Market Systems Development and the Environment

Market Systems Development (MSD) projects have the potential to play a crucial role in facilitating the shift towards more sustainable economies – for instance, via supporting adoption of innovative “green” business models or promoting green technology diffusion and knowledge exchange. Nevertheless, while guidance on the potential of the MSD approach to stimulate economic growth and create or improve jobs is strong, guidance on how the approach can be used to advance environmental objectives or even simply avoid unwittingly causing environmental degradation still remains scarce.

In order to address this gap, the Lab examined the experiences of five MSD projects that have contributed to both environmental and socio-economic objectives, reviewed relevant literature and sought insights from the ILO’s Green Jobs Programme and its experts on intervention at the employment-environment nexus. This ‘guidance note’ synthesises the findings of this research into practical guidance to help projects and donors ultimately better integrate and achieve environmental objectives in MSD programmes.