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Green Book review: Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali give this civil rights fairy tale a lift

Both actors give such nuanced performances that audiences will swallow the sentimental moralising of peter farrelly's oscar-nominated film , article bookmarked.

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Dir: Peter Farrelly; Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Mahershala Ali, Linda Cardellini, Dimeter Marinov, Mike Hatton, Iqbal Theba. Cert 12A, 130 mins

If there were Oscars for eating hot dogs, Viggo Mortensen would win this year’s award hands down (and mouth stuffed). Mortensen gives a wonderful, method-style performance as Frank “Tony Lip” Vallelonga, a wiseguy nightclub bouncer from the Bronx who becomes the driver for black virtuoso pianist Don Shriley ( Mahershala Ali ) on a tour of the deep south in the early Sixties.

Green Book flatters the audience about its own good sense and tolerance. It deals with racism and homophobia but still has a fairytale, fantasy feel to it. Whatever humiliations Don endures on their road trip, we know no real harm will ever come to him as long as Tony is at his side. This is a film about friendship as much as it is about civil rights. We can also safely predict that the pair’s better qualities will rub off on each other: Tony will overcome his prejudices while Don will learn not to be quite such a cultural snob.

Mortensen plays Tony as a hedonistic, impulsive brawler. He is a likeable everyman in spite of his prejudices, but he is also an opportunist who will do anything for a buck. His temperament could not be more different to that of his new boss, the refined and aloof classically-trained musician. Don – nicknamed “the doctor” – is very fussy, very particular. “He plays like Liberace but better,” it is said of him at one stage.

Mortensen is the Sancho Panza figure to the very refined Don Quixote type played beautifully by Ali. And they make quite a double act, providing an emotional charge to a film that might otherwise have seemed trite and manipulative.

The film is crude and delicate by turns. Farrelly is known for the often very broad comedies like There’s Something About Mary and Dumb and Dumber he directs with his brother, Bobby. Some of the gags and visual observations here could come from such works. For example, early on, in order to show the audience that Tony is an unreconstructed racist, there is a long drawn-out scene in which he picks up water glasses that black repairmen have drunk out of as if they are contaminated and drops them in the garbage.

Tony and Ali head off from New York on an epic road trip with the rest of Ali’s band following in the car behind. In the course of the journey, Tony marvels at “nature” and pines for his wife. Don dictates the fulsome, heartfelt letters he writes to her. The pianist also gives his driver tips on diction, etiquette and provides Sunday school-style lectures on why stealing is wrong.

The film’s title comes from a handbook for African-American drivers, telling them just what to do to stay out of trouble in the Jim Crow south. Don gives Tony a copy – and so the white, Italian-American gets a taste of the black motorist’s experience.

The film is full of reversals and ironies like this. Again and again during the journey, each man’s preconceptions are challenged. The further south they head, the more prejudice they encounter. Don’s musical virtuosity is generally applauded by the white spectators but that doesn’t mean he is allowed to use the same bathrooms or stay in the same motels.

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Don is an elegant, cerebral figure, steeped in classical music but unaware of the Aretha Franklin and James Brown, music that his driver cherishes. He drinks a specific brand of whisky, and won’t play on anything other than a Steinway. While he sits in the back, Tony is at the wheel, grease from his fried food running down his chin, chattering away. “You people love fried chicken,” he tells his boss in one of the casually racist remarks he makes throughout the first part of the film – but he is the one who eats such food. Indeed, there is barely a scene in the film in which he isn’t devouring chicken wings or sausages or whatever other convenience food is available.

There are some strange digressions and inconsistencies in characterisation, however. For all his meticulousness, Don acts in very erratic fashion. He gets drunk, and his sexual escapades land him in jail. He may be perceptive enough about relationships to know just what Tony should write to his wife but he is a loner who doesn’t have a partner of his own. There is a masochistic fatalism to him that the film touches on but doesn’t want to explore too deeply.

Don embarks on the tour out of defiance: he wants to confront southern racism head on. He shows courage and heroic restraint in the way he deals with his white hosts. But at the same time, he is painfully naïve, and when it comes to street smarts, Tony is the virtuoso. He knows how to face down thugs in a bar.

Green Book is based on a true story but has clearly taken considerable liberties with its source material. It eventually turns into a full-blown Christmas movie, with all the usual trimmings. The doc’s one-man campaign for racial equality is forgotten as the two men make their epic journey back north, and the film begins to turn as mushy as the winter weather they encounter en route. The underlying message here is similar to that in Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life in which we learn “no man is a failure who has friends”. There is room at the Christmas table for everyone.

The sugarcoating is very thick. It doesn’t matter, though. Ali and Mortensen make a tremendously engaging odd couple. Both give such nuanced and well-observed performances that most audiences will swallow the sentimental moralising as easily as Tony digests his hot dogs.

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Green Book review: "A deftly disarming film about friendship and unity in divisive times"

GamesRadar+ Verdict

When the sentiment threatens to turn gloopy, Ali and Mortensen’s terrific leads steer Farrelly back on-track

Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.

Behind the jokes about lacerated genitalia and mutts on drugs, the sentimental streak in the Farrelly brothers’ comedies always ran wider than Jim Carrey’s gurning kisser. With that in mind, Peter Farrelly’s race-themed buddy movie looks like a more organic gear-change than might otherwise have been expected.

Despite the absence of chemically enhanced pets, his transition from fart-powered anarchy to heart-powered uplift proves a satisfyingly smooth one, if you didn’t mind the sentimentality in the first place. For Farrelly the elder, it’s also a canny shift. The family brand of gross-out humour peaked with There’s Something About Mary (1998), before enjoying a fondly extended stay of life up to and including Stuck on You (2003). But the precipitous decline begun by The Heartbreak Kid (2007) gathered pace until Dumb and Dumber to (2014), where the brothers’ bid to recapture former glories seemed so forced that they couldn’t even score laughs with a cat named Butthole getting crazy on meth.

Farrelly’s response is to tap that reliable resource of respectable makeovers, the “inspired by a true story” tale. Flipping the ratio of character to comedy so that the gags take second position to the people involved, Farrelly focuses on the Jim Crow-era bond between no-filter Italian-American bouncer Tony ‘Lip’ Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen) and urbane Jamaican-American pianist Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali). With the film’s title nodding to a travel guide for black people (“Vacation without aggravation”), the lead duo’s relationship begins when Tony takes a job as driver for the Doc’s 1962 concert tour of the Deep South – a trip fraught with potential for trouble.

If the set-up evokes Driving Miss Daisy upended, both the cast and Farrelly’s previous form with road-driven odd couples deepen and sharpen the ride. As Tony takes the wheel of a shiny Cadillac and Shirley sits upright in the back, Farrelly (co-writing with Brian Currie and Nick Vallelonga, Tony’s son) exploits the sizeable cultural gap between them for laughs and drama. They bicker initially, largely because Tony never stops smoking, eating, and talking. Then they begin to bond, aided by Tony’s gift of the gab and Shirley’s way with the written word. See, Tony can talk his way outta trouble but he don’t read so well, so the Doc helps him write letters to Mrs. Lip, the stoical Dolores (Linda Cardellini, underused here).

If Farrelly’s main reference points for his mismatched buddy set-up are ’80s hits Rain Man and Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Green Book likewise benefits hugely from its note-perfect lead pairing. After a career ranging from the ruggedly poetic Aragorn to his violent, soulful, orally fixated leads for David Cronenberg (see A Dangerous Method ’s Sigmund Freud), Mortensen shows us something fresh here, not least the extra weight on his gut. When Tony bins two glasses in his house after black workers have used them, he seems merely to be an irredeemable creature of little sensitivity and vast appetites – no passing pizza is safe in his vicinity.

But, as Dr. Shirley’s recurrent encounters with racism open Tony’s eyes wider than his ever-hungry gob, Mortensen and Farrelly find ways to soften him persuasively. Meanwhile, Ali plays the straight man to Mortensen’s wild card with controlled assurance. Slowly unpeeling hints of the Doc’s anger and isolation, he upholds his dignity as a contrasting mirror to racist America’s lack of such. Sadly, Farrelly brushes over his sexuality, but the chemistry between the leads sings with such ease that you rarely notice as Tony and Don change before your eyes.

