"Green growth is the idea that a society's ecological and economic goals can be pursued as a mutually reinforcing, positive sum. It accepts that economies increase in scale and efficiency, but that economic growth may occur in less harmful ways ecologically through the use of new policies, patterns of investment, technology innovation, and behavioral change. The ultimate goal is a green economic transition, in which ecological objectives and policies are effectively integrated with many others—energy, transportation, manufacturing, and infrastructure, to name a few—and all sectors of society work more collaboratively to maximize opportunities for positive-sum solutions. The concept of green growth offers a means of reframing ecology–economy relationships and defining a pragmatic framework for making and implementing policy choices. The feasibility of and capacity for green growth depends on three sets of factors: understanding ways of linking ecological and economic goals; having governance capacities for ecological protection and policy integration; and creating the social conditions for acting collectively and valuing ecological public goods. Political systems vary in their ability to meet these conditions. For the United States, which exhibits both advantages and disadvantages in the pursuit of a green growth path, the challenge is to achieve the political conditions for promoting change. Principal among these conditions are to build a political coalition in support of a green economic transition, implement institutional reforms that enhance democracy, reduce economic inequality, and stress global action and interdependency."

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