social, economic and environmental thinking for a rebalancing world

I was at ExpoBrasil yesterday -a conference looking at local development strategies here in Brazil.It was striking how much expertise there is in this field which, when put alongside better public infrastructure, will work together to help many get out of poverty and at the same time help build this new articulation of prosperity that fits this high growth economy.

Ignacio Sachs spoke about new economic  directions post-crisis for Brazil. He floated this idea that the notion that being tropical is bad for development is now over.

This is an idea that crops up in many spheres, linked to environmental services and, in Brazil’s case, cultivatible land.

However, this all depends on policy. Yes,  Brazil has a lof of hydroeletric power – as it is blessed with a lot of water – but poor infrastructure planning means that  the energy matrix is getting dirtier, moving the economy away from becoming low carbon.

While biomass energy generation could be a great source of renewable energy in the future for Brazil made up of agricultural bi-products, where is it now?

In all these debates and ideas, are notions about new types of economic development. However there still seems to be an impasse between high growth and low carbon, or indeed more equitable growth.

Where I see space for this to change is in the rush to cater for low income sectors pushed by potential rewards and faltering, overleveraged developed economies. As companies adapt to meet these needs, and bring with them high ecological building standards or new green technologies around energy generation for example, new relationships of growth, wellbeing and development are being created.

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