But it’s on the occasions when you do notice that Farrelly makes his biggest stumbles. When Tony tells the Doc about Little Richard and fried chicken, you gag on the implication: is Tony presuming to lecture Don about black culture? Later, a roadside surprise offers a cockle-warming twist too far, reflected in a soundtrack that often labours to pluck our emotional responses like violins.

The ameliorating factors are Farrelly’s easy way with character and broad sense of humanism. Awards-bait or not, Green Book plays as a deftly disarming film about friendship and unity in divisive times: calculated, perhaps, but calculated from a kind, sincere place. It opens with someone saying, “Thank you all for coming to see us.” It ends with another, more spoiler-y “thank you.” In between, as Farrelly’s scrupulously well-mannered appeal to people’s better natures gets into its impeccably cast groove, the heartwarming pleasure is all ours.

For more hotly anticipated films, check out our list of the most exciting upcoming movies in store for 2019 - and while you're at it, why not take a look at the best movies of 2018 that you might have missed?

Release date: Out now (US)/February 1, 2019 (UK)
Certificate: PG-13 (US)/12A (UK)
Running time: 130 mins

Kevin Harley is a freelance journalist with bylines at Total Film, Radio Times, The List, and others, specializing in film and music coverage. He can most commonly be found writing movie reviews and previews at GamesRadar+.

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COP26: changes to the ‘green book’

Environment
Nicole Winchester

On 28 October 2021, Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green party) is due to ask Her Majesty’s Government “what changes, if any, they plan to make to HM Treasury’s green book and related guidance to demonstrate global leadership as chair of COP26”. This article provides an overview of COP26 alongside an explanation of the ‘green book’ and recent changes made to it aimed at supporting the UK’s net zero target.

What is COP26?

In 2021, the UK, together with its partner Italy, will host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) . As an international United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference, COP26 is part of a series of conferences held every year and attended by signatory countries and other parties.

This year, both a pre-COP summit (running from 30 September to 2 October) and a youth event (from 28 to 30 September) were held in Milan, Italy. The main conference will be held in Glasgow, Scotland, between 31 October and 12 November. The conference was initially due to be held in 2020 but was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic .

Described by the UK Government as “an event many believe to be the world’s last best chance to get runaway climate change under control” , the conference will see world leaders arrive alongside tens of thousands of negotiators, government representatives, businesses, and citizens. The goals of the conference are to:

secure global net-zero by mid-century and keep 1.5 degrees within reach;
adapt to protect communities and natural habitats;
mobilise finance; and
work together to deliver.

What does the UK’s presidency mean?

Bodies such as the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) have argued that as the host of COP26, the UK has an important role in bringing together parties in advance of the conference and ensuring progress is made during the event. The ECIU has explained that:

The UK has an opportunity to take a number of international actions—on diplomacy, trade and investments—which could increase the likelihood of a successful outcome at COP26. Thoughtful UK decisions can strengthen other countries’ ability to deliver climate action; but short-sighted decisions can undermine international action and hinder countries’ achievement, for example, of their own nationally determined contributions (NDCs). Scrutiny of the UK actions in the run up to COP26 will be intense, with many complex and sometimes conflicting agendas potentially challenging the diplomatic effort.

In a report published in April 2021, the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee has argued that the UK’s presidency “will not be a success unless it sets a path to net zero made real by changes to our economy that recognise the real cost of carbon output and are secured by ambitious green financing”.

In the run up to COP26, the Government has made several announcements on what it is doing to tackle climate change . This includes a net zero strategy , which will constitute the UK’s submission for its plans to reduce emissions under the Paris Agreement. As part of wider plans, it has also considered how the ‘green book’ can support its objectives.

The ‘green book’

What does the green book do.

The Government’s ‘green book’ describes how major public sector investment projects are assessed. It provides technical guidance to help officials advise ministers on how best to achieve a given policy objective . It does not set policy objectives, but “sets out a rigorous yet pragmatic approach to weighing up the costs and benefits and illuminating the key issues, uncertainties and risks” in potential projects. As ultimate decision makers, ministers are not bound by recommendations arising from green book appraisals.

Are there problems with the green book?

In 2020, an HM Treasury review of the green book concluded that it failed to support the Government’s objectives in areas such as ‘levelling up’ the regions and reaching net zero . The review said this was because the process relied too heavily on cost-benefit. analysis, also known as the benefit-cost ratio (BCR). The review found that the BCR placed too much weight on benefits that could easily be assigned a monetary value, with insufficient weight given to whether the proposed project addressed strategic policy priorities. The review also suggested that the BCR approach discouraged the coordination of separate projects that might address the same issue.

Other concerns noted in the review included:

a lack of transparency in the project evaluation process;
insufficient expertise and resource, for example in local government, to fulfil all the requirements of a comprehensive green book appraisal; and
inadequate evaluation of projects after completion, which could promote better practice in the future.

During its review, HM Treasury said that it had consulted with “a wide range of stakeholders” . These included: academics; the National Audit Office; the National Infrastructure Commission; analytical experts; users of the green book both in Whitehall and the devolved administrations; and the northern powerhouse, regional and local government.

Commentators have also criticised previous versions of the green book. See an earlier House of Lords Library briefing on this topic for further information .

How has the new version changed?

Following the review, the new December 2020 version of the green book now requires project proposals to contain a much clearer outline of their strategic objectives from the start and how these link to the Government’s priorities. The review said that only options with a “strong strategic case” would now enter the BCR stage of the process. The result of the BCR might therefore be less critical to whether the project is approved. For example, a project with a low BCR could go ahead if it were the best option to achieve a particular objective. Conversely, an option with a very favourable BCR would not be approved if it did not address strategic objectives.

The review also described steps that the Government was taking to improve the quality of submissions. For example, it stated that the Government had put in place:

a stronger review process at each stage of a proposal, provided by both HM Treasury and specialist reviewers in government departments;
more training and support for those submitting projects for appraisal; and
greater emphasis on project evaluation, to help understand “what works”.

The review said these changes would turn the book into “a vital tool for progressing the Government’s priority outcomes and wider public value agenda”. It added they would take place against the background of planned increases in investment and infrastructure spending.

What is changing on environmental impact?

The new green book requires all projects to consider their impacts on carbon emissions, whether or not they directly target the net zero objective . It also provides further guidance on how emissions should be assessed.

The Government has also developed guidance on accounting for climate change and the value of the environment for people and the economy (the “natural capital approach”). The new green book references these, as well as providing further guidance on valuing projects’ impacts on the natural environment, accounting for natural capital stocks and valuing costs and benefits that cannot be measured in monetary terms.

The book also refers to the Government’s net zero review’s final report, stating that it would “ set out a framework for considering the appropriate policy levers to use in different situations and to manage impacts on households, businesses and sectors ”. On 19 October 2021, HM Treasury published the final report .

What is changing on measuring future costs and benefits?

The green book sets out a framework for measuring costs and benefits that arise in the future and comparing them with those that arise today. To achieve this, costs and benefits in future years are converted to a value in today’s money. This is known as a ‘present value’ calculation. It requires a discount rate to be applied to future benefits and costs.

The effect of discounting is to give preference to present benefits over future benefits. This reflects the view that people generally prefer to receive goods and services now rather than later . The green book applies a standard discount rate of 3.5% per annum to future benefits and costs. However, a reduced rate of 1.5% per annum applies to policies that impact health or life outcomes. This means that future health and life benefits are not reduced by as much as other future benefits when performing BCRs.

HM Treasury has previously recognised the standard discounting technique may not be appropriate for projects with long time effects , such as those addressing climate change. It said these raise “fundamental ethical issues concerning the responsibility of the current generation to future generations”. For example, it argued that environmental damage might lead to “irreversible wealth transfers from the future to the present”. Because of this, for periods over 30 years a reduced discount rate already applied in the previous green book. In addition, slightly lower standard and reduced rates (3% and 1% respectively) can be used to conduct a “sensitivity analysis” for environmental projects that affect future generations.

However, the 2020 green book review was concerned that such adjustments still do not adequately allow for environmental effects. It therefore announced a further review of discount rates in BCRs that would involve external experts.

