International Chamber of Commerce releases Roadmap for Green Growth

The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), which represents hundreds of thousands of companies in over 120 countries, today released its “Green Economy Roadmap.” The Roadmap sets out 10 conditions needed to drive growth in a resource-constrained world with strong demographic growth. Among these are:

1. Social, environmental and economic innovation: A green economy is one that is embedded in global markets and balance sheets, and which drives innovation in private and public finance.
2. Collaboration between all sectors of society, business and government.
3. Integrated governance: intra-policy and intra-industry coordination and governance at all levels. Policies that advance economic growth while enhancing environmental protection and social progress, and that are consistent with international trade rules, provide access to finance, promote technology transfer, strengthen capacity and reduces inequality.
4. Balancing short- and long-term strategies: a green economy needs to reconcile the need for short and medium-term pressures/profits with longer-term shared value.
5. Multilateralism. Multilateral approaches across countries and sectors are indispensable in today’s globally connected world.

“The challenges we face today are real, but they don’t have to be intractable,” said Jean-Guy Carrier, Secretary General of ICC. “But business, government and civil society have to accept and commit to fulfilling their shared responsibility – how best to accomplish this is what the ICC roadmap lays out. At the end of the day, we strongly believe in the unique capacity of trade and investment to help create sustainable jobs and to make a greener and fairer economy happen. “

Download the Green Economy Roadmap

The ICC and its member companies, which include global giants as well as small and medium sized companies, such as GE, Siemens, Dow, Tata, Li & Fung,, Bank of America, Bosch, Novozymes, and Inventec believe that business is the critical engine for growth and plays a key role in bringing about sustainable development. As the large private sector representation at Rio+20 shows, business is already engaged, but more effort must be made to give it a seat at the decision-making table. It is vital that the global business community and governments together continue to explore new forms of innovation and collaboration to drive growth and accelerate the transition towards a “green economy.”

The following people are available for interviews on this and other topics from Rio+20:

• Jean-Guy Carrier, Secretary General, ICC
• Martina Bianchini, Chair, ICC Green Economy Task Force and Vice President of EU Government Affairs & Public Policy, Dow (US)
• Carlos Busquets, Deputy Director, Department of Policy and Business Practices, ICC
• Wendy Poulton, General Manager, Sustainability and Innovation, Eskom Holdings Ltd, South Africa