As we have previously seen, the French government wants to create a Green impact through Grand
Paris project. Indeed, the creation of a sustainable economy should be the final result expected by the
Greater Paris. But we are now trying to demonstrate that the actual decisions taken by the La Société
du Grand Paris are not sufficient, and not in the good direction to reach this objective.
Mathew Forstater has summarized the conditions needed to establish a sustainable economy. Indeed,
five points have been made in order to be able to respond to the ecological challenges, and to
understand better the relation between the economy and the environment. In this research Mathew
Forstater uses the term “biophysical conditions” which are necessary for a sustainable economy(134).
1- The composition of waste (from production) must be able to be reused into a harmless (or
beneficial) product, unless the recycling process needs more resources than it saves. This is
represented by W ≤ A where W is a vector of quantity distinguished wastes and A is a vector
of distinguished assimilative capacities.
2- The utilization rate of renewable resources has to be equal or less than the level of renewal,
and for the level of stock renewable, it should be between the minimum and maximum level.
These two factors (strock level and rate of utilization) should correspond to the maximum
sustainable yield. The author defined the source function of the ecosphere for stock renewable
resources as “Usr ≤ Ysr: where U is the rate of utilization or harvest, Y is the yield or rate of
renewal and sr denotes stock renewable resources”(135).
3- The third condition referred by the author is the importance that companies have to replace
there exhaustible resources by renewable sources. Indeed, any use will decrease the total
amount of these resources availability (exhaustible resources will reach the zero level at some
point). The author defined it by Usr + Unr ≤ Ysr, where nr represents the nonrenewable
natural resources (sr still represents stock of renewable resources). This shows that the rate of
utilization of renewable and nonrenewable resources must be equal or inferior to the yield of
renewable. The decline of exhaustible resources will be compensated by the coordinated
increase of renewable resources. It is also really important to precisely define the productivity
and the efficiency of all resources.
4- In order to obtain an higher productivity and efficiency of all resources, it is important to
maintain a high level of technological innovation. Indeed in order to achieve the point 3, it is
necessary to increase the productivity and efficiency of exhaustible. The technological
improvements should permit to “increase regeneration rates, improved resource extraction
techniques, improved pollution abatement, increased assimilative capacities, and cultivation of
renewable resources stocks. And again, maximum recycling is a must (also reuse, reduce, and
repair)”(136).
5- The last point to achieve a sustainable activity must be that the level and composition of the
production should not have thermal effects, and should preserve the biodiversity.
We can see a contradiction here, between the Greater Paris structure and its objectives. We assume
that the Greater Paris is a Keynesian application model and one of its objectives is to create a green
cluster to have a sustainable city and improve the economic situation. Nevertheless still according to
Mathew Forstater, “traditional approaches to both unemployment and environmental degradation are
insufficient to achieve either full employment or ecological sustainability”(137).
Indeed, even if Keynesian demand management could achieve full employment, the company
competition is still based on price efficiency. Regarding this competition, we can assume that the
Keynesian (or liberal) model can be environmentally destructive, as there are too many barriers for
companies to reach the demand generated with a Keynesian stimulus(138).
After the reading of this article, we can realize the limits of our economic systems regarding the world
sustainability. Indeed, how a government can generate a green environment, when there are too many
barriers to adopt a green economic system?
Laura Albareda et al. have worked on the role of European governments on the Corporate Social
responsibility, with a focus on environmental issues. Indeed the research aimed to focus on the
interrelation, collaboration and partnership between governments, businesses and civil society stake
holders(139).
The authors have illustrated the relationships between these three economic actors, due to a map. This
map shows that governments interfere in CSR policies by showing the good examples. These
governments’ examples have to show the positive impact of these policies on businesses to encourage
companies to adopt them. It aims also to give awareness to the civil society (stake holders) about the
benefits of these politics. The overall benefits of the CSR policies on these three actors will improve
the collaboration between governments, businesses and civil society(140).