In September 2021, HM Treasury published the conclusion of its discount rate review . Following consultation with “leading economic experts”, the review concluded that the green book should not change the discount rate for environmental impacts. It argued that “this was deemed to be an imprecise way of accounting for effects such as lack of substitutability and increasing scarcity in the environment”. Instead, the review argued that more effort should go into making forecasts of future environmental benefits and costs more accurate. It said:

In particular, the academics favoured improved valuation for environmental impacts and updating these estimates to reflect latest evidence. A key example of this is supplementary guidance to the green book on the valuation of greenhouse gas impacts developed by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). In September 2021, BEIS published updated values for the impact of greenhouse gas emissions , to reflect latest evidence and the UK’s net zero target. Reflecting these updates in appraisal leads to an increase in the cost estimates resulting from increased emissions.

What has been said about the changes to the green book?

In December 2020, as part of its inquiry into the Spending Review 2020, the House of Commons Treasury Committee issued a call for evidence on changes to the green book . The committee received both oral and written evidence in response to its request. In May 2021, its chair, Mel Stride (Conservative MP for Central Devon), wrote to Treasury Permanent Secretary Tom Scholar about the committee’s findings.

Summarising the evidence his committee had received, Mr Stride said that the changes to the green book have been “largely welcomed”. He especially noted the movement away from the use of a BCR towards a wider consideration of place-based impacts. However, Mr Stride also highlighted several points that focused on the changes aimed at supporting the Government’s objectives regarding levelling up and reaching net zero. As a result, he posed ten questions to the Government, including:

When will the methodology for assessing environmental benefits under the green book be finalised?
Does the Government plan to incorporate net zero as a core element of the green book appraisal framework, and to include net zero-related criteria in the options appraisal? If so, when?
How will the Government undertake rigorous monitoring and evaluation to determine the effectiveness of cost benefit analysis (CBA) and cost effectiveness analysis (CEA) appraisal frameworks, to guard against any risk that CBA and CEA do not take into account fully the benefits of environment projects which are difficult to measure?

Mr Scholar outlined the Government’s response in a letter dated 4 June 2021 . Focusing on the questions relating to environmental appraisal and net zero, he said that achieving net zero “is both a policy objective and a legal requirement”. As a result, he said that:

In the green book, it is therefore viewed as a constraint on all proposals and an objective for relevant proposals when considering the strategic case. Additionally, any environmental costs and benefits should be included as part of the economic case.

He also said that the methodology for assessing environmental costs and benefits in appraisal under the green book “will always to some extent be ‘work in progress’ as we look to incorporate the latest best practice”. In addition, he noted that, alongside the review of the discount rates described above, the Government was:

updating the green book supplementary guidance on the valuation of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions on an annual basis;
working on producing guidance on biodiversity valuation; and
committed to concluding a review with academic experts into the application of the social time preference rate to environmental impacts this year and incorporating any changes in the green book.
House of Commons Library, COP26: The International Climate Change Conference, Glasgow, UK , 12 October 2021
House of Lords Library, ‘ Government investment programmes: the ‘green book’ ’, 17 March 2021

Cover image by Mikael Kristenson on Unsplash.

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Green Book review: "Mortensen and Ali are an irresistible duo in a biopic boasting awards-friendly polish"

This old-fashioned, odd-couple dramedy about a white chauffeur and his haughty black employer recalls Driving Miss Daisy even if it lacks the requisite grit

Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali in Green Book, sat in a car

Emma Simmonds
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Peter Farrelly, along with brother Bobby, is best known for bawdy, slapstick shenanigans like There’s Something about Mary and Dumb and Dumber. With Green Book, Peter tries his hand at an Oscar-bait biopic in which the touring troubles of African-American musician Dr Don Shirley are channelled into an odd-couple dramedy that both benefits from Farrelly’s feather-light touch and, given the sensitivity and factual basis of the narrative, is somewhat scuppered by it.

Viggo Mortensen plays Tony Vallelonga, an Italian-American nightclub bouncer hired in 1962 to act as chauffeur to virtuoso pianist Shirley (Mahershala Ali) as his trio embark on an eight-week tour of the Deep South in the run up to Christmas. Dubbed Tony “Lip” in reference to his gift of the gab, Vallelonga is also handy with his fists, something Don is counting on given the region’s reputation as a hotbed of racial tension. To ease their passage, the pair consult the The Negro Motorist Green Book, a guidebook listing services and accommodation accessible to African-American travellers.

The two men could hardly be more mismatched. Salt-of-the-earth joker Tony is semi-literate, while the haughty, humourless Don boasts a triple doctorate. During their first encounter in Don’s flat above Carnegie Hall, he sports regal African robes and interrogates Tony from an ornate, throne-like chair. Tony is a man who has embraced his own cultural stereotype just as surely as Don has rejected his; he’s astonished to learn that his employer has never listened to Motown or eaten fried chicken.

Co-written by Tony’s son, Nick Vallelonga (who collaborates with Farrelly and Brian Hayes Currie on the script), it is perhaps unsurprising that a man initially shown to have racist tendencies rapidly evolves into a ruffian with a heart of gold. Nevertheless, Mortensen turns in a charming, nuanced and comedically gifted performance that feels like his most accomplished yet.

Ali is even finer, playing an isolated, angry and often inebriated character unable to fully identity with, nor find acceptance within, either white or black communities. A man of few words and well-concealed emotions, the discreet way that he conveys Don’s heartache is, at points, terrifically moving.

More like this

The unlikely friendship that flourishes between the “commoner” at the wheel and his well-to-do boss in the backseat most obviously recalls Driving Miss Daisy, and this jovial and never more than gently melancholy film firmly establishes itself in that same virtuous but simplified and commercially friendly tradition. Indeed, there’s something rather old-fashioned about Don educating Tony and helping him to craft love letters to his beloved wife Dolores (Linda Cardellini), evoking cinematic staples of heart-tugging tutelage seen previously in movies like My Fair Lady and Cyrano de Bergerac.

The occasional pleasant surprise punctuates the predictable strife that greets the duo on their journey. The screenplay doesn’t lay its lessons on thick exactly, but the beats it hits are entirely expected – a rousing, entertaining-the-locals bar scene, for example. Moreover, the film lacks anger; Don’s quiet dignity in the face of relentless racial discrimination gives Farrelly an excuse not to confront the true ugliness of a stubbornly ingrained problem that shames America to this day.

Yet Mortensen and Ali make an irresistible duo in a well-meaning and touching, albeit slightly misjudged film, boasting plenty of awards-friendly polish if sorely lacking the requisite grit; right down to its driving-home-for-Christmas crowd-pleasing conclusion, it gives 1960s race relations an unnecessarily accessible overhaul.

Green Book is released at cinemas from Friday 1st February

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Green Book review: the little hoax that could

Peter Farrelly’s one-sided race-road-movie two-hander, a keen exploitation of co-screenwriter Nick Vallelonga’s heirloom family anecdotes, sports a handful of virtues, not least its illustration of the reducible art of baiting the most prestigious film awards in the land.

Updated: 26 February 2019

from our March 2019 issue (with updated awards references)

Mahershala Ali as Don Shirley and Viggo Mortensen as Tony Vallelonga in Green Book

There are two Green Book s. The first is a cinematic object, a film made by Peter Farrelly , previously known for turning out a string of ‘gross-out’ movies mostly co-written or co-directed with brother Bobby – Dumb and Dumber (1994) and There’s Something About Mary (1998), for instance – whose impact on American screen comedy is incalculable, though not the sort of thing that tends to be recognised by awards-giving committees. The second is the extracinematic superstructure that exists around that cinematic object – the “true friendship” on which the film is based, per the poster, between the classical pianist Dr Don Shirley and his driver, Bronx Italian Tony Vallelonga; the behind-the-scenes backstory of its conception and pre-production; and the responses the movie has generated from festival audiences to critics to the Motion Picture Academy.

