The views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the UN or its members.

Scientists have declared a code red regarding climate change impacts, and we need everyone to work together to save the planet. Instead of the business-as-usual approach, we need creative solutions and policies to actualize sustainable development.

Students, in particular, need better knowledge and skills for climate solutions and other environmental challenges that will lead to a more sustainable economy. Thus, education institutions have a unique and essential role, even a duty, to ensure students have skills to co-create a sustainable future.

This article is also a call to action for educators and students of all ages to contribute case studies, capstone projects and further thinking to new economic and business models for sustainable development and report these contributions on platforms such as “I love this planet.”  

‘War on the Planet’

The world is facing an unprecedented series of often interrelated crises – polycrisis – starting with the triple environmental crises of climate change, biodiversity and pollution, including in our oceans. These determinations are made evident by reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and UN Conference to support the implementation of SDG14. 

As UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres puts it, we are waging war on the planet. In 2022, climate scientists warned that “any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a livable future.” 

These environmental crises are compounded by the COVID-19 health pandemic and geopolitical crises, including the war in Ukraine, which too often affect the poorest the most. Indeed, the pandemic has highlighted how marginalized groups such as young workers, migrants, remote communities and women are disproportionately affected by crises. 

These predicaments exacerbate their preexisting conditions and exposure to economic and social risks and contribute to increasing inequality in most developed and many middle-income countries worldwide.

Nevertheless, we still have a narrowing window of opportunity to get things back on track. As the Club of Rome identified, the “transition is feasible within the planetary boundaries” if we: 

1. Invest massively in renewable energies;
2. Invest massively in sustainable agriculture and food systems;
3. Address inequalities;
4. Alter our economic development models; and
5. Ensure gender equality and education of women and girls. 

For the most part, we are aware of what needs to happen. We need to repurpose subsidies, which are most harmful to the environment, to support the new economies. We should enforce a dissuasive price on pollution to ensure a level playing field and revise policies, practices and measures to ensure they are “coherently” supporting economic models and investments aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

Indeed, the dominant economic model maximizes one of the three SDGs dimensions – economics – at the expense of the other two – social and environmental. It should, therefore, not be surprising that trade-offs among the SDGs are being observed, impeding faster progress. These exchanges generally lead to the advance of economic goals (SDGs 1, 7, 8 and 9) at the expense of environmental and equality goals (SDG 5, 6, 7, 9 and 10) and peace goals (SDG16). 

Where We Stand on the SDGs

The SDGs and its 17 worldwide goals were heralded as the most ambitious goals humanity had set for itself. They also provide a north star for development, a framework and a common language to advance interrelated social, economic and environmental goals. 

However, the cost-of-living crisis ensuing from food, fuel and financial disruptions arising from the polycrisis has created a downward spiral in food and nutrition, health, education, the environment, and peace and security, seriously putting in danger the achievement of the SDGs. The 2022 SDG UN Report details the reversal of progress made since the adoption of the SDGs in 2015. 

The UN Secretary-General has argued quite eloquently that these crises would not have had such devastating impacts had we invested and advanced faster on the SDGs. Indeed, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Global Sustainable Development Report 2019 had documented that the food and agriculture (SDG2), inequality (SDG10) and environmental goals (SGD11 to 15) were heading in the wrong direction. Moreover, none of the SDGs were on track to be achieved by 2030. 

The question is, why have we not progressed more? The short answer is a vested interest in the old economies or what we call the political economy, transpiring through massive lobbying against policies that would accelerate implementation. There need to be more metrics and management systems to measure and account for positive environmental and social externalities associated with alternative economic models. The lack of systems limits their access to finance alongside conservative interpretation of listed companies. Moreover, their boards’ fiduciary duty still believes in maximizing short-term financial returns to shareholders. 

Just like maximizing profits alone will not lead to balanced decision-making, measuring progress only in terms of Gross National Product (GDP) will not lead to optimal policies and priority setting by the public sector. 

In that respect, the UN Secretary-General will shortly present member States a framework to complement GDP with six broad thematic areas: respect for life, the planet and its ecosystems; responsible and ethical economy; governance and institutions; from vulnerability to resilience; greater solidarity to address inequality; and well-being, living conditions, agency and opportunities. 

The next step will be to develop headline indicators for these six areas that go beyond income, beyond averages and beyond the present, and that put people, the planet, prosperity, peace and partnerships at the center. The framework will also aim to fill the gaps in the current GDP and consider environmental, social, digital, distributional and vulnerability dimensions with the aim that the Beyond GDP measures serve as a tool for all countries to improve policymaking in order to support the well-being of peoples around the world.

