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12
GREEN ECONOMY
Challenges and
opportunities
Executive Summary
establishment of a working group, a reference framework, a set of norms and the
restoration of natural capital. It is concluded that a new paradigm is emerging
and that, with support from adequate government policies, Brazil is fully capable
of being one of the first countries to enter into a green economy.
Maria Cecília J. Lustosa analyzes the importance of environmental
innovations as means of changing the current technological model, intensive
in raw materials and energy from fossil fuels, in a more ecologically correct
direction. Lustosa presents the historical emergence of environmental issues
and their relations to economic production. Then, the author highlights the
importance of the innovative process in technological change and paradigm shift,
and presents the circumstances under which such changes could occur and in
which directions, with a focus on EST (Environmentally Sound Technologies).
Internal and external constraints of the capabilities of businesses to become
innovative are also presented. Lustosa further conducts analysis of innovation
linked to environmental issues in Brazilian businesses, and identifies its main
characteristics. Ultimately, the author concludes that environmental innovations
are necessary to enter into a green economy and that building business capacity
is fundamental, and when appropriate, associated with incentives promoted
by the State. In the case of Brazil, low innovation investment in the productive
sector is certainly a factor that further inhibits the search for environmental
innovation.
Ademar R. Romeiro investigates the topic of agriculture in a green economy.
The work offers a description of what agriculture should be in a green economy.
Romeiro begins with the definition of what is understood as green economy from
the perspective of a given long-term sustainability concept, and moves on to
presenting the conditions for making agriculture compatible with this definition of
a green economy. The author seeks to show that an agriculture that is sufficiently
productive to attend to current agricultural production needs is scientifically
and technologically possible, but is chiefly based on management by farmers
of the very forces of nature in order to obtain ecosystem services. The main
agricultural policy recommendation that results from the analysis is to amplify
agro-ecological research efforts by the large public research institutions.
Nº 8 • June 2011
Arilson Favareto brings the new cycle of rural development topic to the
discussion, by analyzing how it aligns with the green economy. The new cycle
of rural development, happening at different intensities around the world and
whose distinguishing feature is the transition from an agrarian and agricultural
paradigm to a paradigm organized around the environmental rooting of
rural development, is in line with the transition to a green economy. Modern
agriculture, intensive in natural resource use, generates a lot of income but
little employment. Favareto presents the main characteristics of new rurality
and analyzes the situation in Brazil, identifying that here, as in the rest of the
world, agriculture has a declining tendency in relation to other activities and