Environmental Management: Principles and practice

BOX 5.1 An example which may have widespread promise: Curitiba
City, Brazil
Much of the success of Curitiba’s greening since the mid-1970s has been
through the efforts of its Mayor, Jaime Lerner, and have not depended on much
outside funding. He established an effective refuse collecting system for
Curitiba’s slums (favelas), where narrow alleyways make it impossible to use
lorries. Recycling bins were placed around the favelas and the people were
paid in city transport system tokens or welfare tokens for sorted, recyclable
trash. Organic wastes went to farmers for composting, and people collecting
this were rewarded with food stamps. The approach provides a sort of social
security system for the poor, who in return scour the city for refuse. The travel
tokens offer better access to employment and boost the use of public transport,
there are no costs for running garbage trucks and less need for street
construction.
Numerous other, largely self-help, innovations have made Curitiba a
landmark in green urban development. Curitiba has improved living conditions
for the poor and upgraded its infrastructure in spite of having had one of Brazil’s
most rapid growth rates (Rabinovitch, 1996). The city has been able to become
self-funding and no longer seeks aid from state government, is comparatively
clean and relatively prosperous. The city has an improved bus transport system
and crime rates have been kept low compared with other Brazilian cities.

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ECONOMICS
79
There is no obvious tested model for improving people’s well-being and
protecting the environment—the USA has problems, as do Russia and China, Japan
and developing countries. A few glimmers of green are apparent, though, for example
the city of Curitiba (see Box 5.1). There have also been economists who are keen to
avoid the ‘commodity fetishism of mainstream economics’, and develop workable
‘green economics’ and ‘barefoot economics’ (Scitovsky, 1976; Max-Neef, 1986;
1992a; 1992b; Henderson, 1981a; 1981b; McBurney, 1990; Dodds, 1997). One
supposition is that steady-state economics might be developed to ensure that growth
does not lead to serious environmental degradation. How much inroad on mainstream
economics this makes remains to be seen (Booth, 1997). There has also been some
greening of mainstream accountancy (Gray, 1990).