Every crisis has its silver linings, and the pandemic has shed light on intrinsic inequalities in our economies and brought to the fore the need for building a more resilient, inclusive and sustainable future encoded in the SDGs. We will keep eroding social cohesion and trust without more attention to equality and inclusivity. Many also agree that we have reached a point at which inaction is more expensive than taking action. 

Call for New Economics for Sustainable Development 

Getting back on track to achieving the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs and realizing a resilient, inclusive and sustainable recovery from the polycrisis will not happen through a business-as-usual approach. We cannot afford to waste another crisis. Only 20 percent of stimulus packages after the first waves of the pandemic supported these alternative economies. The stimulus provided with taxpayer money must accelerate the transition to already existing alternative economic models that can accelerate their achievement.

These models help address the blind spots of the incumbent economic model, unaccounted-for positive and negative externalities, and the inadequate treatment of the long-term and intergenerational impacts. They can take the interconnected socio-economic and political risks and rising volatility into account. Nevertheless, they tend to be less known and receive less public support and private investment. 

Most of us have heard of calls for Green New Deals, which extends the U.S. “New Deal” approach of massively investing in infrastructure projects to create jobs and get the U.S. economy out of the Great Depression to invest in the green economy and green jobs. Furthermore, progress is being made; for instance, the European Commission has embarked on a European Green Deal with supporting investment and policies. 

However, we must consider whether those will be enough if developing countries, where most emissions are now emanating, need more resources and technologies to transform their economies. In parallel, we must invest beyond infrastructure to include the care economy to redress gender equality to ensure we rebuild resilient, inclusive and more equitable economies. 

The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has thus called for a Global Green New Deal (GGND) that includes an equality and equity dimension. Under the GGND, the international community would have to address the root causes of inequality, such as the international financial and trade system, and support green and climate-smart technology transfer to developing countries to foster their fast adoption. Indeed, most developing countries have an insignificant contribution to climate change and bear the burden of adaptation costs. Supporting developing countries may be a complex sale to taxpayers in developed nations as they suffer from the pandemic and inflation. The interdependence of our economic, health and environmental systems calls for international solidarity as consecrated in the principle of “common but differentiated responsibility” enshrined in the Climate Agreements. 

Because our economic, health and migration patterns are increasingly affected by environmental deterioration, the New Deals must be expanded from green-only to a plurality of economies, including the blue, circular, purple, orange, social and solidarity, frugal and yellow economies. 

For instance, Green New Deals invest in infrastructure, creating jobs in the construction sector dominated by men. Inclusive recovery requires creating decent jobs for women, more harshly affected by the pandemic and most shocks. Thus, the New Deal must invest in the purple or care economy to redress gender equality, and temptation should be resisted to introduce blanket austerity measures that tend to be the flip coin of investment in the care economy and social protection floors. 

Similarly, social and solidarity organizations that prioritize social and environmental objectives embracing explicit social objective and governance models that include groups who face barriers because of gender, race, ability and economic class have been growing with polycrisis. 

Countries like Small Island Developing States have enormous sea resources compared to land and have advocated for a blue economy. 

The orange economy also offers disproportionate economic opportunities to youth harshly hit by the pandemic. 

The circular economy has also been proposed to stay within the planet’s boundaries, as well as frugal innovation that aims to reduce resources used while providing affordable access to essential services. 

These economies could help developing countries, where most new infrastructure is yet to be built, to contribute to mitigations and avoid stranded assets while generating highly needed jobs in the new economy to replace those in the old economies as we decarbonize our economies. 

Finally, because business models increasingly rely on data flows, machine learning and AI, the above must be studied in the context of the attention or yellow economy. 

The green, blue, circular, social and solidarity, frugal, orange, purple and yellow economies are the building blocks of the new economics for sustainable development (NESD) initiative of the UN Network of Economists (UNEN), which will release its report in spring 2023. However, a short description is provided below. 

The Blue or Ocean Economy

The blue economy uses similar concepts to the green economy. However, it aims to realize the economic potential of the ocean and seas, lakes, rivers and other aquatic resources while maintaining their good health and resilience with the effective participation of all stakeholders. 

The blue economy includes fisheries and aquaculture, coastal tourism, maritime transport, offshore hydrocarbon and renewable energy, ecosystem services, and the potential use of marine genetic resources (for prospection). This economy holds considerable promise for small island developing States (SIDS), coastal countries and other vulnerable island nations

The Circular Economy

The circular economy uses science, technology, information and innovation to increase efficiency through design for recyclability and reuse at the end-of-product lifecycle while cutting out waste and pollution from the production process. It aims to produce more with less waste, resources and energy through a make-use-recycle-reuse circular pattern. 