USA 2018 Certificate 12A 129m 31s

Director Peter Farrelly

Cast Frank Anthony Vallelonga, ‘Tony Lip’ Viggo Mortensen Dr Don Shirley Mahershala Ali Dolores Linda Cardellini Johnny Venere Sebastian Maniscalco Oleg Dimiter D. Marinov record exec P.J. Byrne George Mike Hatton Gio Loscudo Joe Cortese

UK release date 1 February 2019 Distributor E1 Films greenbookfilm.co.uk ► Trailer

That second Green Book is the infinitely more interesting one, but to get to it we should say a few words about the first. The movie stars Mahershala Ali as Shirley, an elegant and aristocratically aloof figure who practises his art while living alone in an exotically furnished apartment high above Carnegie Hall, and Viggo Mortensen as Vallelonga, a temporarily out-of-work nightclub bouncer whose natural habitat is the street, hired as both a driver and tough-guy troubleshooter to accompany Shirley and his white bandmates on a tour of the Jim Crow American South, still starkly segregated in the unspecified early 1960s setting. (The film takes its title from The Negro Motorist Green Book, designed to help black travellers safely negotiate this hostile territory.)

From the lowbrow Vallelonga, the urbane Shirley learns the pleasures of the working-class black culture – Little Richard’s piano rock and roadside fried chicken joints – from which he has isolated himself in cultivating the respectable rectitude that’s earned him invitations into the best white households. From Shirley, who ghost-writes love letters back home to Tony’s wife, Vallelonga learns to express himself more articulately, and to not derisively call black people “moolies” any more. So it’s a win-win, I guess.

Essentially a two-hander for significant stretches on the road, Green Book depends on the charisma of its stars to shoulder a heavy burden, and they do not disappoint. Ali plays Shirley as a mid-century dandy, a man who has lived his life in pursuit of an ideal of poise and elegance, wearing his irreproachable comportment as armour against an unfriendly world. His Shirley is trim, tailored and an ascetic even in his excesses – a functioning alcoholic, he is mostly a private tippler, given to silently sipping alone and staring off darkly. As such, he is a perfect foil for the louche, buffet-wrecking Vallelonga; in what has been a signifier of actorly commitment since at least the days when Robert De Niro ate his way across Italy to bulk up for Raging Bull (1980), Mortensen has packed on poundage to play the man best known by his nickname ‘Tony Lip’ – his transformation second only in recent memory to Christian Bale ’s Dick Cheney in Adam McKay’s Vice .

Green Book has been tagged as a departure for Farrelly, who only six years ago was being raked over the coals as the rascal responsible for writing and directing a segment in the critically maligned comedy anthology Movie 43 in which Kate Winslet goes on a date with eligible bachelor Hugh Jackman only to discover that he has a scrotum-shaped goitre dangling from his neck. And indeed it is a departure, at least in terms of the air of sanctimonious self-importance surrounding it – it is hard to imagine Farrelly saying of even a near masterwork like his Kingpin (1996) that it would be a movie that “can change people’s hearts and minds, incrementally”, as he told a Vanity Fair reporter of Green Book.

In fact, the things that Green Book handles well are the things that Farrelly always handled well in his films with his brother or in the last serious-minded film he alone had a hand in, Michael Corrente’s Outside Providence (1999), adapted from Farrelly’s novel of the same name. This is to say, it excels at lowbrow comedy made with a down-to-earth humanity and a feel for the American working class – or, more specifically, for the north-eastern white ethnic working-class, as familiar to the Rhode Island-raised director. There is much to criticise in Green Book, but I can find nothing to reproach in the scene where Vallelonga, alone in his hotel room, folds an entire pizza in half and prepares to take a bite.

As a movie about one blue-collar Italian-American’s peculiar relationship to both food and the concept of whiteness, Green Book has something to recommend it. As a portrait of a black homosexual artist’s alienation from the culture of his youth, it is a considerably dicier proposition, a far cry from the intimate understanding of the bright working-class child’s eventual isolation from the environment that nurtured him that we get in, say, Dennis Potter’s 1965 Nigel Barton telefilms. In the pages of Vanity Fair, the critic K. Austin Collins has done an unimprovable job of detailing the genesis of the Green Book project and questioning its commitment to understanding the struggles of the real-life Shirley – it was this piece that prompted Farrelly’s thin-skinned rebuttal, quoted from above.

Collins discusses both the failure to contact Shirley’s surviving relations and the key role played in shaping Green Book by co-screenwriter Nick Vallelonga , son of the real Tony. Like Shirley, Tony died in 2013, having later in life had a career as a bit player that peaked with a recurring role on The Sopranos. Nick, now 59, followed his father into showbiz, and is unquestionably the most colourful character in the extracinematic Green Book’s story. A perusal of his grammatically eccentric, self-authored IMDb biography tells the story of an entire adult life spent on the disreputable fringes of the entertainment industry, directing straight-to-video Michael Biehn vehicles or recording a CD titled New York City Christmas “after the 9/11 tragedy”, one man’s long hustle that has now, remarkably, improbably, led to the stage at the Oscars.

This coup was accomplished by banging out, with Farrelly and Brian Hayes Currie , a heartwarming tale that might very well have been written according to a wikiHow guide to authoring a prestige picture, full of the fatuous ‘we’re all the same under the skin’ brotherhood that statuette-distributing bodies just can’t get enough of, adding for seasoning just a pinch of the tightrope-walking politically incorrect humour that made a hit of Martin McDonagh’s risible Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri in 2017.

Vallelonga’s motivation for finally cashing in on his inheritance of his father’s unexamined anecdotes isn’t hard to guess at – this was a one-way ticket out of Palookaville. Farrelly’s midlife pivot is somewhat more mysterious – one suspects something like the same inspiration that prompted McKay’s move from fine dunderheaded comedies such as Step Brothers (2008) to filmtracts like The Big Short (2015) and Vice, the same sudden burning desire to create socially relevant art as opposed to mere belly laughs that strikes Joel McCrea’s director of popular entertainments in Preston Sturges’s Sullivan’s Travels (1941).

But while Green Book is one of the lesser films to bear the Farrelly imprimatur, it can be appreciated for its role in revealing so nakedly the rules of the prestige picture sweepstakes, and showing how easy it is to game the system, to go almost overnight from a Movie 43 or crooning 9/11 carols to being feted as among the foremost practitioners of the seventh art. It is a loss for the movies, but a triumph for the fine art of deception – a sour punchline to the joke that is awards-season cinema.

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Culture | Film

Green Book review: A flawed film, elevated by two sublime actors

Green Book, about a black man and a white man driving through the segregated Deep South in 1962, has inspired various shades of outrage.

A general complaint revolves around the schmaltzy finale’s implication that racism can be glibly consigned to the past. A specific one concerns an old tweet posted by co-writer Nick Vallelonga, who based Green Book on the true story of how his father was disabused of his racist preconceptions through his friendship with the concert pianist Don Shirley. In 2015 Vallelonga tweeted the false claim that Muslims in New Jersey publicly celebrated on 9/11 — an especially acute embarrassment given that Mahershala Ali , an Ahmadi Muslim, is one of the film’s leads.

Should one’s reaction to art be informed by the artist’s opinions? Having no simplistic answer to that, all I can say is that anyone boycotting Green Book in protest will miss a flawed but oddly joyful movie elevated far above its limitations by two sublime performances.

Even without the controversies, it would be absurd if it won the Oscar for Best Picture (it’s already bagged the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy). With BlackKklansman also on the list of nominees it doesn’t even deserve Best Picture About Historic US Racism Featuring an Unlikely Black and White Partnership.

But if the film’s creators are flattered by its nomination, its stars deserve theirs. Viggo Mortensen convinces absolutely as Tony Vallelonga, aka Tony Lip, a New York Italian-American nightclub bouncer with the Tony Soprano brogue, junk-food appetite and grubby white vest, but not the sociopathy.

Mahershala Ali is majestic as Dr Don Shirley, the highly educated, exquisitely refined piano virtuoso who hires Tony as chauffeur/protection for a tour into the Southern badlands of unmitigated racist brutality.

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When we first meet Shirley in his palatial apartment above Madison Square Garden, he is majestic. Sitting on a throne, he looks down on his uncouth interviewee in more ways than one.

He doesn’t want first-name terms. With him it’s: “And please do call me Shirley — and it’s Doctor Shirley at that.” The uncouth Tony shortens it to “Doc”.

