Resumen de Profit People Planet: The Environmental Implications of Development in Brazil, Russia, India and China (the BRIC Economies)

Lynne Ciochetto

• This paper explores environmental implications of the BRIC thesis that Brazil, Russia, India and China, along with the United States and Japan, will be the dominant economies by 2050 (O’Neill, 2001). The criteria for assessment are those common in economic analysis, the triple bottom line: profit, people, planet. The BRIC economies encompass over 25 percent of the world’s land area, 40 percent of the world’s population and a combined GDP (Purchasing Power Parity) of $US20 trillion dollars.  What happens in these economies in the next 40 years will significantly impact on the rest of the world. This paper focuses on the implications of contemporary patterns of industrial growth, energy consumption, rising standards of living and the continued expansion of consumerism in the BRIC economies, and assesses them against the dual imperatives of the 21st century: achieving global environmental sustainability and delivering social justice for the people who constitute the ‘bottom billion’.