Today's development model promotes the exploitation of natural resources regardless of the consequences for the environment or the impact that the quality of the environment has on people's lives and livelihoods. Without a shift in current consumption and production patterns, a sustainable model of development is out of reach. The 1992 Earth Summit acknowledged the need to marry growth and environmental sustainability, but more than 20 years later the world still lacks concrete goals, commitments, benchmarks of progress and frameworks to secure benefits across social, economic and environmental dimensions. The global South is emerging as a green growth laboratory, with innovation and creativity to tackle these concerns. This article analyses these efforts in the context of public policy, and shows that both positive and negative patterns in practice and policy are emerging, which should be considered as broader global green growth efforts are further consolidated and the post-2015 development agenda is being defined.