“Do you foresee any issues working for a black man?” Don enquires. “No,” replies Tony with lawyerly cunning, “just the other day, me and the wife had a couple of black guys over for drinks.” In the opening scene, his wife Dolores (Linda Cardellini) gives African-American workmen glasses of water. Tony is so disgusted that he bins them. But the nightclub, frequented by dons without doctorates, is closing for renovations, and he needs the money. So armed with the Green Book, a guide to the Southern establishments that serve black folk, off they set in a teal-blue Cadillac for what will inevitably prove a learning experience for each.

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Tony will learn to see beyond pigmentation, and to appreciate the Chopin his boss so beautifully plays. Don, who claims not to have heard Aretha Franklin , will ditch the snobbiness and embrace popular black music.

Ali laconically captures the development with just two different smiles. In colonialist mansions, where his request for the loo is answered by a finger pointing to a garden hut, he wears a rigid rictus during the post-recital bow. After exploding into a Little Richard number in a soul-food joint, he flashes the audience an ecstatic grin.

If that reads like a veiled hurrah for racial stereotyping, so does Don’s first taste of fried chicken. When Tony badgers him to eat a KFC thigh, he holds it at the furthest end of his long pianist’s fingers as if it were plutonium, before realising what he’s been missing.

Somehow, the brilliance of the acting distracts from the unnerving elements as the trip exposes the pair to the elegances of Jim Crow South. The hardscrabble white guy stays in the hotel while the wealthy black guy is in the scuzzy motel. Cops pull them over after dark in a “sundown town” (black people are legally obliged to leave before dusk). More cops nick Don for a gay fumble in a YMCA that may explain the failure of his marriage.

This “boy”, as the police of course address him, has fancy friends. He uses his phone call to ask Bobby Kennedy, the US attorney general, to intercede on his behalf.

And this low-league goodfella is more sophisticated than his way of folding a pizza into a giant sandwich suggests. “I work at a nightclub in New York City,” he tells Don, surprised by how unshocked he is. “I know the world’s a complicated place.”

It is, and perhaps this is too uncomplicated a film for its subject. It telegraphs the feelgood finale at the start, when Dolores instructs Tony to be back for Christmas with their small sons. It flips the black-white power balance in Driving Miss Daisy, but is equally content to settle for cosy reassurance.

Yet for all its unoriginality and naive optimism, Green Book is a delight. The advice is to suspend the racial angst for 130 minutes and luxuriate in a charming film expertly steered the right side of the line between the sweet and the saccharine by two stellar performances.

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UK Parliament
Treasury Committee
News Article

Committee issues call for evidence on changes to Treasury’s Green Book

11 December 2020

As part of its inquiry into Spending Review 2020, the Treasury Committee has today issued a call for evidence on changes to HM Treasury’s Green Book.

The Green Book ‘is guidance issued by HM Treasury on how to appraise policies, programmes and projects. It also provides guidance on the design and use of monitoring and evaluation before, during and after implementation.’

The Committee will examine the Government’s recently published Green Book Review 2020: Findings and response and the new Green Book (2020) .

The Committee would welcome evidence on how the review was performed, changes to the Green Book, and the expected impacts of the reforms.

Chair's comments

Commenting on the call for evidence, Rt Hon. Mel Stride MP, Chair of the Treasury Committee, said:

“The Green Book is meant to be the definitive guidance on how to appraise government policies, programmes and projects

“It must therefore be as effective as possible.

“We’ve issued a call for evidence today to hear how successful recent reforms to the Green Book are likely to be, and whether they will have the desired impact on the Government’s levelling-up agenda.”

Terms of Reference

As part of its work examining announcements made at the time of the Spending Review 2020, the Treasury Committee would welcome written evidence on the Government’s recently published Green Book Review 2020: Findings and response and the new Green Book (2020).

The Green Book, and the appraisal processes it provides guidance for, have an important role in areas such as public spending and taxation.

The Treasury Committee would welcome written evidence on the findings of the Green Book Review, and the Government’s response.

This is a general call for evidence on the Green Book reforms, and while those responding should feel free to comment on any aspect of the reforms, the Committee would in particular welcome evidence on the following topics:

How the review was performed
The changes to the Green Book
The changes to the processes which the Green Book helps inform
The analytical challenges raised by the new processes and guidance
The training required to better embed the principles set out in the Green Book and ensure that they are followed
What impact the reforms may be expected to have, any potential problems, and how the success or failure of these reforms should be measured
The guidance on environmental impacts and appraising policy to meet net zero
The reforms’ impact on the Government’s levelling-up agenda

Further information

About Parliament: Select committees
Visiting Parliament: Watch committees

Image: PA/Johnny Green

What’s new in the 2020 update to the Green Book?

Executive summary.

Her Majesty’s Treasury (HMT) has reviewed the Green Book, 1 which was last updated in 2018, to assess whether any changes need to be made. This note provides a high-level summary of HMT’s findings from this review, as well as any changes that it caused.

The most interesting and material changes are the higher emphasis on the strategic case in the business case (relative to the benefit-to-cost ratio (BCR)); the increased importance of place-based analysis to help drive the ‘levelling-up’ agenda; and the announcement that HMT will commission a review into whether a new environmental social discount rate should be introduced.

The implications for proposed schemes are:

applicants will need to place greater effort on creating sound strategic cases;
applicants will potentially need to be less concerned about the precise value of the BCR when there is a strong strategic case to support the intervention they are trying to secure funding for;
applicants have been provided with some additional ‘off-the-shelf’ methods such as employment multipliers to make their impact assessments more location-specific, although there may be a need to adapt these to allow for local circumstances;
organisations concerned with decarbonisation may want to consider engaging with the upcoming government review into a new environmental social discount rate, because if this is lower than the current social discount rate, it will be easier for environmental interventions to secure government approval.

The remainder of this note is structured as follows:

section 2 explains how HMT has increased the focus on the strategic elements of the economic case;
section 3 provides more details on place-based analysis;
section 4 explains how the update has addressed environmental projects;
section 5 describes the new content in the Green Book on so-called ‘transformational’ interventions;
section 6 explains the changes that the government is planning to make internally to the business case appraisals process.

Increased focus on the strategic aspects of the economic case

HMT found that appraisal was often heavily focused on the BCR, with many applicants for government funding believing that the government (and HMT in particular) puts excessive weight on the BCR in driving decision making. HMT explained that this was often the result of applicants performing low-quality strategic cases, which meant that appraisers could only make decisions based on the BCR. To remedy this, the new edition of the Green Book places greater emphasis on making a strong strategic case that logically ties the shortlisted and longlisted options to government objectives. This is important because stronger strategic cases will allow appraisers to assess business cases on the basis of factors other than the BCR.

All strategic cases will now have to explain which government strategic objectives are supported by an intervention, which ones conflict with it, and whether the intervention could be constrained by any legal limits on government action.

When establishing the strategic objectives that are relevant to a particular intervention, applicants will have to first explain where they fit in a four-tier intervention hierarchy. The lowest level of this hierarchy contains individual projects. Each project is part of a wider programme of projects which in turn are part of a strategic portfolio. The strategic portfolios then feed into a wider strategic objective. Table 2.1 provides an example of such a hierarchy, in the case of interventions aimed at meeting net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Table 2.1 Illustrative hierarchy of objectives for interventions to meet net zero carbon emissions by 2050


Strategic objective	Net zero greenhouse gas emissions in 2050
Strategic portfolio	Reducing the emissions intensity of the UK power sector
Programme	Increasing offshore wind capacity
Project	A new offshore wind farm to deliver X GW of capacity by 2030

Source: HMT (2020), ‘Green Book Review 2020: Findings and response’, p. 12. Available from: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/ file/937700/Green_Book_Review_final_report_241120v2.pdf

The purpose of establishing where a particular intervention fits in such a hierarchy is to help identify objectives that are relevant to the intervention at hand. For example, if the intervention is an individual project then the objectives are likely to be more limited than if the intervention is a strategic portfolio. To facilitate the setting of clear objectives, HMT will issue a project scorecard in 2021, with trials of this scorecard starting in 2020.

The commitment to emphasising the strategic element of the business case is made very clear in the following quote from HMT, which states that reviewers: 2

should reject any business case that does not include a clear set of objectives for the intervention and an objectively based logical process of change setting out how these objectives will be delivered. Conversely, reviewers should be open to a business cases for projects with a low BCR if, compared to options that have been appraised, that option is the best value for money way of delivering an intervention that is necessary for the achievement of the intervention’s objectives.

