THE WIDENING GAP BETWEEN CURRENT AND SUSTAINABLE PATTERNS
The world has enjoyed phenomenal economic growth over the past fifty years. So how can the gap between where we are and where we need to be have widened?
False signs of improvement
On four indicative sustainable development issues -- material efficiency, climate change, forest health, and social equity -- it is clear the private sector has driven considerable improvement. On each of these issues, however, it is also clear that conditions continue to deteriorate.
The economies of the industrialized countries have made great strides over the past few decades in material efficiency. For example, the United States, Japan, and Germany have all reduced their material intensity as a measure of GDP by approximately twenty to thirty percent over the past 20 years, according to a WRI co-sponsored report, Resource Flows. The dawning of the Information Age has contributed to these gains, as computers are used to replace material-intensive processes and to identify areas for efficiency improvements.
Of course, much of the material used by industrialized economies is in the form of fossil fuel for energy. Carbon emissions from these fuels contribute to the Greenhouse Effect, raising the specter of global climate change. On this front, efficiency gains can be seen in energy usage as well. Based upon historical trends, the OECD projects that member countries' energy efficiency per unit of GDP will increase by a factor of 1.5 to 2.1 over the next thirty years.
In another indicative issue, forest health, the private sector is also moving slowly toward more sustainable practices. The explosive growth of plantation forestry around the world shows how firms are finding it pro ...