Many countries have embraced the concept. For instance, Uganda uses biogas technology, e-waste management, organic agriculture, green manufacturing and eco-industrial parks. 

The Social and Solidarity Economy

While the social and solidarity economy (SSE) also uses entrepreneurial and creative energy to solve social challenges, it puts people and social objectives ahead of profit maximization. It uses more inclusive and participatory business models, pooling resources, promoting economies of scale and bargaining power, with more equitable redistribution of revenues. It fosters shared prosperity with business models of shared ownership of assets and means of production that better incorporate marginalized groups in supply chains. According to national circumstances, the Social and Solidarity Economy includes cooperatives, associations, mutual societies, foundations, social enterprises, self-help groups and other entities operating under Social and Solidarity Economy values and principles. 

It also promotes active citizenship, participatory democracy and a pluralistic economy and bolsters social cohesion, accountability and sound governance (SDG16). Being an integral part of their communities, these organizations also have a stake in ensuring their host communities’ social and ecological integrity in the short and long term. 

Though SSE may not be familiar to many, 10 percent of the world population is estimated to work for cooperatives. Credit unions have a membership base of 375 million people in 118 countries and have 3.2 trillion assets under management. Mutual/cooperative insurance companies insure 922 million people. There are 260,000 philanthropic foundations worldwide.  

The UN Task Force on SSE’s recent paper provides examples of SSE advancing each of the SDGs with significant impacts in terms of employment, the provision of social services, women’s empowerment, access to affordable finance and local economic development. Equally important are less tangible benefits involving social cohesion and resilience at the community level, as well as participatory decision-making within SSEOEs and in policymaking. It also documents the growth of the sector as crises unfold. 

Unlike other economies without agreed definitions, members of the International Labor Organization have agreed to a definition of SSE in their Resolution concerning decent work and the social and solidarity economy in June 2022. 

The European Union, which counts 2.8 million SSE enterprises and organizations creating 13.6 million jobs and representing 8 percent of its GDP, has also adopted an Action Plan for the SSE that puts people and the planet before profit.

The OECD Recommendation on SSE and Social Innovation adopted last June finds that “the social economy has proven to be a pioneer in identifying and implementing social innovations and alternative ways of organizing economic activities. Social enterprises demonstrate that sustainable businesses are viable.”

The Frugal Economy

Unlike the more known concept of circular economy, the frugal economy aims to do “better with less” for the poorest of the planet. The goal is to provide high-quality, robust and sustainable products, services and systems to low- and middle-income consumers, at a fraction of the costs, through the combination of low margins, high-volume business model, ease of functionality and minimization of resource utilization (material and financial resources). These bottom-up innovations adapted to local situations aim to be affordable by the population usually ignored by the market – often called the bottom of the pyramid. 

However, frugal innovation has applications beyond the poor. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that in times of scarcity, frugal innovation can deliver rapid, high-quality solutions at a fraction of the costs, such as diving masks converted to respirators by Decathlon. These innovations are often provided by startups and social enterprises in developing countries and marginalized communities but growing elsewhere, disproving that only hundreds of millions of R&D protected by intellectual property rights can save us, especially for orphan SDGs such as SDG2, 3, 4, 6 and 7. 

The Orange or Creative Economy

UNCTAD defines creative industries as cycles of creating, producing, and distributing goods and services that use creativity and intellectual capital as primary inputs. Like the rest of the economy, it is increasingly relying on information and communications technology (ICT) to empower innovators and entrepreneurs, especially the digital native, to offer goods and services, including advertising, architecture, arts and crafts, design, fashion, film, video, photography, music, performing arts, publishing, electronic publishing, research and development, software, computer games, and television and radio services. 

The orange economy represented 3 and 21 percent of total merchandise and services exports, respectively, in 2020. In addition, cultural and creative industries provide 6.2 percent of all employment, generating nearly 50 million jobs worldwide, and employ more young people (15–29 year-olds) than other sectors. The creative economy promotes social inclusion, cultural diversity and human development. It can positively influence values, consumption and lifestyle choices. This economy makes the creative industries one of the world’s fastest-growing sectors. 

The Purple or Care Economy

We will not achieve gender equality if women continue to provide the majority (76 percent) of unpaid and underpaid care (43 percent) services worldwide. The pandemic has brought to light the misalignment between the value of education, health, child and elderly care for our societies and the price we are willing to pay to primary women providing these services. 

