Globalisation

One of the main characteristics of globalisation is an increase in international trade. This causes some direct environmental impacts, through emissions from transport, both of freight and people. More importantly, though, trade is a magnifier: unsustainable patterns of pollution and resource use tend to be scaled up as a result of its expansion. The world’s population as a whole is now living beyond the capacity of the earth’s ecosystems to regenerate; the resources and absorptive capacity of about one and a third planets are now needed for sustainability. If everyone in the world lived like we do in the UK, we would need three planets.

The problem cannot be met, however, by simply reducing international trade – such a step, even if it were possible, would tend to reduce the efficiency of resource use and deny market access to the products of poorer countries. What is needed is a substantial increase in the efficiency with which economies use resources and generate pollution, decoupling economic activity from environmental destruction.

Models of sustainable production and consumption need to be developed as a matter of urgency. This covers a very wide range of issues, including energy use and climate change (covered in detail in Policy Paper 82, Zero Carbon Britain), but also the use of non-renewable resources such as metals, minerals, chemicals or plastics; the use of renewable resources such as water, timber or food and textile crops; and product design to encourage recycling, reclamation and reuse. In the long run, this will mean far-reaching behavioural change, so it is essential that government, business and individual consumers operate within a fair and equitable framework of incentives to move towards sustainability.

This will have implications for the competitiveness of British products abroad. Of course there will be cost implications of moving towards higher environmental standards faster than other countries. However, studies do not suggest that this need harm competitiveness in the long, or even the short-run; to the contrary, it can help to open up new export markets for green technologies (as Germany and Denmark have seen in renewable energy technologies).

It is also important that the UK does not adopt sustainable models of consumption and production simply by outsourcing its environmental impact to other countries. This is already happening to a certain extent; imports from China, for example, where the environmental impacts are often much worse than in the UK, are rising massively (a quarter of China’s greenhouse gas emissions are accounted for by the production of exports to the West). At the same time, we do not wish to close British markets to exports from developing countries, which may rely on trade to escape from poverty. This will be a very difficult balance to reach.

Issues to consider

18. What steps need to be taken to reduce the UK’s impact on the environment, without simply outsourcing its pollution and resource use?
19. How can this be done in a way which maximises economic benefits, e.g. from exports of new technologies? Are there specific green technologies in which should the government invest or facilitate investment?
20. How can models of sustainable production and consumption be promoted while at the same time remaining open to developing-country exports?