The song "Gangnam Style", made in Korea and sung in Korean, has gone to number 1 in the UK, number 2 in the US, and has broken the record for being the "most viewed" video on you tube, with over one billion views. It is also being parodied all over the world. There's my personal favourite -  a Ghanaian version, as well as a Nigerian-British version and a Saudi Arabian version. It's been used by Amnesty International and Anish Kapoor, an Indian-born British sculptor, to publicise the need for freedom of speech globally, following a ban of a separate Gangnam parody by the controversial Chinese Writer Ai Weiwei.

The origins of Gangham Style are themselves interesting. This article describes how the song has some relatively subversive messages about debt and inequality in Korea's society, which may well resonate in many other countries around the world.

However rebellious or relevant the message, the fact is that Korea is having a dramatic influence on the music industry. The world is changing. It' no longer just European or US artists dominating the world's music charts. Others are coming in too.

There's a similar phenomenon taking place in development. Korea's influence is being felt. Take climate change and green growth which I used to work on, and was the subject of negotiations earlier this month in Doha, Qatar. Korea was and is a major player in this arena. The country continues to spend 2% of GDP per year -that's over $20bn - on specific green growth measures. It has been the first country to set up a Global Green Growth Institute to help other countries follow its path. And one of the positive outcomes at Doha was that countries agreed that Korea should set up the new Green Climate Fund in the futuristic, eco-smart city of Songdo during the second half of 2013.

Promoting the Green Climate Fund, Gangnam Style

Korea has also influenced the area I now work on. Just over a year ago, Korea hosted a major conference in Busan, initially billed as focused on "aid effectiveness". As I've set out in a previous blog, aid effectiveness conferences had been held prior to this in Rome, Paris and Accra, but none of them had managed to gain the trust and involvement of countries such as China and India. Korea did. Partly as a result of actively bringing in these partners into the discussion, the Busan conference actively changed its focus on aid effectiveness to a focus on development effectiveness, which was a much wider and broader concept that countries such as China, Brazil and even countries like Colombia and Nigeria better recognised. Korea, and the wide range of countries it helped bring in, made a permanent impact.

Earlier this month, Justine Greening, DFID's Secretary of State, alongside ministers from Nigeria and Indonesia co-chaired a meeting to follow up that agreement in Busan. It was the first Steering Committee of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation. Korea was present, representing countries outside the EU that "provide" development cooperation, such as Australia or the Gulf States. As is clear to see in the videos of the meeting, Korea played a constructive role. Korea helped in deciding when the Steering Committee would next meet (in March and June/July next year) and agree plans for a bigger ministerial meeting in October 2013. Korea also helped address the vexing question of what change and success for development that the Partnership, now that it is formed, might deliver. In doing so, the Committee agreed to look at four to five initial topics, which they will be writing papers on in the coming weeks and will be shared and discussed with the international community. In my next few blog posts, I'll try to explain these topics, and what they might mean in terms of our real lives.

For now though, it's clear that Korea has and will continue to make an impact. That's a signal that the world is changing, and work on development is, rightly, changing along with it too. My hope is that we will build on Korea's achievements and look back on the Ministerial next year as ground-breaking too. Let's bring on the Gangnam Style!

Now, as you might be able to tell from my previous posts, I usually avoid wearing the sceptics hat. But the other day I came across an article that assumed a linear, causal relationship between two variables. The article was by Todd Moss at the Center for Global Development. He argued that the American organisation that provides investment to developing countries "OPIC" should be able to help low-income countries invest in high-carbon energy - such as coal or diesel powered stations, to help stimulate access to energy in those countries. He argued that the limits that OPIC has on this kind of investment are "strategically counterproductive and morally dubious".

I, like Todd, certainly feel strongly about access to energy. Around the world, 1.3 billion people have no access to electricity. Over 80% of those people live either in sub-Saharan Africa or in South Asia. Access can vary dramatically within regions - e.g. over 95% of people lack electricity access in Chad and Liberia versus 25% in South Africa. Although problems are currently worse in rural areas than urban areas, even so about 56% of urban dwellers in sub-Saharan Africa lack access to electricity.

