The upcoming BRICS online summit scheduled to take place on September 8, 2025 is set to focus on trade policy issues and in line with the media reports it is expected that the heads of BRICS states will deliberate such issues as promoting multilateralism in mutual trade and reforming the WTO. We have already covered extensively the need for greater BRICS coordination in the trade sphere, including the expediency of creating a BRICS bloc in the WTO[1]. Indeed, the concepts of BRICS+ and BRICS++ developed in the beginning of 2017 were both based on the promotion of trade liberalization across BRICS core members and their regional partners[2]. Given this year’s circumstances, in particular the chairing by Brazil of both BRICS and COP30, we believe there is scope to focus the trade liberalization efforts on the environmental goods and services, thus strengthening the nexus across the Global South between growth, trade and sustainable development. We thus proceed to explore the possible modalities of integrating the BRICS+ COP commitments and environmental policies into the trade liberalization agenda that may be discussed by BRICS leaders.
Some of the more obvious measures related to co-integrating BRICS trade liberalization with the environmental agenda would be to reduce import tariffs and non-tariff barriers on sustainable goods. This may be particularly critical for agricultural goods in view of the sector’s importance for the economies of the Global South and most notably Africa. Another focus area may be the reduction of barriers on goods and services related to solar/wind technology and equipment, which may provide an important impulse to sustainable development across the Global South. There may also be scope to explore the possibilities for bringing down tariffs on EVs and their components, while also expanding the possibilities for technology transfer in the sphere of sustainable technologies across the BRICS+ space. Scaling back subsidies and industrial policy measures in areas that have high carbon footprints could be another area to explore.
Such measures may quickly run into difficulties, however, without agreed verification systems for sustainable goods and services. BRICS+ members will also need to conduct wide-ranging harmonization measures with respect to their country-level and regional environmental standards. In the investment sphere, BRICS economies may employ the recently created platform for special economic zones (SEZs) to provide simplified market access for environmental goods and services. In the financial sphere, the New Development Bank (NDB) could introduce a new category of loans that targets both high environmental standards/sustainability and greater trade creation across BRICS+/NDB+ partners. This would be similar to the practices of the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) that closely tracks not only the contribution of the investment projects to improving the environment, but also its economic integration impact for EDB’s member countries.
As discussed in one of our recent posts[3], there is also substantial scope for linking the COP commitments across BRICS+ with the coordinated measures of BRICS economies to boost economic growth (coordinated stimulus package). This would render future growth in the Global South more eco-friendly and sustainable, while also providing an important demonstration effect with respect to other regional blocs and platforms. Such a coordinated economic stimulus from BRICS+ that is also geared towards environmentalism and sustainability would represent a back-up option to the stimuli coming from the G20 in case they fail to materialize (possibly due to lingering North-South divides). The same back-up function may be performed by BRICS in case coordinated stimuli are not launched by the G7 group – such discussions have taken place on multiple occasions among the G7 members[4]. Given the growing weight of BRICS+ in the global economy, coordinated stimuli that are well-integrated with the BRICS COP agenda could deliver the dual benefit of better quantity (growth) and quality (sustainability) in the expansion of the world economy going forward.
In the end, the trade liberalization agenda in the upcoming BRICS discussion may feature a wide range of issues, including the reform of the WTO (with the regional integration blocs working more closely with this global trade organization), the formation of a BRICS bloc within the WTO, the lifting of mutual trade barriers (particularly those that have not been resolved via the WTO dispute settlement mechanism), advancing the WTO accession of BRICS core members (such as Ethiopia and Iran) as well as BRICS partners (Uzbekistan). The most important innovation that BRICS could bring to the table would be a close link forged between their trade liberalization impulses, their COP/environmental initiatives and coordinated measures to boost economic growth. This year presents a unique opportunity for BRICS to co-integrate the COP environmental commitments/agenda into their trade and broader economic cooperation initiatives.
[1] https://brics-plus-analytics.org/reforming-the-wto-what-role-for-the-global-south/
[2] https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/re-thinking-the-brics/
[3] https://brics-plus-analytics.org/a-coordinated-stimulus-from-brics-could-this-be-the-perfect-moment/
[4] https://www.euractiv.com/section/economy-jobs/news/g7-countries-postpone-coordinated-action-against-coronavirus-impact/
https://www.iai.it/sites/default/files/iairp_25.pdf
Yarolav Lissovolik, Founder, BRICS+ Analytics
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