(141) Figure 14: Relational model for CSR public policy analysis
The authors have analyzed different European governmental action to have an influence on CSR.
Indeed, the authors have analyzed four different models to explain actions which are driven by
governments in order to improve the CSR situation(142):
-Partnership model: Governments shares investment with actors to face the socio-employment
problems. This strategy has been observed in Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden.
-Business in the community: The government applies soft intervention policies to encourage the
businesses to develop a green environment. This system has been observed in Ireland and the
United .Kingdom.
– Sustainability and citizenship: This system implies the upgrade by the governments of the version of
existing social agreement by focusing on sustainable development. Authors have located this approach
in France Germany, Austrian Belgium and Luxembourg.
-Agora: Creation of groups to discuss on the different social actors to create a public consensus on
CSR. This is mainly applies in Italy, Spain and Portugal.
Even with the critics of Mathew Forstater regarding the impossible application of a Green
environment because of the Keynesian system, we can still analyze what would be the impact of the
Government through the Greater Paris to install and improve the Green Business.
Indeed as mentioned in the article “The role of governments in Europe”, the French government uses a
sustainability and citizenship model. The authors attribute a special focus to France “Among the
countries included under this model, France deserves special attention. In France, CSR is wellestablished
in government-supported activities focusing on sustainable development So much so that,
at times, such activities appear to be directed by the govern ment, revealing a more regulatory
approach, in line with the apparently more centralist orientation of the French state.(143)”.
These points of view of the authors confirm the general approach of the French government to
increase the green businesses: By investing in a project (Greater Paris), the government invest and
forecast on a development of the Green Business by showing its interests and benefits (public debate
of the Greater Paris).
Nevertheless, except the creation of a forest of one million trees, there are not others projects decided
yet. Is this strategy to open a debate, and insisting on “Green communication” will be enough to
develop a real Green Business in Paris Ile-de-France? The real question is to know if the Greater can
create a R&D centre important enough to support a Green development, but also an IT development.
To conclude the hypothesis 3: Yes, we cannot see a real green cluster creation through the project of
the Greater Paris. Indeed, as mention by the author Mathew Forstater, the economic model does not
permit a real Green cluster enforcement of Paris Ile-de-France. In previous part we mentioned the fact
that Paris is the most important city concerning green R&D. But these infrastructures were existing
before the creation of the Greater Paris idea. Also as we said, Paris has the will to become the
worldwide reference in term of sustainability, but unfortunately it has not been really considered so far
as primordial in the Greater Paris construction. We could not see direct law to enhance a Green
cluster, and the actual good positioning of Parisian research centers in this area do not result of the
Grand Paris decisions, but rather from the general expansion of the “green” trend.
134 Mathew Forstater, “Public employment and environmental sustainability”, Journal of Post Keynesian
Economics, Vol. 25, N°3, 2003, P.P. 387
135 Mathew Forstater, “Public employment and environmental sustainability”, Journal of Post Keynesian
Economics, Vol. 25, N°3, 2003, P.P. 388
136 Ibid, 2003, P.P 388.
137 Ibid, 2003, P.P 390
138 Mathew Forstater, “Public employment and environmental sustainability”, Journal of Post Keynesian
Economics, Vol. 25, N°3, 2003, P.P. 391
139 Laura Albareda, Josep M. Lozano, Tamyko Ysa, “The Role of governments in Europe”, Journal of Business
Ethics, Vol. 74, No. 4, (Sep., 2007), pp. 395.
140 Ibid, 2007, P.P.395
141 Laura Albareda, Josep M. Lozano, Tamyko Ysa, “Public Policies on Corporate Social Responsibility : The Role
of governments in Europe”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 74, No. 4, (Sep., 2007), pp. 395.
142 Ibid, 2007, P.P. 401
143 Laura Albareda, Josep M. Lozano, Tamyko Ysa, “Public Policies on Corporate Social Responsibility : The Role
of governments in Europe”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 74, No. 4, (Sep., 2007), pp. 403
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