Hans Roslings' latest TED talk cleverly explains why increasing energy access helps reduce poverty. It can expand people's choices and productivity, particularly for women. It also helps business. A recent survey of manufacturing firms in Nigeria showed 83% of respondents identified electricity as their top problem. In many cases, even when people or firms get access to electricity they still suffer from blackouts (such as experienced recently in India) and lack of affordability. Related problems exist in developed countries. In the UK, around 19% of households were fuel poor in 2010 - meaning they had to spend over 10% of their income on fuel for adequate heating. Energy poverty matters.

The problem is, from a quick skim of historic data, there is no major reason to expect investment in conventional high-carbon energy to solve the energy access problem. These graphs from the 2003 and 2002 IEA World Economic Outlooks (respectively) illustrate:

Although the dollars invested in the power sector and installed capacity - most of it based on conventional fuels such as coal, gas and oil - have increased strongly since the 1970s, the number of people with access to electricity has increased somewhat, but not a great deal.

Of course, the problem could be population growth, but the data suggests it isn't. A 2011 study by some global energy experts found no distinguishable relationship between investment in energy infrastructure and the degree of energy poverty once you control for total population. The experts instead suggested the problem was inequality - in many countries, new investment tends to benefit people that already have access. They therefore recommended a five-fold increase in energy sector investment in low-income countries, accompanied by investment in grid extensions, off-grid solutions and renewable energy - rather than the conventional, high-carbon methods used to date.

Added to this, looking ahead, it's not clear that investing in coal or diesel-fired power will always be sensible for all countries – even if these power sources are abundant domestically. Reports such as the European Report on Development and McKinsey's Resource Revolution provide evidence that commodity prices are likely to rise and become more volatile in future. A number of economists such as Shalizi and Lecocq think developing countries might regret building infrastructure that locks them into needing to buy coal or oil or relying on their volatile revenues. While there isn't much evidence on this yet, it's probably sensible for most countries to aim for a diversified energy sector.

These are the reasons why I was sceptical when I read Todd Moss's article calling for OPIC to invest in high-carbon energy. It's also why the UK supports the UN Secretary General's Sustainable Energy For All Initiative, and why DFID helps low-income countries invest in diverse sources of energy through vehicles such as the Scaling Up Renewable Energy Program, the Results-based Financing Facility and Green Africa Power. Pushing OPIC and others to look in new directions and help forge a new relationship between investment and energy access might actually be a good thing. And with that, I took off my sceptics hat.

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This post also featured on Duncan Green's blog, strategic adviser for Oxfam GB and author of from 'Poverty to Power.' Todd Moss from the Center for Global Development has responded to Hannah Ryder’s critique. Read his thoughts and join the debate.

Credit: Smart Move Campaign

I think the reason people seem to like the quotation so much is that it appeared to turn usual, simple ideas of what development means "on their head". It was similar to the effect the book Poor Economics had when it was published last year with the headline "Why would a man in Morocco who doesn't have enough to eat buy a television?"  The headline was intriguing. But once you started reading Poor Economics it made sense.  The authors explained that even though nutrition is important, poor people – just like rich people – have desires and aspirations like TVs or mobile phones. It's just that poorer people need to sacrifice more in terms of their nutrition and basic needs to meet those pressures or desires, compared to rich people.  Denying the reality of people's aspirations just isn't realistic - and that means that poverty reduction can, surprisingly, involve TVs.

In the same way, with a bit of explanation, the sentence by the Mayor of Bogota about aiming for public transport makes a great deal of sense once you understand the importance of aspirations.

Part of the argument is to do with costs of private transport.

For example, back in 2000, the WHO estimated that 1.3 million people die around the world from traffic accidents. That's more people than malaria kills. Such accidents are the leading cause of death for young people aged 5 to 29, 90% of which occur in developing countries. Cars also create congestion – wasting fuel and time that could be spent increasing productivity and trade.  A 2011 IBM survey reported that 86% of respondents in Beijing, 70% in New Delhi and 61% in Nairobi said traffic was a key inhibitor of their work or school performance.  Furthermore, 1.3 million people are killed every year from the effects of urban outdoor air pollution (the same number as deaths from indoor air pollution), with vehicles being one of the major emitters of such pollution alongside industry. Given that over half the world's population is forecast to live in urban areas by 2020, this number is likely to keep rising. These are costs that no-one, rich or poor, aspires to.  And they are one of the reasons why DFID has recently said it will allocate £1m over three years to the Global Road Safety Facility.

