Green economics focuses on the importance of the health of the biosphere to human well-being. Consequently, most Greens distrust conventional capitalism, as it tends to emphasize economic growth while ignoring ecological health; the "full cost" of economic growth often includes damage to the biosphere, which is unacceptable according to green politics. Green economics considers such growth to be "uneconomic growth"— material increase that nonetheless lowers overall quality of life.

Green politics also encourages political action on the individual level, such as ethical consumerism, or buying things that are made according to environmentally ethical standards. Indeed, many green parties emphasize individual and grassroots action at the local and regional levels over electoral politics. Historically, green parties have grown at the local level, gradually gaining influence and spreading to regional or provincial politics, only entering the national arena when there is a strong network of local support.

Green politics on the whole is opposed to nuclear power and the buildup of persistent organic pollutants, based on a strict adherence to the precautionary principle, by which technologies are rejected unless they can be proven to not cause significant harm to the health of living things or the biosphere. In Germany and Sweden programs have been initiated to shut down all nuclear plants (known as nuclear power phase-out).

Greens on the Left adhere to Eco-socialism, an ideology that combines ecology, environmentalism, socialism and Marxism to criticise the capitalist system as the cause of ecological crises, social exclusion, inequality and conflict. Many Green Parties are not avowedly eco-socialist but most Green Parties around the world have or have had a large Eco-socialist membership. This has led some on the right to refer to Greens as "watermelons" — green on the outside, red in the middle.