We also need more investment in the purple economy to free up girls’ and women’s time for employment, entrepreneurship and political participation. Investing in the care economy advances SDG 3 and SDG 4 directly and creates more decent jobs for most women in the sector. Moreover, it generates benefits beyond the care recipient (multiplier effects), extending to society now and in the future while simultaneously addressing inequalities, especially gender-based inequalities. 

We must thus collectively bear the costs of quality care for all – as a public good – internalizing the costs of care and shielding it from cuts during economic austerity. The Latin America and the Caribbean region have adopted a Regional Gender Agenda (RGA) to advance women’s rights, autonomy and gender equality, with care at its core. 

The Yellow or Attention Economy (also called the Surveillance Economy)

While the supply of accessible information has continued to proliferate – digital data roughly doubles every two years – the demand for information is limited by our scarce attention based on the number of hours a day. Big data, AI and machine-learning technologies were introduced to systematically collect and analyze personal attention data to address the scarcity of human attention. 

These large numbers of data points about digital platforms’ users are sold to external users (particularly advertisers) for profit without many regulations to protect users who are mostly unaware of the data being collected and sold. As advertisers pay as a function of viewers (attention), the aim is to maximize engagement in content (e.g., videos on YouTube and feeds on Facebook). This business model based on maximizing time spent on a platform happens increasingly at the expense of an individual’s well-being.

Nevertheless, it also has a societal impact as “incendiary, controversial or polarizing” content creates more engagement and they are promoted to the top. Research shows that increased exposure to harmful content, often based on false information, significantly impairs conscious decision-making and can create addiction. For instance, incessantly being exposed to these contents eventually desensitized individuals to it, normalizing it with the risk of radicalization.

This race for our attention profoundly affects the human psyche, influencing people’s beliefs and how they relate to the physical world and creating a sense of information overload. It can lead to increasing authoritarian behavior and surveillance by ruling powers, which can significantly influence human behavior by controlling the flow of information and exploiting human vulnerabilities. Efforts are being developed to better protect consumers through regulations (e.g., The EU General Data Protection Regulation), to offer better data governance, to increase attention literacy, and to develop ethical principles for programmers, advertising agencies and platforms. 

NESD Requires Alternative Business Models 

The SDGs provide the private and financial sectors with a framework to align practices with the SDGs, forcing us to take a systemic approach to problems, so synergies and trade-offs among SDGs and their targets are considered from the design stage. 

However, companies still need help to adapt their business models to reduce trade-offs to advance the SDGs without regressing on others. The polarization of Environmental, Social and Governance practices in the United States and the refocus on national security complicate matters even more. 

Alternative business models are required not only to eliminate trade-offs but to take advantage of synergies, opening fertile grounds for innovation to embed NESD into the operation, as in manufacturing higher-performance shoes with less waste, for example. If based on frugal innovation, it can lead to affordable solutions for all, ensuring fair and equitable opportunities for all. 

So far, disruptions are mostly coming from startups and purpose-driven entrepreneurs. These groups tend to be more agile in pivoting their business models and more likely to adopt inclusive ones. However, they face more networking, access to finance and other challenges, especially women and youth-owned. 

We must raise awareness, support and provide training in circular, frugal, green and blue concepts and opportunities to entrepreneurs, startups, and micro-small and medium enterprises. This support will allow us to build upon and repurpose existing technological and social innovations to provide affordable, less resource-intensive solutions at scale and capture their share of the $12 trillion in business opportunities associated with achieving the SDGs. 

How Governments Can Shape NESD

To deploy solutions at scale, partnerships with governments, development banks and more giant corporations are needed to share resources and knowledge. They co-create business models that benefit entire industries (and populations). 

Governments play a crucial role in providing the policies and environment that frame the societal and cultural norms in favor of these new economies and in strengthening the ecosystem for them to grow.

Governments can also create a supportive ecosystem to catalyze innovation and inspire participatory, green, blue, circular and frugal business models by supporting incubators and accelerator hubs. Governments can also foster entrepreneurship ecosystems, facilitating exchanges with universities and between the mainstream and NESD entities, and dedicating a share of their procurement to NESD entities, as France did with its SSE policy. 

Another vital element is to repurpose subsidies in support of new economic models. For instance, the annual $640 billion in fossil fuel and $540 agricultural subsidies (mostly in developed countries) contribute to making renewable energies and sustainable agriculture less competitive. Eighty-seven percent of agricultural subsidies are considered harmful to the environment, and a total of 1.8 trillion in harmful subsidies is provided to producers in all sectors of the economy. Repurposing them to support renewables, sustainable agriculture and inclusive production would go a long way in leveling the playing field with NESD. 