Place-based analysis

The importance of including locational effects is something that has, again, been emphasised by many practitioners, including Oxera. The government has been increasingly focused on the regional impacts of policy-making, in particular under the ‘levelling-up’ agenda, which aims to help poorer regions in the UK ‘catch up’ with the rest of the country.

The new edition of the Green Book contains new guidance on locational effects, which it calls ‘place-based analysis’. 3 This advice is more detailed than that which was provided in the previous edition of the Green Book. It explains that if an intervention is located primarily in a particular area, the benefits of the intervention should by default be made specific to that area, with analysis for the UK presented separately. Even if place-based effects are not a primary aim of the intervention, the appraisal should either quantify them or explain why they are not relevant.

The Green Book also introduces a new method for calculating regionally differentiated employment impacts of interventions. 4 It does so through the introduction of employment multipliers that are to be used when assessing the employment effects of interventions that are focused on one location, and therefore have potential (positive or negative) effects on employment in other regions.

The new edition of the Green Book also encourages the application of distributional weights (i.e. to increase the impact of benefits that accrue to poorer people and reduce the impact of those that accrue to wealthier people). However, these should only be used both when a policy has significant distributional effects and where there is high confidence about the types of groups that will be affected.

Proposals must also either assess the impact on equality (in accordance with the Equality Act 2010) or on families, or explain why the proposal in question is not relevant to these areas.

Appraisal of environmental impacts

Environmental impacts have long been a part of the appraisal process, but have become increasingly important in recent years: particularly the extent of carbon emissions. Where policy development does not take adequate account of environmental policy, it risks being ruled illegal—for example, the Court of Appeal overturning the Airports National Policy Statement on the basis that it was unlawful on environmental grounds. 5

The new version of the Green Book highlights and clarifies some of the tools used for environmental impact assessment. It does this by building on the environmental content of the 2018 edition of the Green Book and Defra’s guidance on the natural capital approach. 6

Where environmental issues are not the core of a project, the economic case should consider whether the project is helpful from an environmental perspective, and also whether environmental issues constrain it in any way (e.g. if the project has a high carbon footprint, this would need to be reported).

Relatively little has changed thus far from a methodological perspective, but HMT has said it will review whether the social discount rate, which is currently set in line with the level suggested in a 2002 report by Oxera, 7 could be adjusted in instances where projects have significant environmental effects. 8 It has therefore committed to an expert review into the application of the social discount rate for environmental projects. While at this stage it is unclear what form this expert review will take, it is likely to be a report by academics who specialise in discounting.

For those who are not familiar with social discount rates, Oxera explained the underlying logic behind them in a recent article. 9

Assessing transformational impacts

HMT has issued new guidance for assessing transformational impacts because the old Green Book methodology was potentially understating the benefits associated with transformational projects. This is an issue that has been widely raised by practitioners, including by Oxera.

The new edition of the Green Book contains a new annex specifically dedicated to transformational interventions. It defines these interventions as ones where there is: 10

a radical permanent qualitative change in the subject being transformed, so that the subject when transformed has very different properties and behaves or operates in a different way.

Relatively few interventions will meet the above definition, and the Green Book explicitly talks about portfolios rather than programmes and projects as being at the right scale to be classed as transformational.

The guidance does not provide much detail on how transformational changes should be appraised, other than stating that real options analysis and scenario analysis could be used. It also provides a link to an academic paper in the European Journal of Public Health that adopted real options and scenario analysis, 11 implying that it approves of the approach adopted therein.

Changes in government appraisal

HMT has accepted that, in order to implement the findings of the review, it will need to adjust the internal government process for business case development. It has therefore committed to the following changes.

Senior Responsible Officers (SROs) will now be supported in the appraisal of interventions by individuals with a strong understanding of policy aims in a particular area in order to allow for greater focus to be placed on the strategic case. This will help reduce any bias towards overt focus on the BCRs of different interventions.
New training will be introduced for government reviewers in order to implement the findings of this review of the Green Book (summarised above). In particular, this will help appraisers focus more on the strategic case and less on the BCR.
Government reviewers of business cases will provide feedback to those (inside or outside government) who are producing business cases on the business case that they have submitted.
All government departments and agencies will have to publish the costs and benefits of large infrastructure projects. There will be new requirements for business case reports and greater transparency in the National Infrastructure Strategy.

1 HMT (2020), ‘Green Book Review 2020: Findings and response’. Available from: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/ attachment_data/file/937700/Green_Book_Review_final_report_241120v2.pdf

2 hmt (2020), ‘green book review 2020: findings and response’, p. 11. available from: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/ attachment_data/file/937700/green_book_review_final_report_241120v2.pdf, 3 hmt (2020), ‘the green book’, annex 2. available from: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/ uploads/attachment_data/file/938046/the_green_book_2020.pdf, 4 hmt (2020), ‘the green book’, pp. 94–6. available from: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/ uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/938046/the_green_book_2020.pdf, 5 oxera (2020), ‘the heathrow judgment: implications for new infrastructure schemes’, march. available from: https://www.oxera.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/the-heathrow-judgment.pdf, 6 for more details, see department for environment, food and rural affairs (2020), ‘enabling a natural capital approach: guidance’, march. available from: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/enabling-a-natural-capital-approach-enca, 7 for the original report, see oxera (2002), ‘a social time preference rate for use in long-term discounting’, december. available from: https://www.oxera.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/social-time-preference-rate-for-use-in-long-term-discounting.pdf, 8 hmt (2020), ‘green book review 2020: findings and response’, p. 6. available from: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/ attachment_data/file/937700/green_book_review_final_report_241120v2.pdf, 9 see oxera (2020), ‘a formula for success: reviewing the social discount rate’, agenda in focus , september. available from: https://www.oxera.com/agenda/a-formula-for-success-reviewing-the-social-discount-rate/, 10 hmt (2020), ‘the green book’, p. 127. available from: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/ uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/938046/the_green_book_2020.pdf, 11 hmt (2020), ‘the green book’, p. 127. available from: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/ uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/938046/the_green_book_2020.pdf, key contact.

David Jevons

Sustainability and Climate Change

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The Green Book review – what do the changes to government appraisal mean?

Government and public policy
Wellbeing economics and analysis

Nancy Hey, Executive Director and Deborah Hardoon, Head of Evidence at the What Works Centre for Wellbeing, discuss the Green Book review, and what policy making with a wellbeing focus should look like in practice.

Nancy Hey:

“Ultimately public policy is decision making about what the public sector does, or does not do, and how it does it . It is essentially problem solving but done in a context and with a purpose. The Green book “is vital for designing interventions that both achieve government policy objectives and deliver social value for money – i.e. that maximise the delivery of economic, social and environmental returns for UK society for every pound of public funds spent.” It is technical guidance aimed at helping officials provide advice to decision makers about how to achieve an explicit policy objective and maximise social value. It sets out a rigorous yet pragmatic approach to weighing up the costs and benefits. And is how an elected decision maker may best achieve their goals. ‘Policymakers’ is a commonly used term referring to a broad group of actors. The review of the Green Book reinforces the important distinction between approaches used by officials to provide advice and elected decision makers who set goals, priorities and take decisions . This process is primarily a way to develop and decide on spending proposals in business cases. The review of the Green Book highlighted problems and assumptions made in implementation. In particular, that the strategic case is often not strong enough and not holistic enough, tending to default to impacts that can be monetised. These monetary benefits can be unrealistic, unrealisable, based on unclear levels of confidence and not informed by evidence, which also makes the process unclear – we agree with this. The review also recognises capacity issues in implementing the process at all levels, not enough evaluation of ‘what works’ to inform them and little consideration of equalities issues. This includes not taking into account the context of different places, and crucially for them, the people who live in those places.”

