Qfyilyi

I’ve noticed economists often use the word, “green field” and “brown field” these days in TV talk shows when arguing the efficiency of governmental or corporate investment.

I also saw the comment of representative of Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), saying “Our interest is brown field. We don’t invest in green field” in an infra investment journal.

He meant it’s better for GIP to invest in the field where they can capitalize on their managerial expertise and investment technology than in the field they are unfamiliar and can’t be sure of return of investment.

Neither Cambridge nor Oxford English Dictionary carries ‘green field / brown field” as a word.
Readers Plus English Japanese Dictionary (published by Kenkyusha) defines 'greenfield' as 'of underdeveloped area," with no mention of 'brownfield.'

GoogleNgram’shows incidence of ‘green field’ at high 0.000012% level, and ‘brown field’ low at 0.0000012% level in 2007. But I think the usages of both words are irrelevant to the above case.

When did “green field’ and ‘brown field’ as a pair come into use as an economic, or investment term, and who did arrange so?

The term greenfield was originally used for development projects on land that had never been built on.

In heavy industry, a greenfield project is a construction project to build a new oil well, refinery, chemical plant, etc. on a piece of land not previously used for that purpose, regardless of whether the land had been previously developed. For example, if you buy a junkyard and then build a natural gas processing plant on it, the new plant is a greenfield site even though the land was not green before you built on it.

A greenfield project is more complicated than a brownfield project, which is a project to expand capacity at an existing site: land and easements have to be sought, contracts for sale and transport of raw materials and finished product have to be negotiated from scratch, and the necessary licenses and permits are more numerous and difficult to obtain.

A related use of greenfield/brownfield occurs in the name of a US law: the "Brownfields law", signed by George W Bush in 2002, which limits liability for cleanup of "brownfield" sites for new owners. In the context of the law, a "brownfield" is a piece of land that formerly had polluting activities on it, and the land still has soil or water contamination that must be cleaned up.

If I could wager a guess, it would be as follows: the terms were first in use by business people in the heavy industry sector in a way that was only slightly metaphorical. Land at "greenfield" project sites could be truly green, but it could also be repurposed. Business people removed from heavy industry (e.g., financiers) began to use the term for its connotation of extra effort and complexity when talking about a capital project. Those factors are relevant for them even if their work doesn't involve buying land and building on it.

The investment terms greenfield and brownfield were no doubt borrowed from their everyday counterparts greenfield and brownfield:

greenfield, n.: denoting or located in a rural area which has not previously been built on: new factories were erected on
greenfield sites

brownfield, n.: denoting or located in an urban area that has previously been built on: Hampshire has many brownfield developments

M-W lists 1962 as the first known use of greenfield, and and 1977 as the first known use of brownfield, but does not mention their provenance. They were likely just compounded from green + field and brown + field.

I have always struggled with these definitions and in my opinion they are reversed.

When I hear "Brownfield" I imagine a field with nothing growing. It's just land. No greenery. You can start planting anything you want.

When I hear "Greenfield", I image a field with something already growing (could be weeds) which makes it green. To grow something, you either have to cut the grass, trees, weeds, whatever is making the field green.