What is a Green Economy?
For WWF, green economies embody environmentally sustainable development. Green economies:
- safeguard the natural world;
- are low carbon, resource efficient, and socially inclusive; and
- promote human wellbeing by providing, among other things, clean food, water and energy.
How green economies can lead us to a better future
Our hopes for what green economies can deliver in the Greater Mekong subregion are reflected in our vision of a secure, equitable, and sustainable region that is resilient to climate change.
Realizing this vision will require a new development paradigm that promotes:
- improved and more efficient management of the region’s interconnected ecological systems; and
- incentives to Invest in building, restoring, and protecting the region’s natural capital and ecological productivity.
Our Goal
The purpose of our green economy strategy is to spur a region-wide transformation of natural resource management practices and policies.
Our goals include:
- By 2020, decision-making maintains, enhances, and re-builds natural capital throughout the region.
- By 2015, at least 3 major decisions about land use and infrastructure affecting our priority landscapes maintain and ideally enhance natural capital.
Making green economies the 'new normal'
To accelerate the shift toward green economies in the region, WWF is working with the 6 Greater Mekong countries (Cambodia, China, Lao, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam) to:
- develop strengthened policy and regulatory frameworks that enable sustainable natural capital management at all scales;
- build resilience to climate change by maintaining the region's biologically diverse ecosystems.
