Green transition action plan for Serbia: A call for urgent, systemic, comprehensive, and thoughtful action

Abstract

The dominance habit, at the core of human nature, continually pushes people into conflict with each other as well as against nature. This tendency has been exacerbated to the extreme during the period of economic neoliberalism. Since economic neoliberalism has lasted for more than four decades, a great many structural imbalances and anomalies of the economic system have emerged. Consequently, the economy, society, and the entire planet have remained in an unsustainable mode. In contrast to the exponential progress made since the start of economic liberalism, during the period of economic neoliberalism the economy and society entered regression, incapable of capitalizing on the growth potential from the last two industrial revolutions (3IR and 4IR). The economy entered a structural crisis because economic rules and policy platform brutally ignored planetary boundaries and the laws of nature as well. Precisely, without inbuilt corrective mechanisms aimed at mitigating the main fractures of the system, the economy has been floating between simultaneous destructions on the supply and demand side, and finally entered a structural, multi, and permanent crisis, simply, a "permacrisis". Furthermore, external asymmetric shocks, such as climate change, pandemics, and geopolitical disputes, have continuously deepened the fractures of the system and created new ones. In this paper, we intend to argue that when the pieces relevant for the functioning of the planet, envisioned as the "system dynamics" of three layers, cannot fit together, it is necessary to start with the reshuffling of the socio-economic layer, as the root cause of today's major planetary problems not only in the economy and society but also in the physical system and biosphere. The imperative of a new era is that economic rules should respect planetary boundaries and be compatible with the laws of nature, primarily reversibility and evolution. The aforementioned implies the necessity to initiate the transition from a "new normal", actually, abnormal, to a "better normal". Negative rebounds can only be reversed through the creation of a new context capable of internalizing negative externalities resulting from prior development. The ultimate outcome of such a radical change could be the birth of a sustainable (and inclusive) economy, both towards people and nature. The transition from an old to a new system is inevitable to steer the economy and society away from the permacrisis and put it on a sustainable trajectory. If the new economy intends to be in harmony with nature, the related transition could be named the "green transition" or the path back to a green planet as the context in which the seeds of human life were originally nurtured. Following the aforementioned logic, the paper is organized into six parts, excluding the Introduction and Conclusion. In Part 1 and Part 2, our focus will be on the root causes of structural imbalances (and anomalies) within the socio-economic system and the physical system, respectively, in the Anthropocene era. Part 3 presents a literature review of the attempts to mitigate inbuilt structural imbalances of economic neoliberalism. The intention is to address the green transition as a prerequisite for a sustainable economy and society. In Part 4, we delve into the strategic audit of Serbia's economy fact sheet at the outset of the green transition. The starting point in advocating for Serbia's return to a sustainable economy path is to provide an accurate diagnosis of the situation, addressing both macro and micro aspects, including everything in between. Part 5 offers an empirical test of attitudes towards SDGs/ESG sustainability metrics in Serbia's business community. Empirical data suggests a subtle inclination toward the environmentalization of the economy and sustainability-related disclosure. Consequently, in Part 6 we discuss the government's role in preparing the green transition action plan.