Beyond Green Growth: Policymaking under Planetary Boundaries for the Transformations Towards Sustainable Development

In 2015, the United Nations announced a document known as ‘Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’, which is built around the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Agenda stresses the need to change our development path. Indeed, the existing development models do not fit this new agenda, and several alternatives have been proposed. Among those, the discourse of “green growth” has gained ground in governance deliberations and policy proposals. It is presented as a fresh and innovative agenda centered on the deployment of engineering sophistication, managerial acumen, and market mechanisms to redress the environmental and social derelictions of the current development models. But can the green growth project deliver environmental sustainability, social justice and the achievement of economic life upon a materially finite planet? This presentation tries to answer several questions. First, what explains modern society’s investment in the green growth idea, why has it emerged as a master concept in the contemporary conjuncture, and what social forces does it serve? Second, how do we evaluate the results of a series of prominent green growth projects? Finally, it weighs up the merits and demerits of alternative strategies and policies asking the vital question: If not green growth, then what development models we need for the 2030 Agenda? How can we transform our development model and policy making to take into consideration planetary boundaries? The presentation by Jose A. Puppim de Oliveira will bring examples of cities and focus the discussion on alternative models of urban development.