But, despite all these costs, I doubt that I, the Mayor of Bogota, or an institution such as the World Bank (who recently published a paper on low-carbon transport), would say that investment in roads – which will attract some degree of private car ownership – is bad. Roads are crucial, for instance to connect rural areas to markets or cities. But policy makers can still try to encourage lower-carbon, more pro-poor and safer road users such as buses or car-sharing schemes, or, in cities, encourage alternatives such as Metro and Bus Rapid Transit. Although they might be more complex, require higher upfront investment, or a particular type of contract to be viable, such alternatives could also offer opportunities for new markets around public routes – which would not exist if people used private cars.  This is why, for example, DFID is helping Nigeria create a public-private partnership to build a train system in the capital city, Lagos, hopefully by 2016.

The cost argument also suggests we need to plan infrastructure carefully. In another World Bank report, there's this great picture comparing the "sprawl" of Atlanta and Barcelona, two relatively well-off cities with a similar population:

Source: World Bank 2012 & Betraud, 2003

If you were a developing country, what kinds of cities would you aspire to build?

Clearly, Atlanta has fewer options for “going green” than Barcelona will. Investment in electric vehicles alongside renewable electricity will be key for Atlanta.  But if developing countries aim to build cities more like Barcelona they'll be able to invest in and get around on public transport more easily into the long-term.

But what exactly made the Mayor of Bogota think that using public transport can really be something to aspire to? We tend to think of cars as something that people everywhere want, especially if they are rich, just like TVs.  But it seems they're not. A recent Economist article observed a declining trend in car use and ownership in rich countries.  Here in the UK, people now only use their cars slightly more often than they did in the 1970s. The article suggested this could be due to a number of factors, including rising fuel costs, interconnectedness (e.g. so people can buy online rather than drive to shops), and the rise of public transport, cycle routes and car-sharing schemes.

Combined with the fact that private transport can be inequitable for the poorest people (because it requires cash up-front and expensive fuel thereafter) – these arguments made me think that Bogota's Mayor might just be right. If the route for developed countries involves regretting not investing in public transport, it might be wise to avoid that route on the path to development full stop. Now that is something to aspire to.

London, hosting the Olympics right now, is very different from most other UK cities. For example, it has the largest number of cinemas and number of ethnic minority individuals in the UK, and its tube network is over 30 times longer than Glasgow's. I realised that in Glasgow, I had to think differently. For example, cycling was faster than walking or getting the bus, moving into a larger flat provided a more comfortable space for my friends to visit, and going to the countryside was ten times better than the cinema. As I shifted my expectations, I realised I could have just as happy a life outside London, even though Glasgow was so unfamiliar. For many people, including myself, the Rio+20 Earth Summit was almost like moving out of a familiar city to somewhere very different.

Moving home can be difficult, but sometimes it's necessary Picture: Russell Watkins/ DFID

I had prepared for Rio+20 expecting the document to be negotiated by governments, titled "The Future We Want" - to represent the major outcome of the Summit. And though important, I expected the events and activities that I was working on in the margins of the Summit to be important but not as critical as the document. Although my expectations had been formed based on historic precedent - from the original Rio negotiation in 1992 to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change conference - my expectations were unfounded. In the end the commitments made outside of the negotiating room - on natural capital accounting by governments, on transparency of environmental impacts by businesses, on sustainable energy by both governments and investors, and many more – over 100 of which are set out in this useful "Cloud of Commitments" website - represented some really tangible, practical outcomes.

There are various views on whether these "bottom-up" activities represent success - ranging from the enthusiasts such as KPMG's Global Advisor Yvo De Boer to the naysayers such as environmentalist Bill McKibben. The Guardian's Jo Confino summarises the pros and cons of these views well here.

But there's also an interesting question around why the shift towards "bottom-up" activities took place. As an economist, I'm drawn to explanations focused on shifts in economic power.

It looks like there were two shifts that affected Rio+20.

First, I talked in my opening blog post for E2B about the potential impact businesses and investors can have on environmental outcomes - often bigger than entire countries. Yet it is firms that create jobs and growth. At Rio+20, companies and investors found a new space to discuss the initiatives they are taking on sustainability - creating a new sense of competition in this area. The major question now is whether this competition will drive sufficient action for reform across sectors rather than just individual leading companies.

