Across the countries of the world, economic progress has been significant. As a result, more than a billion people have escaped extreme poverty. However, this economic development has risks like climate change, resulting from primarily focusing on short-term solutions. Therefore, it is now essential to focus on long-term economic sustainable development. With solutions for sustainable development, one can ensure economic progress and other spheres of development, such as societal and environmental developments. Here are seven ways to ensure a sustainable global economy to change the socioeconomic and ecological landscape of the world.
1. Resilience Against Economic Challenges
The world has faced many economic challenges in the past few years due to the pandemic, inflation, recession and the Russia-Ukraine war. Such external events have weakened the economy of many countries.
Therefore, there is a need for policymakers to create accommodative and flexible macroeconomic policies to cushion the economic health of their countries. Furthermore, these policies should be resilient and, thus, need to include emergency preparedness.
2. Green Financial Market Mechanisms
It is possible to address the issue of climate risk only when all the stakeholders, including the country’s central banks and financial regulators, come into action. For instance, its supervisory mechanism should include micro-supervision and monitoring of the different units of economic sectors.
Central banks and financial regulators can ensure this by informing environment-related disclosure of the companies. Second, the FDI should attract investment for different financial projects. Lastly, they need to prioritize green capital, lending and credit enhancement.
3. Sustainability In The Core Functioning Of Businesses
Companies, especially startups, should have sustainability in their core function for a better future. However, creating sustainable products is often expensive, and not all customers are at the stage to pay the premium prices. Therefore, local and national governments and international organizations should aid businesses that want to create sustainable products and deliver sustainable services to their customers.
4. Self-Awareness Amongst Consumers For Sustainable Lifestyle
As discussed above, consumers are skeptical about paying a premium price for sustainable products and services. It is primarily because of a need for more awareness. Therefore, it is vital to create awareness amongst consumers regarding the impact of their choices and decisions. Previously, Lottery Sambad was less popular among the locals. However, the organization has managed to create awareness about its benefits. Therefore, creating awareness of sustainability is a doable task too. Governments should use different incentives and marketing strategies to develop this awareness.
Only then will the demand for sustainable products and services increase and lower its price. Consequently, sustainable products and services will become available at a customer-friendly price for all.
5. Focus On Renewable Energy
The government and industries must commit to decarbonization. First, however, the government should create a transition action plan to aid the organization. This action plan should have different phases to make it a trackable goal.
Second, the government should incentivize citizens and businesses to shift to clean energy. Also, the national government and internal organizations should come together to promote green energy and technology.
6. Build A Stakeholder Economy
Moving towards a sustainable economy is impossible alone. Therefore, it is vital to consider all the economy’s stakeholders. Moving towards sustainable economic development becomes more manageable when all stakeholders come together. For example, even to make Bhutan State Lottery a success, the different stakeholders, like the organizer, government and consumers, have come together.
Three levels of stakeholders are crucial in building a stakeholder economy: local action, people action and global action. Now is the time for the stakeholders to dive into action.
7. ESG Integration In Businesses
Businesses face many constraints in moving towards sustainable business functions. The significant challenges are difficulty measuring carbon emissions, cheap financing for the brown alternatives and lack of standards. However, businesses can integrate ESG that comprises the environment, society and government in the business functions to make it sustainable.
It can also adopt internal carbon pricing and disclose its environmental impact. Disclosure is important as it can fetch business investments from eco-conscious investors. Other ways companies can benefit from it includes first-mover advantage, resilience creation and reputation gain.
All individuals need to shift from unsustainable consumption to a mindful lifestyle to move towards sustainable economic development. Government and businesses can bring this shift through awareness which can change consumer behavior. A few ways to ensure this include nudging, eco-labelling and incentives for sustainable goods and services.
