Brussels, 10/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - Efficient use of resources could, alone, bring the European economy as much as - if not more than - the Juncker plan that aims to attract €315 billion in investment, argues a report published by WWF on Tuesday 20 March.
The launch of the report, From crisis to opportunity: Five steps to sustainable European economies, was timed to coincide with the meeting of the Ecofin Council which, the same day, gave agreement in principle to the working arrangements for the European fund for strategic investments (EFSI), created to boost growth and employment (see other article).
The report states that damage from flooding has cost more than €150 billion over the past 10 years, air pollution costs around €537 billion every year and EU industries import every year more than €500 billion worth of raw materials no longer available in Europe.
To prevent the environmental disaster that is looming, the report presents a five-stage roadmap for Europe to build sustainable economies focused on achievable goals in the next five years, integrating climate and energy, resource efficiency and management, fiscal and financial policies, global sustainable development leadership and an overarching new strategy for Europe from now to 2050.
“Instead of the short-term 'grow dirty and clean up later' flawed narrative, President Juncker and EU leaders should look at the real symptoms of our troubled economies: diminishing natural resources and markets failing to take this into account. It's simple: no economy can develop without natural resources”, said Sébastien Godinot, WWF economist and author of the report.
He argues that “sustainable economies can bring huge benefits worth much more than Juncker's Investment Plan every year and provide up to 20 million jobs by 2020. How? Largely by using less resources and energy, fixing market failures and protecting nature in Europe”.
The report references over 400 studies and reports by key institutions, such as the OECD, UN Environment Programme, the World Bank, the IMF, the International Labour Organisation and the EU Commission, economic advisors like McKinsey and Ecofys, and leading world economists like Lord Stern, Pavan Sukhdev, and even Simon Kuznets, the “father of GDP” - all leading to one conclusion: building a sustainable economy will more than offset the costs of dismantling the brown economy (as opposed to the green economy), an economic development model that is based on massive consumption of fossil fuels without any account being taken of the negative impact on the environment of such unsustainable production and consumption. (Aminata Niang)