While at the Rio+20 Summit, I participated in a discussion of an IIED paper on the sustainability performance of the extractives sector (mining, oil and gas) over the last 10 years. As the author Abi Buxton explains in this blog post, the major conclusion was that firms in the sector know the standards and best practice, but for many reasons don’t implement them. As an economist, I'm hoping to work out what those reasons are, and find ways that DFID or others in the UK government can help unlock them and reduce poverty at the same time.

Second, as the UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg implied, emerging economies such as Mexico, India, the Republic of Korea, Brazil and China are increasingly able to set the multilateral agenda. In settings like Rio+20, many (though not all) emerging economies tend to emphasise the need for developed countries to pay for the globe to achieve environmental sustainability. However, just before Rio+20, The Economist observed that these economies are increasingly prioritising domestic policies for environmental sustainability. Books such as Dambisa Moyo's new "Winner Take All" lend credence to this new prioritisation. The Rio+20 negotiations reflected the uncertainty around whether and how domestic shifts will translate into shifts in international agreements. People like myself in government will thereby need to better understand and seek closer dialogue with emerging economies, including through fora like the G20, whose Declaration was released just before Rio+20 and included complementary environmental elements.

Had my prior expectations of the strength of Rio+20’s document borne out, perhaps we might not need to seek these more oblique, non-linear means to address environmental problems. But the fact is that times have changed and we no longer live in familiar surroundings. Our expectations and asks of summits like Rio+20 may need to continue to change. But adapting our approach to new surroundings will not necessarily be a bad thing. As one of my favourite UK economists has pointed out - obliquity is sometimes the best way. I went to Rio+20 expecting a familiar, linear result. I left convinced of the need to work in new, unconventional directions.

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This blog is featured on E2B Pulse - the website of the UK carbon reduction network.

It was crucial because my little mantra made the training and the marathon part of my core identity. A marathon is not something someone can just do "on the side". You need to embrace it or you won't have the willpower to run in the rain or when you've had a bad day at work. You won't have the willpower to avoid chocolate and eat a more nutritious fruit and nut bar instead. And you won't have the willpower to run those extra six miles when you've already run twenty. The marathon eventually became part of me – and I drew on my mantra all the time to help me train, carry on and eventually finish.

Having a Mantra can keep you going, Credit: Marcus Ryder, 2012

I've been thinking about mantras now that the Rio+20 Summit is over. A key outcome of Rio+20 was agreement from governments that a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) should be developed as part of the broader international development agenda after 2015, drawing on the success of the eight existing Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The MDGs have indeed been very successful, as this recent UN report outlines. They've acted as the world's "mantra" – focusing on major challenges we can address together and individually, such as education and health. Though more needs to be done, many developing countries and aid donors alike have been running and progressing along the poverty reduction marathon, armed with these MDGs as their mantra.

Yet while environmental issues were covered by one of the MDGs (MDG7), this goal never really captured the world's imagination in the same way the other goals did. MDG7 focused primarily on water, sanitation, biodiversity and slums. It was therefore quite narrowly specified, and anything broader – such as action on climate change – has often been interpreted as trading-off with economic and social goals. It means that as far as environmental sustainability is concerned, we've not being doing a marathon at all – we've only been doing a bit of running "on the side".

So what's to say that the process to develop SDGs will change this? Won't this process just clash completely with the post-2015 framework? Will environmental sustainability simply remain something we do "on the side" rather than embrace?

The trick will be to find a new mantra that makes sustainability a part of the broader poverty reduction "marathon". We need to try to integrate sustainability into the other key goals that are out there. If we do this, governments and the private sector won't be able to ignore the environment because it's raining today or there's some sort of crisis. If we can make sustainability a part of every-day activities, we could all have the willpower to make sustainable consumer choices. Some businesses have already begun thinking along these lines – check out Marks and Spencer's new "Schwopping"(shopping and swapping) campaign. An integrated mantra could give us sufficient focus and inspiration to keep us going for that extra mile, perhaps eventually rectifying past environmental damage.

The problem is, coming up with an integrated mantra won't be easy – it will be much easier to use the SDG process to design goals and a mantra that speak to a small community of environmental experts and converts, as was done previously for MDG7. Countries and parts of civil society will likely continue to propose long lists of specific environmental goals. But that's why it's a relief that Rio+20 did not ignore the importance of thinking about the SDGs together with the post-2015 development framework. Governments committed to pursue the agendas together in a coherent and coordinated way. That means we have the freedom to start thinking about the post-2015 framework and how sustainability fits into it now, in 2012.  It's a good thing, because one thing is clear - if we're going to craft a mantra that really sticks and works for the marathon ahead, we will need as much time as possible!