Deborah Hardoon:

“The Green Book review identifies a disconnect between the guidance for the technocratic aspects of policy appraisal (adding up all the benefits and costs associated with a policy) on the one hand, and on the other hand, the actual purpose of the policy, be it achieving strategic goals, such as net zero, or levelling up – or anything seeking transformational change. It finds that “the strategic case for many proposals is weak. This means that the first step in assessing options – longlisting – which is designed to identify a range of options that will deliver the proposal’s objectives, is fundamentally undermined.” Without clarity on what policies are ultimately seeking to achieve, no amount of cost benefit modelling is going to help identify the best option to get us there. A wellbeing framework, which is a shared societal goal, can help to bridge this gap. It can take into account the social and economic features, inequalities and whatever else is part of the wellbeing mix in a place, whilst also providing the analytical tools, data and approach necessary for making investment decisions.”

Wellbeing in the revised Green Book 2020

The purpose of appraisal in Government

The appraisal of social value, also known as public value, is based on the principles and ideas of welfare economics and concerns overall social welfare efficiency, not simply economic market efficiency. Social or public value therefore includes all significant costs and benefits that affect the welfare and wellbeing of the population, not just market effects. For example, environmental, cultural, health, social care, justice and security effects are included. This welfare and wellbeing consideration applies to the entire population that is served by the government, not simply taxpayers Green Book 2020 – 2.3

See our report Wellbeing at the Heart of Policy for explanations of the terms social value, public value, prosperity and quality of life.

What you do differently when wellbeing is the goal

What is the policy objective? → Is it part of a wider strategy including one related to a particular geographical area?

How will the proposal achieve the objective? → What is the logical process of change?

What evidence do you base this on?

A comprehensive view of the Social Value

Starting at SR20, appraisals must give a comprehensive picture of cost and benefits, including impacts that are difficult to monetise. In particular, options will be assessed first and foremost based on whether they deliver relevant policy objectives. Any option which fails to do so cannot be considered value for money. Spending Review 4.33

After long-listing of options based on the strategic case, short-list appraisal follows and this is where expected costs and benefits to society are estimated, with risks and trade-offs are considered.
The economic dimension of the case is where the social value for money is appraised. In most cases this will use Social Cost Benefit Analysis, taking into account significant monetisable costs and benefits through the BCR, but also, crucially, accounting for non-monetisable costs and benefits related to factors highlighted in the strategic case, as well as any other significant unquantifiable impacts.
The economic case concerns social welfare values – or wellbeing. It is not limited to the consideration of purely economic effects and takes into account social and environmental impacts. It should assess all the relevant costs and benefits to society, not just narrowly economic ones
For social costs and benefits that don’t have a market price there are a range of valuation approaches including using subjective wellbeing measures. These non-market valuation approaches include using subjective wellbeing as below. It will be important to realistically quantify the social impacts even if they aren’t monetised.

See further arguments from Board Member Dan Corry here and Prof Paul Frijters here about monetisation

Beyond just GDP

To complement improvements to infrastructure, the UK must also invest in the protection and enhancement of the natural environment, which is crucial for national prosperity and wellbeing. Spending Review 3.40

This is important because many of the things we care about are not covered by GDP. Although useful and important – it’s the 5th biggest determinant of high wellbeing nations – GDP is not a measure of welfare and was not intended to be (see Prof Jan De Neve here and Prof Diane Coyle here ). It doesn’t count things that are important to our wellbeing including volunteering, democracy, family, care, freedom, control or dignity and is silent on sustainability, risk and fairness for example or indeed the quality of our environment.

Non-market valuation approaches

Subjective Wellbeing

Subjective wellbeing evidence aims to capture the direct impact of a policy on wellbeing. The evidence can challenge decision makers to think carefully about the full range of an intervention’s impacts and to consider a wider range of interventions. The evidence can also help challenge implicit values placed on impacts by providing a better idea of the relative value of non-market goods. For use in shortlist appraisal it may be appropriate to use subjective wellbeing as the outcome variable for Social CEA in certain circumstances.It is recognised that the methodology continues to evolve and it may be particularly useful in certain policy areas, for example community cohesion, children and families. Where valuations are considered robust enough for inclusion in Social CBA, benefits or costs must not be double counted, which could occur if a benefit or cost arising from a policy were counted by different valuation methods. Green Book – 6.21, 6.22

This section of the Green Book refers to our initial guidance on the use of wellbeing evidence in cost-effectiveness analysis .

This includes an early version of our appraisal guidance from 2018, guides to wellbeing economic evaluation , measuring wellbeing inequalities , and a beta version of our wellbeing policy tools .

Our recent working paper on measurement and cost effectiveness with LSE, Cost Effectiveness Guide for Charities with Pro Bono Economics and others.

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Nancy Hey is a global leader in the field of wellbeing.

Prior to setting up the Centre, she worked in the UK Civil Service in nine departments as a policy professional and coach, delivering cross UK Government policies including on constitutional reform.

She has worked with the UK’s top civil servants to introduce wellbeing into public policy and to establish the professional policy community in the UK. She has degrees in law and in coaching and development, specialising in emotions, and is a passionate advocate for learning systems.

Developing wellbeing frameworks for cities and regions

Five ways to wellbeing in the uk, governance for wellbeing: from struggling and surviving to thriving, measuring wellbeing inequalities, personal and economic wellbeing: three things the ons data tells us, the wellbeing of future generations in wales, treasury green book and wellbeing: the analysis, wellbeing evidence at the heart of policy + three new data analysis projects, wellbeing in wales – with the public policy institute for wales.

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Welcome to the National Theatre Green Store

Posted September 24, 2024

Sustainability

The National Theatre Green Store is our brand-new, large-scale sustainability initiative.

This game-changing facility has been developed to inspire designers at the early stages of the production process to reuse existing materials, whilst encouraging them to achieve their creative goals and adhere to the standards of the Theatre Green Book.

Reuse is at the heart of achieving Theatre Green Book Basic Standard, with 50% of materials needing to have had a previous life, and 65% needing to be repurposed at the end.

By encouraging reuse we can create a circular economy and reduce our carbon footprint.

A person wearing a bandana and white shirt browses through a rack of colorful clothing and costumes in a store, with ornate masks visible on another shelf in the foreground.

After 34 years in our old home in Kennington we have moved to an exciting new space in Bermondsey, which provides 1,260m of hanging space and holds over 131,652 items of costume. For the first time, all 21,942 of our props are housed under the same roof, making us a one-stop-shop for hire to the creative industries.

The central London location means that the production resources stored at the Green Store will now be much more accessible for designers and creatives, leading to increased reuse of materials across productions.

A cluttered antique shop filled with various vintage items, including rocking horses, wooden columns, statues, clocks, and decorative objects. Shelves in the background display an assortment of small antiques and collectibles, with large columns prominently in the foreground.

In addition, DAF Trucks have generously donated an electric truck to the National Theatre for the transportation of production materials, further reducing the carbon impacts of all transportation.

Not only does the store recycle stock back into shows, the Costume and Props hire department also provides a unique service for 400+ other theatres and 200+ schools and colleges, as well as hiring to film and television companies, photographers and media houses.

National Theatre Green Store. Photo by Pete Goding

Making sustainable theatre

Like any business, our operation has an environmental cost: we create work that is inherently temporary; we make use of raw materials; we ask people to travel to a particular location at a particular time.

In May 2021, we started working towards the basic standard of the Theatre Green Book – a new guideline for making sustainable theatre.

Three years on, and now all productions staged at the South Bank in 2024 are meeting the basic standard, with further progress being made to reach intermediate and advanced levels of sustainability.

Initiatives like the Green Store will drive forward our ambition to reach net zero by 2030.

This success could not be achieved without immense collaboration between all the skilled makers, designers and creatives involved.

Watch our short film to meet some of the incredible theatre-makers that are creating change in our organisation.

Making productions with the Theatre Green Book

Our commitment to sustainability

We are committed to reducing our carbon impact, and have set ourselves ambitious targets to achieve Net Zero as an organisation by 2030.

Find out how we’re creating change across our organisation, to build a more sustainable future.

Join us on our journey to reach net zero

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Immunisation against infectious disease

The Green Book has the latest information on vaccines and vaccination procedures, for vaccine preventable infectious diseases in the UK.

Health professionals and immunisation practitioners can keep up to date with developments in the field and updates to the Green Book through regular Vaccine Update newsletters.

See the complete 2006 edition of The Green Book on the National Archive.

It does not contain the latest chapter updates.

Check for updates to the Green Book : choose email or feed updates for future changes.

