Sustainable development in EU

1. LECTURE 1
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND
SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS
Lection 2:
Teacher: Kubatko Oleksandra V.
E-mail: o.kubatko@econ.sumdu.edu.ua
https://econ.biem.sumdu.edu.ua/spivrobitnyky-2/kubatko-oleksandra-viktorivna
Sustainable Development: EU
Policies Implementation

2. UNDERSTANDING
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

3. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AS A GLOBAL
OBJECTIVE
 Sustainable development refers to managing earth’s
resources to assure long-term quality and abundance for
future generations
 Aims to achieve economic prosperity and environmental quality
 Also referred to as intergenerational equity
 Involves fundamental change in how society makes market
decisions – both consumption and production
 In practice, there are criticisms and concerns
 e.g., Nobel Laureate Robert Solow argues against using
sustainable development as a policy objective because it is a
vague concept; instead consider sustainability as an obligation to
future generations
3

4. HISTORY OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
 Stockholm 1972: UN Conference on the Human Environment
https://www.un.org/en/conferences/environment/stockholm1972
 Report of the World Commission on the Environment and Development:
“Our Common Future” 1987.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Common_Future
 Rio 1992: UN Conference on Environment and Development: Agenda 21
 https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/outcomedocuments/agenda21
 Johannesburg 2002: 2nd World Summit on Sustainable Development
https://www.un.org/en/conferences/environment/johannesburg2002
 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio+20 (2012)
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/rio20
 The Paris Agreement (2015)
https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement

5. FRAMEWORK FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
 United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development (UNCED) – commonly known as the Rio
Summit – was a forum held in 1992 to discuss issues
relating to sustainable development
 Included in the summit’s key documents were:
 Agenda 21 – a voluntary action plan outlining the
course for worldwide progress toward sustainable
development
 Rio Declaration – a list of 27 principles to act as
guidelines for achieving global environmental quality
and economic development
5

6. FRAMEWORK FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
(CONTINUED)
 World Summit on Sustainable Development
(WSSD) was held in Johannesburg in 2002 to
renew interest in sustainable development and
assess progress since the Rio Summit
 Among the summit’s accomplishments:
 Adopted a plan to fully implement Agenda 21
 Strengthened the notion of sustainable development
 Established over 300 partnership initiatives to
complement government actions aimed at sustainable
development
6

7. The short definition was qualified by its
originators in the following manner: “It
(sustainable development) contains
within it two key concepts:
l the concepts of needs, in particular the
essential needs off the world's poor, to which
overriding priority should be given; and
l the idea of limitations imposed by the state of
technology and social organization on the
environment's ability to meet present and
future needs.” (WECD, 1987, 43)

8. GROWTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT
 Sustainable development relies on the premise that
economic growth and environmental quality must not be
competing goals. Why is this important?
 Data show that the environmental impact per unit of
income associated with growth must decline between 3.5
and 4 percent per year to avoid further pollution and
natural resource depletion
 Problem is more serious for developing countries that have high
growth rates and rapidly rising populations, such as China and
India
8

9. BUT
WE HEAR:
“There is no conflict between
economic growth and environmental
protection!”

10. GROWTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT
ENVIRONMENTAL KUZNETS CURVE (EKC)
 Research has examined whether a technical relationship exists
between economic growth and pollution
 A model of this relationship is the environmental Kuznets curve
(EKC), an inverted U shape, implying that:
 Early stages of industrialization are linked to relatively high pollution
levels when growth is a priority and environmental controls are lenient
or nonexistent
 More advanced economic development is linked to a shift in the
opposite direction with greater concern for environmental quality and
a strengthening of environmental regulation
 A consensus is forming that this tradeoff is not as severe as
once believed
10

11. ENVIRONMENTAL KUZNETS CURVE
11
More advanced
stages of
development
Early stages of
industrial
development
Income per capita
Pollution
EKC