Advancing a green transformation
On June 6 and 7, the Danish government will host high-level private sector and governmental representatives at the Green Growth Forum (3GF) Summit. The event is conceived as a platform for sustaining the international momentum generated by the endorsement of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement in 2015.
Both of those processes underlined the imperative of making ambitious commitments to transform the global economy by limiting future greenhouse gas emissions and enabling affected populations to cope with the effects of global warming. 3GF focuses on one vehicle for implementing this broad agenda, namely the promotion of transformational public-private partnerships to reconcile the objectives of increasing economic prosperity and fostering environmental sustainability.
Although Denmark’s role in hosting the 3GF is traceable to its legacy as a leader in promoting a green transformation domestically and abroad, the Summit falls at a time when the Danish government has seemingly lowered its ambitions to play an international leadership role in advancing the green growth agenda. One indication of this is that climate funding is one of many areas affected by the significant cutbacks in Danish development assistance introduced in the fall of 2015. As part of the funding cuts, the Danish government indicated, for example, that it would not make future commitments to the Global Environmental Facility, a key funding initiative addressing a variety of environmental goals that shares the 3GF’s interest in expanding outreach with private sector actors.
The reduction in public funding to address development challenges via multilateral and bilateral channels has been one justification for seeking to increase private sector commitments to support the implementation of global agreements, including through the creation of public-private partnerships. While public outreach with the private sector is rightly premised on the idea that companies can help to mobilize funding, expertise, technological solutions, and networks to complement the actions of other development actors, analyses of the performance of public-private partnerships highlight that such initiatives often remain government-driven. This signals that the identification of the capacities governmental actors require to initiate, oversee, and implement partnerships should be a central element in assessing their future potential to contribute to a green transformation.
The 3GF’s programme suggests that the forum will provide space to showcase positive examples of public-private initiatives and to discuss the expectations that private sector actors have toward governmental partners and vice versa. As the firms represented at the event already display a commitment to advancing sustainability goals, the forum gives participating business leaders the opportunity to emphasize the many contributions governmental actors make in facilitating private sector engagement in the implementation of the green growth agenda. Among other forms of support, governments can provide seed funding to support innovative projects involving private sector actors, manage convening platforms to expand networks and sustainable business opportunities, and shape the market demand for green products and services as consumers or as regulatory actors.
These examples point to the importance of public investments in enabling private sector actors to expand their role in achieving the green transformation. Thus governments need to increase their ambitions in engaging with the green growth agenda if they expect private sector actors to follow suit. Firms participating in the event can be valuable advocates for conveying this message to the host government. A rediscovery of Danish leadership and a credible commitment to renew investment in support of green growth goals would provide avenues for building on the momentum of international agreements over the past year consistent with the stated objectives of the 3GF Summit.