems analysis thoroughly throughout the project. Use the systems insights to create new models for a sustainable economy

• Use integrated assessment modelling methods to analyse the past, do scenarios and predict future possible outcomes to design the path to sustainable society.

• Have a synthesizing group from day 1 that are seasoned hands-on systems analysts

Conclusions specified• The proposal has some taboos and blind spots• Needs to– Connect the whole system– discuss the time horizon and the moral challenge of

setting time-to-doom– address population, demographic shift and

population size management– Include international trade, derivatives and

speculation – include corruption, nepotism, lack of democracy and

abuse of power

Research tools needed• Use visions of a goal for

backcasting from those goals• Engage the policy and

government level properly• Think about how to create real

paradigm shift• Use researchers that dare take

part in real change and be politically incorrect

• The role of learning, education and shaping values, norms and attitudes