I shower, dress, and receive a quick call from my husband to wish me happy birthday. First time we've spoken in 5 days. I head to breakfast. My colleagues who've been negotiating the text into the late hours for the past week stock up. We all check our emails - updates have come in from London overnight. My Director General, Michael Anderson - who has just been appointed the Prime Minister's special envoy on the post-2015 framework, the successor to the Millennium Development Goals - joins for breakfast.  He arrived late last night, but is fully briefed on the negotiations, so we talk about his plan for the day. We pile into a minibus. The distance between our hotel and the conference centre is only 12 miles but traffic is awful. En route I notice construction for a new bus-rapid-transit system. Good idea, and green. For today, heightened security measures mean a 2 hour journey.

The conference centre is impressive and huge. I'm late and run straight to an event held by the Prince of Wales Charities Trust. They requested a Government official to attend and it's focused on a topic related to my work at DFID so I'm happy to be there. A few other colleagues head to the main plenary room to monitor what Heads of State and their representatives will say in their national statements. The protocol is that a UK official has to be at the seat all the time, so we've prepared a rota. Other colleagues head to the UK office to iron out the diaries for Nick Clegg and the Environment Secretary of State, Caroline Spelman. The logistics are complex. I leave the Prince of Wales event early to meet officials from the World Bank and the Global Canopy programme to go over final details for the UK's major event at 1 pm today. We've met twice and probably exchanged 30 emails over the last 48 hours. The agenda keeps changing.

Ulu Masen forest, Aceh, Indonesia. Around 1.2 billion poor people depend on forests for essentials like food and fuel. Picture: Abbie Trayler-Smith/DFID/Panos

I head back to the UK office which is incredibly busy. Nick Clegg arrives: it's the first time he's come to our "nerve centre". I am called over to brief him about the event along with a Defra colleague. The trick is to impart all the relevant information as quickly and clearly as possible. The brief works - he's energised by the need for Governments and the private sector to value the natural resources they have - also known as "GDP+". Yesterday he backed this up with UK announcements - mandatory emissions reporting for FTSE 100 companies and working with the private sector to invest in a 'knowledge bank' to protect people living in the poorest forest areas. My Whitehall colleagues have worked hard to make both happen.

We head to the event. It's packed and security are turning people away. Nick Clegg makes a powerful opening speech and I'm reminded of a few sceptical voices a few months ago that said this was too technical a topic to get purchase. This is one of those moments a civil servant can feel proud.  But there's no time to enjoy the moment. Work beckons and I'm hungry. I head to the food hall and realise I'm not the only delegate to be having lunch at 3 pm - familiar faces from my previous life working on climate change negotiations are doing so too. I say hello. It's always useful to maintain these relationships - they help when organising meetings between Ministers and getting past entrenched negotiating positions.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg making a speech at the Global Green Growth Institute signing ceremony.

Over lunch I make phone calls about an event tomorrow and arrange a bilateral with the Ethiopian Government.  Suddenly it's 4 pm and time to join my Director General for a meeting with an organisation that helps developing countries plan for and implement green growth, called the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI). We've been tracking their work for a while and they are keen to demonstrate results and value for money so that the UK can support their work. A couple of hours later the Deputy Prime Minister attends an event confirming that the UK will join GGGI.  We will decide on funding after Rio.  But what's great to see in all these events is the vision and commitment that many Leaders here have to the major topics of the negotiating text produced yesterday. These events take the text to another level.

With that, it's almost 9 pm and time to get on the UK delegation bus to go back to the hotel. My colleagues say I look a little tired. But I'm smiling. It's my birthday and I've done my bit to help the UK and others achieve a lot today. It feels good.

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An excerpt of this blog is featured on the Guardian Rio+20 Earth Summit live blog.

What was unusual about the event was its focus on pitching. More specifically, it used the "Dragons' Den" format, where people get the chance to pitch their small business ideas to investors with money – and hopefully matches are made.

