Student Reporter: Hritam Mukherjee
University: a student of Bachelor in Mass Communication and Videography in St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata
“…You only speak of a green eternal economic growth because you are too scared of being unpopular.”
– Greta Thunberg, a 15-year-old environmental activist, stated this while she addressed a meeting of hundreds of the world leaders at the COP24 plenary session, held at Katowice, Poland.
In the light of recent events, Thunberg has been repeatedly called as an “alarmist” due to her fiery speeches highlighting the need of urgent steps to ensure protection of the environment. But can we disregard the statement quoted above? Across the length and breadth of latitudinal and longitudinal criss-crossings, the world as we know it today, is heavily bearing the human imprints of exploitative endeavour. With awareness cards on the table, the world leaders are talking of a new solution that merges the need of the hour with the continuous plans of development : protecting the ecology while running the economy. This middle path has been duly named – Green Capitalism.
So, what is Green Capitalism? Onlinelibrary.wiley.com defines it to be a form of environmentalism that emphasizes the economic value of ecosystems and biological diversity. It is founded on the principle that private property, entrepreneurial freedom, and market exchange, rather than regulation, are the most efficient ways of dealing with natural resource use and environmental degradation. Green capitalism is based on the idea of natural capital, defined as the stock of ecosystems that yields a renewable flow of economic goods and services to businesses and society. It is expected that once markets can account for environmental costs and benefits they will stimulate innovation and increase inefficiency and thereby reduce environmental impacts.
In layman language, green capitalism is a structural construct, a theory that correlates environmental protection through the ways of free market operation. In simpler language it talks about how environmental protection can be carried out through manipulation of the ways in which a free market operates.
When macroeconomic variables of our country are calculated, especially National Income, Per Capita Income and Gross Domestic Product, the economic worth of externalities are not counted. For example, the value addition during the production of a certain type of leather commodity is calculated in the indexing of income. But the detrimental effect that the factory causes to the surrounding greenery by emission of fumes and sewage disposal is neither calculated nor compensated for.
So how is Green Capitalism working for ecological development?
The vision of Green Capitalism tries to bring two contradictory goals – boosting and balancing perpetual economic growth alongside sustainable preservation of national resources. Besides profit and sales maximisation, the proponents of Green Capitalism also claim to stress on the preservation of natural resources and resist its constant exploitation.
In micro, small and relatively pressure-free markets, Green Capitalism is a healthy alternative. The biggest benefactor in this case are the Organic industries. Recently it has also become an agenda of advertisement where the sale of the product is directly linked with the degree of organicness they can preserve throughout the production process.
With claims of using cleaner fuel like solar or hydel power for generation and utilisation of energy in production, industries such as horticulture and cosmetics have also adapted to greener ways of recycling and repairing in packaging and allied fields. A recent drive in the handicrafts industry especially pottery and small-scale idol-making has incorporated the awareness to avoid using toxic chemicals and going for eco-friendly ones that are derived from natural dyes and pigments.
Green Capitalists claim that this revolutionary vision has a fundamental change in it – the introduction of environmental-friendly technologies. They argue that it will not only foster the growth cycle of capital and economy but will also restore ecological balance by adoption of eco- friendly methods of production.
Although the vision sounds promising, the permanency of this in the long run has been the eye of critique by many. Through agents like market expansion and wage-restraint, Capitalism through its intrinsic principles of thought and action is inherently anti-ecology. Marx says, “As much as Capital exploits the worker, it also abuses the soil.” Clear from the example of leather industries given above, Green Capitalism tries to bind two antagonistic ideals, which do not support each other in the long run.
The unaccountability of environmental impacts in enumerating macro variables is a marker of how we humans, as products of nature have failed to have a regard for the ecology. Our greed for infinite natural resources, continuous exploitation of ores and minerals, and never-ending drive for production and profit has made us mercilessly exploit nature. Some argue that this is why a capitalist framework will never be able to solve environmental crisis and will continue to enlarge it more.
According to them, Green Capitalism is actually a myth. The claim that the emergence of private companies dedicated to produce solar panels, wind turbines, low emission vehicles, appliances and similar products will generate a surplus “to solve many environmental crises”, has been considered “fraud” and “illegitimate”.
They have gone on to say that the profit accumulation through this production process, in the hands of man demands exclusive control over the resources which will lead to more and more ecological exploitation. In this way, Green Capitalism is systematically paving a way to destroy its own point of emphasis; it is self-contradictory a theory.
The closure of such a vast, discursive topic is not possible; the different nuances and angles go on adding perspectives to it. And hence, we can never absolutely criticise or applaud it. However, as a rational man, it is always imperative and expected of us, that we, in our full capacity, work for a better future that not only promises holistic development for us, but also to the environment around us. As environmentalists have been saying since generations, if the world doesn’t survive, what good will all the profit making reap? This is one question that should ponder upon us until we reach a time when rivers do not bear the brunt of excessive sewage, breathing air does not kill a man quicker than not breathing it, and trees are not felled to make the same paper on which signatures of climate change conscience are later signed.
English