Georgia’s Green Growth Strategy: A Roadmap for Resilient and Sustainable Development

The Georgia Green Growth Strategy (G3S), launched in June 2025, represents a landmark step in the country’s transition toward environmentally sustainable, socially inclusive, and economically resilient development. A product of collaboration between the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia (MoESD) and the World Bank, the strategy draws heavily on the expertise of institutions such as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), and the OECD. The study reflects years of analytical work and policy experimentation, coalescing into a document that seeks to mainstream climate resilience, circularity, green finance, and natural capital preservation across Georgia’s economic landscape.

Moving Beyond Fragmented Development

For over a decade, Georgia has advanced multiple development agendas through sector-specific strategies covering energy, agriculture, transport, tourism, waste, and education. Yet this patchwork approach has often lacked alignment, leading to duplicated efforts, inefficiencies, and unintended side effects, from worsening urban congestion and air pollution to soil degradation and rising greenhouse gas emissions. The G3S addresses this disjointedness by serving as a comprehensive framework that integrates these diverse initiatives under a unified green growth vision. It links sustainability to macroeconomic performance, arguing that economic competitiveness, environmental stewardship, and social well-being are not mutually exclusive but mutually reinforcing.

The strategy’s foundational principle is coherence. It introduces a systems-thinking model that anticipates how one intervention in a given sector, say, expanding renewable energy, ripples through others, such as health, manufacturing, and household welfare. By mapping these interdependencies, G3S aims to avoid repeating the pitfalls of narrow sectoral planning. It emphasizes the strategic value of policy harmonization, offering integrated solutions to complex problems like climate vulnerability, resource overuse, and trade risks.

A Five-Pillar Blueprint for Sustainable Transformation

The G3S identifies five priority areas to guide Georgia’s green transformation. First is the stewardship of natural resources, where the country’s forests, croplands, and river systems are to be managed not only for conservation but as economic assets that generate co-benefits such as reduced emissions, improved air quality, and biodiversity preservation. Actions like agroforestry, restoration of degraded land, and circular use of manure and agricultural residues are among the proposed interventions.

Second is climate adaptation. Given Georgia’s exposure to natural disasters, floods, landslides, droughts, and avalanches, the strategy supports investments in early warning systems, nature-based solutions, and river basin management. The increasing intensity of extreme weather events and seismic risks threatens both rural infrastructure and urban economies, prompting urgent adaptation measures.

Third is economic decarbonization and circularity. The G3S promotes a low-carbon transition through incentives for renewable energy deployment, electric mobility, building efficiency, and clean industrial technologies. Circular economy principles, reducing, reusing, and recycling, are embedded across the manufacturing and service sectors. The strategy emphasizes that these shifts not only reduce emissions but also lower input costs and open access to emerging green markets.

Fourth is green human capital. Recognizing that a successful green transition depends on people, G3S proposes large-scale reskilling programs, vocational education reforms, and scholarships tailored to agriculture, energy, and environmental management. Programs such as the Green and Agro Scholarships and the National Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System (AKIS) are key to cultivating a new generation of green professionals, with special attention to youth, rural communities, and women.

The fifth priority is the architecture for green finance and innovation. To strengthen Georgia’s SMEs and connect them to global low-carbon value chains, the strategy supports the development of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards, green bonds, carbon pricing, and climate budget tagging. With guidance from the World Bank and the National Bank of Georgia, tools such as the Sustainable Finance Taxonomy are already being piloted, offering a roadmap for scaling up climate-aligned investments.

Sectoral Synergies and Policy Instruments

Every sector addressed in the strategy, including agriculture, water, energy, transport, and tourism, has been assessed for potential green growth interventions. In agriculture, for example, G3S supports climate-smart practices, improved irrigation, and manure reuse to enhance productivity and resilience. In energy, it calls for distributed solar, battery storage, and energy retrofits. In transport, the strategy promotes electrified fleets, low-emission public transport, and non-motorized infrastructure such as bike lanes and pedestrian paths.

Tourism is identified as both a vulnerable and promising sector. Ecotourism is seen as a high-potential growth area, provided it’s supported by investments in green infrastructure, conservation of protected areas, and local entrepreneurship. Digitalization also plays a critical cross-cutting role, helping SMEs monitor energy use, optimize logistics, and access new green markets through online platforms.

Bridging the Gap Between Vision and Reality

While the G3S offers a robust roadmap, it also candidly acknowledges the challenges ahead. Institutional fragmentation, uneven data collection, limited climate finance, and low implementation capacity continue to hinder progress. Climate risks, if unmanaged, could exacerbate poverty, migration, and social inequality, especially for women and rural communities. The strategy proposes the Interagency G3S Council as the coordination body to oversee its implementation, encourage evidence-based policymaking, and ensure cross-sectoral dialogue.

The G3S’s ultimate promise lies not in lofty goals, but in its practical, phased approach. By embedding environmental sustainability into the core of Georgia’s development model, the strategy positions the country to weather future climate and trade shocks, attract green investment, and redefine what inclusive, prosperous growth looks like. If its priorities are realized, Georgia could become a beacon for how small economies in vulnerable regions can leapfrog into a green, resilient future.