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Supriya Prakash Sen shares an article that encourages practical, and wholly necessary, steps towards repairing our ecosystems.

This young orphaned monkey looking out at us from the ravaged wasteland behind him is symbolic of the shambles we find ourselves in.

However, many complain that there is still no consensus on what the Green New Deal should comprise of for the planet as a whole, or what should be the biggest investment priorities for fixing this rapidly worsening situation. Also, that terms like “green growth”​ and “ESG”​ and “sustainable finance”​ are all the rage, yet the difference between various terms is confusing at best.

To such commentators, I like to point out a simple framework put forth by Oxford Professor Kate Raworth in what she calls “Doughnut Economics”​.

See the inner ring of the Doughnut? This is the #socialfoundation – below which lies shortfalls in human well-being, massive deprivation as we see in so much of the world today.

And beyond the outer ring of the Doughnut- the Earth’s #ecologicalceiling- lies an overshoot of pressure on our planet’s life-giving systems, through climate change, land conversion, etc.

Thus this is the pressing task facing humanity today- i.e to bring all of humanity into that safe and just space, that sweet spot, between the two rings of the doughnut.

However, incrementalism is not going to cut it.

The argument of the #GreenGrowth advocates is that when GDP grows faster than resource use (through water and energy efficiency measures etc), we can achieve relative decoupling of GDP from ecological impacts. But unfortunately, considering the deepening crisis we are in, it would not be enough to get us all into the ring. So, absolute decoupling will be necessary. Mainly, by:

Key points include:

• Shifting energy supply
• Circular economy
• Dematerialized consumption

Read the full article, A Simple Framework for Ecosystem Restoration – why we should care and how we should deal, on LinkedIn.