This format was originally tried and tested in Japan's "Money Tigers", and then exported across the globe – for example this short radio piece by the UK's Dragons' Den host Evan Davis explores Nigeria's version. Aid donors have supported these sorts of programmes in the past – Afghanistan's "Dream and Achieve" for example has received support from USAID. That's because these sorts of programmes encourage entrepreneurship and new businesses, which are desperately needed all over the world.

A Shining Light - aid can help women like Khadija in Afghanistan start new businesses. Picture: DFID

The idea at the PwC/Aldersgate event was pretty similar. But rather than pitching small business ideas to investors, household-name companies such as Microsoft, Virgin and PepsiCo were pitching ideas for governments to advocate and agree in Rio+20.

The nine businesses invited pitched a wide variety of ideas – summarised helpfully in this blog post from RTCC's John Parnell.

As I discovered, many of the ideas already form part of the UK position for Rio+20, which Caroline Spelman, who was also at the event, reiterated. Nevertheless, after the pitches, a panel of judges – "the dragons" – interrogated the ideas, and the audience finally voted on which they thought was the best.

The winners were as follows: ASDA's (the UK’s Wal-Mart) pitch for governments to put more action and aid into food security came first, followed by B&Q's pitch for governments to measure GDP+ (which I wrote about in my last blog post). Third was Aviva's pitch for governments to push companies to be more transparent about sustainability.

Reflecting on the event, I think what drove these results were the questions the dragons asked before the votes. PwC's dragon – Richard Gledhill – was particularly "fiery". His big question to the pitchers was, "Why is this idea important for your business? How would it help make your business's core activities sustainable?"

I was struck in particular by ASDA's answer. They said their parent company Wal-Mart is expanding into Africa, China and India, the three places with the largest numbers of smallholder farmers worldwide. According to figures compiled in 2005, that's 33, 193 and 93 million each respectively. Businesses like theirs could invest in improvements to smallholder farmers' productivity, and increase the number of products sourced from smallholders in existing and new stores. Ultimately, in terms of sustainability, this will mean farmers improve their rates of return, get more income and build resilience to climate change. At the same time, Wal-Mart's business might grow further if farmers also became consumers. It was certainly an interesting pitch.

Had we had more time, I expect the dragons would have interrogated this answer further and extracted similar information from others. Sustainable business models do have real potential. A recent report from Ecofys measured the carbon reductions of over 30 companies who have signed up to WWF's Climate Savers Programme. Over the last 10 or so years these companies together have reduced emissions by an amount equivalent to Vietnam's 2009 annual carbon emissions. That’s a decent impact, but they clearly can do more. Indeed, the competition for businesses to get ahead in sustainability is rising. A new EIRIS report for Rio+20 publicises the 10 current "sustainability leaders" and scores 50 companies with a combined market capitalisation of £4.4 trillion against each other on a range of sustainability criteria. Rio+20 can and should clearly be a catalyst for action by governments, but it should be for business too. Rio+20 could even catalyse some new public-private partnerships.

So here's my pitch: there should be another Dragons' Den in Rio+20 where we ask businesses to provide the best pitch for a new business model that will make their core activities more sustainable at the same time as creating wealth and reducing poverty. Who knows, we might elicit a few worth investing in.

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This blog is featured on E2B Pulse - the website of the UK carbon reduction network.

This year, however, my birthday will be memorable for a different reason. I'll be in Rio de Janeiro – and it will be the day the Rio+20 Earth Summit begins, when all the Heads of State and Ministers arrive. From the UK, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Caroline Spelman, Secretary of State for the Environment will be taking part. Civil servants like me will probably have arrived a few days earlier, preparing draft compromises on the negotiating text, talking to stakeholders, finalising logistics for the various events taking place around the negotiations, and so on.

All this activity will be taking place because 20 years ago, at the first ever Earth Summit, the international community agreed to find ways to halt pollution and the destruction of natural resources. But sufficient progress has not been made. The relationship between economic growth and environmental damage has remained stubbornly coupled. The next Earth Summit will offer an opportunity for governments, businesses and individuals to consider simple yet radical ways to make sure growth continues without hurting the environment. It's highly ambitious but, unfortunately, urgent and necessary.

