Key Message
The pursuit of sustainable development requires that attention be paid to the interactions among the environment, society and the economy. As such, IISD explores how the environment is valued; how public policy instruments can be designed better; and how abject poverty can be addressed sustainably.
Team
 | · Aaron Cosbey Associate and Senior Climate Change and Trade Advisor | |
 | · Christopher Beaton Research Analyst/Communications Officer | |
 | · Darren A. Swanson Senior Project Manager | |
 | · Dimple Roy Manager, Sustainable Natural Resources Management | |
 | · Jason Potts Associate and Program Manager, SMART | |
 | · László Pintér Director - Measurement and Assessment | |
 | · Livia Bizikova Project Manager | |
 | · Marlene Roy Research and Learning Resources | |
 | · Matthew McCandless Project Manager | |
 | · Oshani Perera Programme Officer | |
 | · Peter Wooders Senior Economist | |
 | · Stephan Barg Associate | |
 | · Vivek Voora Project Manager | |
Economics and SD
Bringing economic insight to environmental and social issues
What's New in Economics and SD?
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Measuring Policy Coherence among the MEAs and MDGs (PDF - 565 kb)
At present there are about 13 global Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) and/or conventions and about 500 international treaties or other agreements related to the environment. This proliferation of agreements has created concern among international and national communities regarding overlap and duplication of goals and programs. Lack of coherence results in high transaction costs and inefficiencies in achieving convention objectives and the need for coherence is obvious. While several MEA initiatives have yielded a more integrated approach towards environmental management, little is currently being done to find coherence between environmental agreements and development initiatives, especially the recently designed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
At its core, economics is the study of how societies use (scarce) resources. Although the traditional emphasis has been on how resources are allocated, attention is increasingly paid to the equity of the distribution of resources and the overall scale of economic activity. This has been driven, in large part, by concerns about the environmental and social impacts of economic decisions. Conversely, our choices in the environmental and social spheres have economic impacts. The challenge of sustainable development is to better understand and anticipate how decisions affect all three aspects.
To meet such a broad challenge, each IISD program includes economic as well as environmental and social inquiry. This interconnected endeavour requires the use of multiple methods and analytical tools and the field of economics provides many of these. Moreover, economics is increasingly informed by other fields of inquiry thus providing fertile ground for research on how environmental and social issues are affected by our economic choices and vice versa.
Reflecting the range of issues, our work in this area is broad, but it can be grouped into three general categories: values and valuation; policy instruments; and poverty and environment.
Contents
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Values and Valuation
The environment contributes to the economy in numerous ways, but there is a great deal of uncertainty in assigning economic value to it. Many decisions about the environment, however, are based on economic values determined by the market, which typically doesn't consider life-supporting and other ecosystem benefits. IISD's intent is to find ways to conserve vital ecosystems by developing better economic and non-economic valuation methods and tools. -
Policy Instruments
Governments use various instruments—including economic instruments such as pollution taxes, subsidies, marketable permits, performance bonds and so on—to re-align market signals so that they promote environmentally responsible behaviour by all. These instruments often operate in tandem with mandated regulations, and greatly impact sustainable development. IISD is investigating how to improve the design of economic instruments and their application to benefit the environment and society. -
Poverty and Environment
Poverty reduction and human development are central to sustainable development. Ways to improve the lives of impoverished people without further degrading ecosystems need to be found. IISD is applying concepts, methods and tools from across its programs to address this issue.
Key Publication
Exploring the Links: Human Well-being, Poverty and Ecosystem Services
» Anantha K. Duraiappah, IISD, 2004.Exploring the Links sets out to demonstrate how human well-being is dependent upon ecosystems and ecosystem services; to identify barriers and drivers that prevent the poor from using these ecosystem services to improve their well-being, in essence perpetuating poverty; and to identify policy response options to remove the barriers, re-design or even introduce new intervention strategies to allow the poor to improve their well-being through an ecosystem approach.
Our Knowledge
» Themes
- Adaptation and Risk Reduction
- Climate Change and Energy
- Economics and SD
- Foreign Investment for SD
- Governance for Sustainable Development
- Internet and Technology
- International Trade
- Measurement and Assessment
- Natural Resources
- Networks & Partnerships
- Security
- Sustainable Markets
- Tomorrow's SD Leaders
» Initiatives
- Water Innovation Centre (WIC)
- The Sustainable Commodity Initiative (SCI)
- Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI)
