GREEN-WIN Project Draws Together 24 Leading Global Experts to Develop a Common Vision for a Green Economy

06 May 2016

From 19-20 April 2016, 24 experts joined the GREEN-WIN project team for its first Global Dialogue. Drawing together representatives from a range of sectors, including international, national and European organistions, as well as NGOs, foundations, banks and businesses, the event served to explore the potential for win-win strategies, green growth and green business models to support the achievement of climate goals; particularly in light of recent Paris Agreement and approved UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Following an Integrated Sustainability Assessment (ISA) methodology, this global dialogue represented the first of stage in a three-stage process:

(1) Development of a common Vision for a Green Economy about ‘where we want to go’ based on practical experiences of the participants;
(2) Development of a set of Pathways to achieve that vision and reframe the existing practices;
(3) Learning and evaluating the lessons learned to develop set of high- level recommendations for action and engage in a series of outreach activities within the G20 countries and with UNFCCC and UN SDG negotiators.

The overall goal of the dialogue process is to co- produce a transformative and engaging narrative, supported by ample grounded evidence, able to trigger the required changes for green development pathways.

This first dialogue workshop aimed specifically to co-develop a vision of a green economy that integrates climate action, business opportunities, economic goals and sustainable development; and to identify concrete strategies and practical examples of win-win solutions that would support this integration.

Through a number of group exercises, allowing participants ample opportunities to share their views, discuss and debate, the workshop enabled an in-depth look at the challenges in linking economic goals with climate goals; development of a shared vision among participants of the world we want, in which economic and climate goals are met within the framework of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals; identification of practical and compelling win-win solutions for linking economic and climate goals; and discussions of the trade-offs within the contest of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Based on the rich input from this first meeting, the second Dialogue will be held in about 9 months’ time. There the focus will be on further mapping out and refining win-win solutions, pathways and strategies to achieve our vision of a green economy. In addition, some of the results from the modelling work in the GREEN-WIN project will be presented, with a focus on finance and funding mechanisms to upscale win-win solutions and knowledge transfer. Over the coming weeks, the GREEN-WIN project team will be analysing the results of the first meeting to produce both a consolidated vision and a structured compilation of the win-win solutions that were discussed in Vienna.

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