There are large green hills to climb ahead. Picture: Marcus Ryder

 But there's yet another reason my birthday will be memorable this year. On 20th June, the UK will host an event on "GDP+" or "beyond GDP", the subject of a debate I took part in a few weeks ago at the Natural History Museum.  As a development economist, "GDP+" is close to my heart. The 2009 report from the eminent economists Stiglitz, Sen and Fitoussi (also published as a book called Mis-Measuring Our Lives) made clear that few economists have ever seen GDP as the only way to measure and check how well society is progressing. GDP provides us with necessary information, but not sufficient information – and certainly not sufficient information to deliver green growth, poverty reduction or sustainable development.

Indeed, measuring just one outcome in most areas of life isn't sensible, nor is it something we tend to do.  Take birthdays. After the age of ten, few people measure how good their birthdays are just by the size of the presents they receive. Of course we want presents... it's disappointing if we don't get any. But we also care about the type of presents we get, and other aspects of the day. If we get expensive but impersonal presents, or if we have no company all day, we feel somewhat empty. Presents are important, but they're not everything. If we can acknowledge this need to think beyond one indicator for something as simple as birthdays, why is it then that when it comes to economies, we are comfortable with simply looking at one indicator, GDP? It simply isn't sensible. This is why Stiglitz et al were so clear that we should look at our economies in a more holistic way.

When governments have looked at their economies holistically, they've had great results. Since the 1980s, Botswana has used environmental values to guide its spending. The government estimates how far its natural resources are being depleted due to mining, makes sure the revenues from mining are large enough to match this depletion, and re-invested the revenues in long-term development, so as to build up other kinds of resources. It has paid off – between 1990 and 2010 Botswana's per capita GDP rose by almost 60%, alongside strong gains in education and health.  No wonder Botswana believes further action on green growth at Rio+20 will be in its interest.

That's why we'll be hosting the GDP+ event and why we've published a technical paper this week reviewing the different approaches to GDP+ that governments can use. We also realise that many governments in low-income countries have capacity limitations – just estimating GDP is often hard enough. So we will also be discussing the Wealth Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystems Services (WAVES) Partnership at the event. WAVES was set up to enable developing countries to try out this work and share experiences with others that are doing the same, such as the UK.

As an economist, I'm really excited Rio+20 offers an opportunity to make progress on this area – it's simple, but radical. For too long economists have focused on just GDP. It's high time we added other indicators, especially environmental ones, to measure progress. And with less than 50 days to go, I'm even more excited that this could all take place during and around my birthday. What an unusual treat!

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This blog is featured on E2B Pulse - the website of the UK carbon reduction network.

Winning is great, but is it OK to talk about losing as well? Picture: Marcos Villalta/Save the Children

A few days ago I was in a meeting with colleagues from a number of organisations and countries talking about how to best share knowledge about green growth policies and strategies. It sounds rather boring, but actually we came up with tons of great ideas.

One particular idea was that, rather than look at the processes by which green growth strategies can best be taken forward, we should focus on the results and outcomes of different policies and strategies. We could then compare different country experiences and identify what factors exactly – such as whether the policy was well planned or not – led to their success or failure. The idea would be similar to what I did in my last blog post, comparing what different governments have done to become more sustainable purchasers.  Some organisations are already starting to do this - for instance the World Bank recently pulled together a survey of policies and instruments that countries have used to subsidise the development of renewable energy.

We were all enthusiastically agreeing with this idea of comparing results, until one colleague silenced the room. He asked how we can get governments to be more open about when these policies or ideas fail. None of us had an answer.

He had a fair point. Few governments like to admit failure. As Tim Harford, a UK economist, argues in this excellent "Development Drums" podcast, governments, and aid donors for that matter, have strong incentives to simply tell good stories - whether that's because of election cycles or the need to ensure that taxpayers support overseas aid budgets.

The funny thing is, we live in times when admitting failure can actually make an organisation more trusted and credible. Take one of my favourite radio shows, 'This American Life'. In January, the show broadcast a seemingly ground-breaking investigation into labour standards in Apple factories in China. However, the producers soon found out that some of the claims made in the programme were fabricated. But rather than cover this up, or simply issue an apology, the producers decided to dedicate an entire show – broadcast earlier this month – to set out the fabrications and, more importantly, give listeners an idea of why things had gone wrong. Over the course of the programme, instead of thinking of the mistakes they had made, I found myself realising the hard work the producers normally put into their programmes to make sure all their facts are correct. By the end of the programme I trusted their journalism more than ever because I knew if they ever made a mistake they would be the first to tell me why.

