Green economy in South Africa and its impact on sustainable economic development

Abstract EN

This paper seeks to identify the effects of the green economy in South Africa, the opportunities it presents, the associated challenges, and how the green economy policies can achieve sustainable development.

South Africa’s transition to a green economy will lead to a number of investment incentives towards the creation of a large number of green jobs, up to 300,000 over the next 10 years.

This is in addition to increasing investments in the public and private sectors, providing an enabling environment for infrastructure development and enterprise restructuring.

This is expected to result in a much larger share of green sectors in the production output of the national economy, a significant reduction in energy and material intensities of production process, as well as significantly reduced waste, pollution and greenhouse-gas emissions.