“Building Back Better” in Practice: A Science-Policy Framework for a Green Economic Recovery after COVID-19

Abstract

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

On the Sustainability Performance of the European Union’s Economic Recovery Strategy – A Case Study with Lessons for Policymakers

“…Second, it is essential to explicitly consider the time horizon of different impacts. Additional analysis is necessary to distinguish trade-offs and synergies between short-term and long-term impacts as the EU recovery packages have different objectives -for example, social impacts may be more important for providing economic relief in the next two or three years, some economic and green impacts are designed to contribute to environmental and economic development targets for 2030, while other impacts are relevant for the longer term, such as the climate neutrality target for 2050 and other objectives of the European Green Deal (Zachariadis et al, 2021).…”

A Science-Policy Framework for a Green Economic Recovery after the Covid-19 Pandemic

“…Thirteen interventions were identified in this way, which are listed in Table 1. More details about each measure are provided in Appendix A of the full report of the study 30 .…”

“…Appendix C of the full report 30 provides technical information about the application of these methods.…”

“…Next, the PROMETHEE II method was applied in which each DM evaluated the performance of all green interventions with a score in the scale 1-5, indicating an evaluation ranging from 'very low' to 'very high'. Scores for each recovery measure by criterion, in line with this method, were provided by each stakeholder as shown in Appendix C of the full report 30 . It should be noted that the scores for four criteria (energy savings, carbon emission savings, economic multiplier, and new jobs created)…”

On the Sustainability Performance of the European Union’s Economic Recovery Strategy – A Case Study with Lessons for Policymakers

“…Second, it is essential to explicitly consider the time horizon of different impacts. Additional analysis 7 is necessary to distinguish trade-offs and synergies between short-term and long-term impacts as the EU recovery packages have different objectives -for example, social impacts may be more important for providing economic relief in the next two or three years, some economic and green impacts are designed to contribute to environmental and economic development targets for 2030, while other impacts are relevant for the longer term, such as the climate neutrality target for 2050 and other objectives of the European Green Deal.…”