A sustainable global economy is premised on business leaders and policy-makers developing holistic strategies for energy, agriculture, infrastructure and water.
How can policy-makers and business leaders work together to adequately create these synergies?
Key Points
• Various supply and demand forecasts on energy, food, water, and other goods and services indicate serious shortages by 2030.
• But in addressing one problem, the world often creates unintended consequences in other areas because the issues of sustainability are complex and closely interlinked.
• A multistakeholder approach and integrated policy response are required to unravel the complexity of the problem.
• International institutions must also be restructured, a global body created to serve as honest broker and holistic action taken on the regional level.
Synopsis
The World Food Programme estimates that food production must double over the next 40 years to meet projected demand. If agricultural businesses continue to operate as they do today, warns the International Water Management Institute, there would not be enough water to meet the needs of a world population of 9 billion people expected in 2030.
For its part, the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts a 45% increase in energy demand by 2030, one-third of which will be met by burning coal. The IEA also estimates that 269 trillion litres of biofuels must be produced per year by 2030 just to account for 5% of total road transport fuels, a significant increase from today’s ethanol production of 368 billion litres.
These issues are closely intertwined. For example, the world will consume dramatically more sugar for food and to produce ethanol by 2030, but an explosion in high-intensity sugar cultivation risks encroachment into forest land, draining of rivers, damage to biodiversity and social problems as smaller farmers are forced off their land.
The push and pull of competing needs require a multi-sectoral approach and a policy package that addresses both supply and demand. On the supply side, trade and energy policies must be reformed so the right incentives encourage sustainable sugar production. Tariffs and other trade barriers must be removed to allow the market to function effectively.
On the demand side, the desirability of sugar as food can be decreased by communicating the downside of consumption on people’s health and the negative impact of intensified cultivation on the environment and farming families. Investments in biofuel technologies that can produce alternatives to sugar-based ethanol must also be increased.
The same dynamic is at work in other sustainability-related problems such as water and infrastructure. All stakeholders, including policy-makers and business leaders, must work together on an integrated policy response. The courses of action developed must be holistic and should not create unintended consequences.
Restructuring today’s international institutions into organizations for sustainability is a difficult task. A dialogue based on scenario planning that takes into account geopolitical and technological interests as well as the voices of smaller players is a meaningful starting point.
But reinvented multilateral agencies alone cannot address all the challenges. A global organization may be needed to act as an honest broker among the various interests. Regional organizations and NGOs also have a significant role to play. Initiatives on a regional basis may be the optimum road to take towards sustainable growth and development.
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