The truth is no-one likes to make mistakes, and for a lot of us it is even more difficult to admit them. But on the other hand, no-one realistically believes that any organisation is infallible. And no-one believes that any policy or strategy, however well-intentioned, is infallible either. That's why having independent scrutiny such as the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) in the UK is crucial. It says an organisation, such as DFID, is willing to learn and change. Like 'This American Life', I believe being open about shortcomings, or dare I say it 'mistakes', builds trust.

For new, emerging strategies and policy areas such as green growth, this open, ready-to-admit-failure attitude will be crucial, here in the UK and in other countries. Ideally, those working on these policies will be the first to blow the whistle, and explain what went wrong so we can learn for next time. Being open and honest will build trust.

In the meantime, dear reader, it's over to you. If you've got any examples of green growth policy failures or otherwise, do fire away and help us learn! You might just have a greater impact than the mistakes themselves by doing so.

But there's another way that we – as government employees – have been working together, even if we didn't really know it, through the things around us. Let me explain.

In total, governments around the world buy an estimated US$4-5 trillion worth of goods and services per year. That's over 5% of total world GDP. In the UK alone, public bodies bought £251 billion worth of goods and services in 2009/10 – equivalent to about 15% of UK GDP. Of this, central government spent about 60%, and the rest was spent by local public bodies.

The sorts of things that governments buy range from papers and pens for staff and school children, uniforms for nurses and doctors, products to keep offices and other areas clean, as well as materials for building or refurbishing schools, hospitals or transport. Most developing countries spend between 25-30% of their GDP in this way. In all governments there are people, in an office somewhere, that are responsible for buying - or procuring - these things.

How green is your office? An exhibition for Climate Week in DFID's London Office.

Given its scale, government procurement is influential. It can stimulate innovation, make businesses invest in new types of products, reshape value chains or expand existing markets. Government purchases therefore need to be transparent and open to competition - as this encourages value for money and minimises rent-seeking opportunities.

Added to this, government purchases have global environmental effects. For example, the materials used to make products might run out in future. The products might have been delivered by air, or might not be able to be recycled. Whether a pen or a school, these decisions have an impact on climate change and the environment, and therefore on poverty reduction.

So, 10 years ago, a process called the Marrakesh Task Force was launched to see how government purchases can be made more "sustainable". The UK was the first developed country to sign up, alongside a wide range of other countries such as Brazil, Mauritius, Philippines and Switzerland. Other countries such as Ghana have been working with other organisations such as the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) on this policy. And UNEP are now taking forward some training initiated by the Marrakesh Task Force.

Sustainable procurement policies have had beneficial effects. For example, since the Korean Government introduced a mandatory eco-friendly procurement scheme in 2004, the production of qualifying products in Korea increased from US$1.4bn in 2004 to over $21bn in 2010. Korea has also saved around $27m because the products were more efficient, and emissions were reduced by almost 3 million tonnes of CO2 – equivalent to taking off around 100,000 cars off the road per year. Similarly, the local government of Minas Gerais in Brazil saved US$61m on their purchases in 2007/8 by bringing in sustainable purchasing policies.

We have learnt a lot from these experiences. For example, that it's more important to focus on a discrete number of products that have significant impact - as a huge list can prove unmanageable. It's also quite difficult to use the same approach in every country and, in some countries, legal changes may be needed to bring in these policies.

As a result of these positive results and lessons learnt, countries such as Kenya are now including sustainable procurement as a part of their national climate change strategies. We can probably expect the Earth Summit, to be held in Rio in June 2012, to signal a commitment from many more countries across the world to these policies.

However, for DFID staff like myself, especially those that don't work directly on climate change, purchasing by our Government offers a new way that we can collectively work together to have a positive impact. In 2011, the Coalition Government committed to procure sustainably. The UK now has sustainability criteria for around 60 products and services, which are updated on a rolling basis in consultation with industry. Like Korea and Brazil, we have made economic savings by implementing these policies.

Last year, DFID's Secretary of State said that DFID employees should be judged for how well we administer British aid and by how effectively we work with other Government departments to ensure domestic policy also promotes poverty reduction in developing countries. I guess the sustainability of what we use in our offices every day might just be another means to judge us by.

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DFID has just won a Climate Week award for Best Technological Breakthrough. Find out how drought-tolerant maize is helping farmers across Africa.