Measuring Green Economic Growth in Mexico: National, State, and Geographic Region Levels Proposal

The environmental (climate change), economic (recessions), and social (increase in poverty and inequality) crises have forced the need for a change of model and the development of global strategies to counteract their negative effects and orient towards a type of economy that is low in carbon emissions, efficient in the use of resources and energy, socially inclusive, preventive in the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services and that allows achieving sustainable development, which is how the concept of green economy arises. With a quantitative approach, using official databases and based on the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (2011) green growth framework, a Green Economic Growth Index for Mexico was constructed under the relativization function, which was estimated at the national, state, and geographic region levels, allowing for a deeper understanding of the green economy in the country. The results show an average national performance (0.4746), with the dimensions "Economic, demographic and social context for sustainable development," "Environmental dimension of quality of life," and "Natural asset base" having the best scores, while the dimension "Productivity of environmental resources and the economy" and "Economic opportunities and policy response" have the lowest scores. The analysis of variance results shows statistically significant differences by geographic regions, which calls for developing public, environmental, energy, and productive policies that consider the particular conditions of the country's regions.