Similarly, tax breaks historically reserved for nonprofit organizations could be extended to economic entities aiming to deliver economic, social, and environmental returns and profits. In a perfect world, subsidies would be commensurate with how much positive social and environmental externalities are produced. While it is mostly the political will that lacks the subsidized ability to avoid environmental pollution, in the case of social co-benefits, we lack the appropriate measures and indicators and long-term economic returns/multiplier effects. 

Incentives and guarantees for investors and banks to invest in social and sustainable entrepreneurs and MSMEs are another way to alleviate the limited access to finance of these lesser-known and underfinanced models. Making these guarantees conditional on disclosing a core set of social and environmental indicators, such as the 33 core indicators developed by the International Standard on Accounting and Reporting, would allow investors and consumers to compare companies. 

R&D should also be aligned with SDG commitments and produce meaningful national voluntary reviews that reflect the population’s priorities based on comprehensive consultation. Indeed, “voluntary national reviews” already produced by all but five countries – Haiti, Myanmar, South Sudan, Yemen and the United States – represent, in the words of Nozozyme’s head of sustainability, “the best long-term forecast ever put in front of business.” 

Decentralizing policymaking and working with local authorities can also speed up the development and deploying innovative solutions.

These are some policy tools governments can use or develop to level the playing and scale NESD. More examples can be found in the documents referenced above.

How Educators and Education Institutions Can Shape and Scale NESD

Examples of alternative business models, often adapted to their local environment, that are present in all regions of the world should be documented and socialized by business schools and universities to speed up the adoption of these models through capstone, case studies and other projects. 

Similarly, higher education institutions and think tanks are the best partners for developing methods and metrics to measure and monitor positive social and environmental externalities produced by these models.

The climate-justice generation is increasingly pushing governments and business leaders to create a future built on solidarity, equality and respect for the environment. It is vital to inspire young people with the vision of NESD and to equip them with the knowledge, technical skills and leadership qualities needed to scale these solutions.

A curriculum that increases exposure to and prepares students to answer climate change and other world challenges would go a long way. For instance, universities have created new courses to inspire more precise insights into the social economy or social entrepreneurship. This has generated new taxonomies, a more optimized policy environment and a better public understanding of values-driven organizations. This awareness has attracted and shaped young, new leaders with skills to grow the social economy.

Schools and higher education institutions can also provide technical capacity and training to social and sustainable entrepreneurs, raising awareness about business opportunities. This support can be supplied while providing experience and exposure to students through a whole of University approach like the one developed by the Global Partnership for Poverty and Entrepreneurship out of the University of Notre Dame. 

Students must also acquire a stronger sense of ethics, the ability to collaborate and co-create, an entrepreneurship mindset, the ability to cope with more uncertainty and risks, and exposure to emerging economies with the largest population and economic growth. 

How Students Can Advance NESD

The social economy’s ambition to lead an inclusive green transition resonates increasingly with young people who, in the words of the Independent Commission for Sustainable Equality (ICSE), “will have to shoulder the cost of past generations living beyond the means of the planet.” 

There are several actions students can take to accelerate the transition to and own the NESD, a few of which are listed below: 

• This generation will see the most significant transfer of wealth ever; ensure this wealth is invested in the NESD.
• Ask your school or university to increase coverage of the SDGs and climate change challenges in the curriculum.
• Ask your school or university to include attention to economic literacy in the curriculum.
• Insist that your capstone, case studies and other projects aim to document NESD business models in developed and developing countries.
• Insist that your thesis or research be an advanced measurement of trade-offs or synergies among SDGs in developed and developing countries or to study models to mitigate risks and provide insurance to highly vulnerable countries or populations.
• Ask your school or university to include more applied multi-disciplinary classes.
• Invite your college or university to sign the Nature Positive Universities pledge.
• Invite your college or university to join the Higher Education Sustainable Initiative.
• Support advocacy to board diversity, including youth, and have ESG competence.
• Ask your school or university to help populate the 169 SDG targets.

Conclusion

Within a supportive policy environment, we can reach a critical mass. In contrast, this NESD move from the margin to mainstream with a shift in the mindset of consumers, producers and investors, realizing that we can do well by doing good and creating economic, social and environmental value in the short and long run. 

Employee activism is already on the rise, with talent retention linked to companies’ vision and purpose. Increased visibility and documented returns – in economic, environmental and social terms – of new economic models would enhance the rapport de force. 

For a successful shift, governments and the private sector need to better balance well-being and sustainability with profit and growth as social and solidarity actors do.

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Dr. Chantal Line Carpentier is Chief of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) at the New York Office of the Secretary-General, Fellow World Academy of Art and Science.