Productivity Puzzles

Greening Productivity

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Episode notes

Can we make the economy greener and still be productive? Or even better, can productivity help us to make the economy greener? This episode of Productivity Puzzles examines what climate change and the transition to a Net Zero means for productivity, and whether the challenges to green the economy make it even harder to raise productivity. Crucially, can productivity help to make the economy greener? Can green technology and innovation be used more productively than other technologies?

Host Professor Bart van Ark is joined by:

• Anna Valero, Senior Policy Fellow at the Centre for Economic Performance at the LSE and Deputy Director of the Programme on Innovation and Diffusion (POID).
• Antoine Dechezleprêtre, Senior Economist in the Productivity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Division, Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation (STI), OECD.
• Jonatan Pinkse, Professor of Strategy, IMP Innovation, Strategy and Sustainability, at the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIoIR), Alliance Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester.

For more information on the topic:

• Resolution Foundation (2022), Growing clean: Identifying and investing in sustainable growth opportunities across the UK, The Economy 2030 Inquiry.
• The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, POID, CEP (2021), Are ‘green’ jobs good jobs? How lessons from the experience to-date can inform labour market transitions of the future. 
• Frank Geels, Jonatan Pinkse, Dimitri Zenghelis (2021) Productivity opportunities and risks in a transformative, low-carbon and digital age. Working Paper No. 009, The Productivity Institute.
• OECD (2023), Driving low-carbon innovations for climate neutrality, Science, Technology and Industry Policy Papers, No. 143
• Mission Zero. Independent Review of Net Zero, Chris Skidmore, 2022

About Productivity Puzzles:

Productivity Puzzles is brought to you by The Productivity Institute, a research body involving nine academic institutions across the UK, eight Regional Productivity Forums throughout the nation, and a national independent Productivity Commission to advise policy makers at all levels of government. It is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.