The Green Book

Information for public health professionals on immunisation.

21 January 2021

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5 January 2021
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Part 2: the diseases, vaccinations and vaccines

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Added Revised recommendations for administering more than 1 live vaccine'.

Added link to PHE publications page filtered for Green Book updates.

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COMMENTS

The Green Book (2022)
Green Book appraisal concerns effects on welfare and wellbeing at a micro level. It may be used to inform public resource allocation as when used in a spending review.
Final Report of the 2020 Green Book Review
Details. Budget 2020 announced that the government would take action "to review the Green Book, which sets out how decisions on major investment programmes are appraised in order to make sure ...
The Green Book and accompanying guidance
The Green Book uses the five-case model as outlined in the business case guidance for projects and programmes. This is the government's recommended framework for developing business cases.
Green Book review: Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali give this civil
Green Book is based on a true story but has clearly taken considerable liberties with its source material. It eventually turns into a full-blown Christmas movie, with all the usual trimmings.
PDF Green Book Review 2020
nd Scope of the Review1.1 The Government is changing the Green Book and taking additional step. to improve appraisal. This follows completion of the review announced at Budget 2020 to "make sure that government investment spreads opportu. ity across the UK."11.2 The Green Book is the government's guidance on options appraisal and applies ...
PDF The Green Book
The Green Book received a maintenance refresh in March 2022. Changes from Green Book 2020 are summarised below. Update Summary of change Location (page, paragraph/table numbers) Updated hyperlinks, references, and email addresses Updated for changes since Green Book 2020 Various Development of departmental and supplementary Green Book guidance
Government investment programmes: the 'green book'
The Government's 'green book' describes how major public sector investment projects are assessed. In March 2020, the Government announced a review of the approach, to improve how the green book supports strategic priorities such as its 'levelling up' agenda and the transition to net zero greenhouse gas emissions. The review's conclusions were published in November 2020, followed by ...
Green Book review: "A deftly disarming film about ...
Green Book review: "A deftly disarming film about friendship and unity in divisive times" Reviews. ... (UK) Running time: 130 mins; Kevin Harley. Freelance writer. Kevin Harley is a freelance ...
COP26: changes to the 'green book'
Published Friday, 22 October, 2021. In Focus. Economy. Environment. Nicole Winchester. On 28 October 2021, Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green party) is due to ask Her Majesty's Government "what changes, if any, they plan to make to HM Treasury's green book and related guidance to demonstrate global leadership as chair of COP26".
PDF Roots of the 2020 Green Book Levelling Up Review
The 2020 Green Book review and Refresh Management Strategic Financial Economic Commercial Produced Iteratively Business Need and Planning Option Appraisal Market Intelligence and Procurement Budget and Spend Best Practice, Competence and Capability The 5 case model -renewed emphasis The 2020 Green Book review and Refresh Key findings 8
Green Book review: "Mortensen and Ali are an irresistible duo in a
With Green Book, Peter tries his hand at an Oscar-bait biopic in which the touring troubles of African-American musician Dr Don Shirley are channelled into an odd-couple dramedy that both benefits ...
Green Book review: Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali clang off one
Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen in Green Book. Dir: Peter Farrelly; Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Mahershala Ali, Linda Cardellini. 12A cert, 130 mins. In much the same way Jamie Cullum's music ...
Green Book review: the little hoax that could
There are two Green Books. The first is a cinematic object, a film made by Peter Farrelly, previously known for turning out a string of 'gross-out' movies mostly co-written or co-directed with brother Bobby - Dumb and Dumber (1994) and There's Something About Mary (1998), for instance - whose impact on American screen comedy is incalculable, though not the sort of thing that tends to ...
Green Book reviews: What do critics say about Green Book?
The Green Book has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 82 per cent, indicating wholly positive reviews. The film, based on a true story, has already won three Golden Globes and has been nominated for Best ...
The Green Book: appraisal and evaluation in central government
The Green Book is the government's guidance on options appraisal and evaluation. From 1 November 2023, Ministers of the Crown have a legal duty to have due regard to the environmental principles ...
Green Book review: setting a strategic approach for achieving net ...
Alongside this week's Spending Review, the Treasury has published a revised version of its guidelines for policy appraisal - the Green Book. This report contain s several major policy wins for CBI members who have long recognised the limits of the government's approach for delivering long term strategic goals, such as levelling-up and achieving the UK's net-zero targets.
Green Book review: A flawed film, elevated by two sublime actors
Green Book, about a black man and a white man driving through the segregated Deep South in 1962, has inspired various shades of outrage. ... Review at a glance. Green Book, about a black man and a ...
Committee issues call for evidence on changes to Treasury's Green Book
11 December 2020. As part of its inquiry into Spending Review 2020, the Treasury Committee has today issued a call for evidence on changes to HM Treasury's Green Book. Treasury Committee. The Green Book 'is guidance issued by HM Treasury on how to appraise policies, programmes and projects. It also provides guidance on the design and use of ...
PDF THE GREEN BOOK
1.4 The Green Book is a best practice guide for all central departments and executive agencies, and covers projects of all types and size. It aims to make the appraisal process throughout government more consistent and transparent. 1.5 When more detailed analysis is required, as signposted throughout the Green Book, reference should be
What's new in the 2020 update to the Green Book?
Net zero greenhouse gas emissions in 2050. Strategic portfolio. Reducing the emissions intensity of the UK power sector. Programme. Increasing offshore wind capacity. Project. A new offshore wind farm to deliver X GW of capacity by 2030. Source: HMT (2020), 'Green Book Review 2020: Findings and response', p. 12.
The Green Book review
Green Book - 6.21, 6.22. This section of the Green Book refers to our initial guidance on the use of wellbeing evidence in cost-effectiveness analysis. This includes an early version of our appraisal guidance from 2018, guides to wellbeing economic evaluation, measuring wellbeing inequalities, and a beta version of our wellbeing policy tools.
The Green Book and Associated Matters
Library. The Green Book and Associated Matters. The Green Book and Associated Matters. This highlights the key differences between the Burgundy and Green Books, and also looks at other important questions, such as Term-Time Only (TTO) pay and Job Evaluation (JE). Published: 01/04/2023.
Announcing the National Theatre Green Store
The National Theatre Green Store is our brand-new, large-scale sustainability initiative. This game-changing facility has been developed to inspire designers at the early stages of the production process to reuse existing materials, whilst encouraging them to achieve their creative goals and adhere to the standards of the Theatre Green Book.
The Green Book: Central Government Guidance on Appraisal and Evaluation
Second, the tendency for Green Book analysis in the UK to be seen by HM Treasury as both necessary (which arguably it is) and when used within the context of the '5 case ... 102 BOOK REVIEWS. case for more on-going appraisal and assessment than the Treasury's strategic outline case (SOC), outline business case (OBC), final business case ...
The Green Book: templates and support material
These tools and templates have been designed to support practitioners and business case reviewers in accordance with the Green Book and business case guidance. Green Book practitioners and ...
RWI Set 1 (Green) Book 3
This website and its content is subject to our Terms and Conditions. Tes Global Ltd is registered in England (Company No 02017289) with its registered office at Building 3, St Paul's Place, Norfolk Street, Sheffield, S1 2JE
26 Green Drive Inverness
Book 26 Green Drive Inverness, Scotland on Tripadvisor: See traveller reviews, candid photos, and great deals for 26 Green Drive Inverness. ... Inverness Hotels Things to Do Restaurants Flights Vacation Rentals Cruises Rental Cars Forums. Europe. United Kingdom (UK) Scotland. Scottish Highlands. Inverness. Inverness Hotels. 26 Green Drive ...
The Price of Victory by NAM Rodger: 5-star review
The magnificent (and brutal) rise of the modern Royal Navy At last, with The Price of Victory, NAM Rodger's great history of naval warfare is complete - and this final volume is a fascinating ...
Immunisation against infectious disease
The Green Book. Part 1: principles, practices and procedures. Part 2: the diseases, vaccinations and vaccines. Health professionals and immunisation practitioners can keep up to date with ...

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1 HMT (2020), ‘Green Book Review 2020: Findings and response’. Available from: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/ attachment_data/file/937700/Green_Book_Review_final_report_241120v2.pdf

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