Setting a structural agenda for a green economic recovery from COVID-19

This working paper by the Green Economy Coalition (GEC) outlines a structural agenda for a green economic recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic. It distinguishes between short-term stimulus and long-term structural reforms, providing a nested framework of policy measures and a set of prioritisation criteria to help governments transition from immediate crisis management to systemic socio-ecological transformation.

• The paper defines green structural reforms as systemic policies that alter fundamental economic arrangements regarding production, consumption, pricing, and governance, requiring a longer timeframe to achieve impact than short-term crisis tools.
• A proposed menu of high-level green structural reform measures includes strengthened planning and governance, green fiscal reform, sustainable financial systems, just transition and inclusion policies, green skills and qualification measures, natural capital investment, green regulatory strengthening, green infrastructure investment, and alignment with digitalization policy.
• The authors identify a three-tiered framework for prioritising structural reforms: 'conventional' criteria (e.g., fiscal multipliers, job creation), 'advanced' criteria (e.g., critical natural capital impact, planetary boundaries), and 'systemic/political' criteria (e.g., SDG alignment, societal demand).
• Analysis of the proposed framework suggests that green skills measures and strengthened planning and governance align most strongly with the reviewed prioritisation criteria, while green monetary tools are the least well aligned.
• Natural capital investment is identified as the specific subsidiary measure with the strongest alignment across multiple returns, including social, economic, and environmental impacts.
• The paper highlights significant gaps in current green recovery implementation, specifically the underutilisation of gender-integrated policy, a relative lack of investment in nature compared to low-carbon measures, and insufficient attention to just transitions for informal actors.
• Financing structural reforms in the global south is particularly challenging due to liquidity constraints and a lack of the permissive financing conditions available to high-income regions like the EU.
• Recommended financing strategies for developing countries with tight fiscal constraints include using sustainability or SDG-linked bonds, debt-for-nature or debt-for-climate swaps, and leveraging Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) to crowd-in private capital.
• The document provides empirical examples of structural measures, such as Senegal's focus on green taxation and sustainable procurement, Argentina's sectoral green recovery scenarios linked to NDCs, and Brazil's greening of the 'State Plan for Family Agriculture' in Mato Grosso.

APA

Hopkins, C., & Greenfield, O. (2021). Setting a structural agenda for a green economic recovery from COVID-19. Green Economy Coalition. https://www.greeneconomycoalition.org/assets/reports/GEC-Reports/PIGE-Working-Paper-SettingAStructuralAgendaforaGreenEconomicRecoveryfromCOVID-19-Nov2021.pdf

Chicago

Hopkins, Chris, and Oliver Greenfield. Setting a structural agenda for a green economic recovery from COVID-19. Green Economy Coalition, 2021. https://www.greeneconomycoalition.org/assets/reports/GEC-Reports/PIGE-Working-Paper-SettingAStructuralAgendaforaGreenEconomicRecoveryfromCOVID-19-Nov2021.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Hopkins |first1=Chris |last2=Greenfield |first2=Oliver |title=Setting a structural agenda for a green economic recovery from COVID-19 |publisher=Green Economy Coalition |date=November 2021 |url=https://www.greeneconomycoalition.org/assets/reports/GEC-Reports/PIGE-Working-Paper-SettingAStructuralAgendaforaGreenEconomicRecoveryfromCOVID-19-Nov2021.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{hopkins2021setting, author = {Hopkins, Chris and Greenfield, Oliver}, title = {{Setting a structural agenda for a green economic recovery from COVID-19}}, institution = {Green Economy Coalition}, year = {2021}, month = nov, url = {https://www.greeneconomycoalition.org/assets/reports/GEC-Reports/PIGE-Working-Paper-SettingAStructuralAgendaforaGreenEconomicRecoveryfromCOVID-19-Nov2021.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }