Sustainability

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What is sustainable development?

Sustainable development involves three key elements: the preservation of the natural foundations of life, the safeguarding of life opportunities for current and future generations throughout the world, and the integration of environmental, economic and social priorities.

The concept of sustainable development focuses equally on the policy priorities of appropriate economic growth, social security and ecological balance. This calls for joint action on the part of industry, science and government.

What is the role of economic policy?

The chief priorities for economic policy are to enhance prosperity by laying the groundwork for stronger growth and more jobs, to promote efficient and cost-effective economic activity, and to safeguard competition and transparency on the markets. In contrast, environmental policy focuses first and foremost on reducing burdens to the environment. Social policy, in turn, strives primarily to promote social cohesion.

The mutual dependency between these policy fields is obvious: high-performing and competitive economies - which are made up of both entrepreneurs and employees - are an essential prerequisite for financing and achieving a high and long-lasting degree of environmental protection.

At the same time, a sufficient level of environmental protection is an essential prerequisite for securing the natural foundations for effective economic activity over the long term. Furthermore, both economic prosperity and a well-preserved natural environment are key elements for promoting social cohesion. Therefore, sustainability is an integral component of an economic policy that takes both environmental and social concerns into account.

A sustainable economic policy also targets the efficient use of energy and raw materials. This means that factors such as energy consumption, resource consumption and transportation need to be increasingly decoupled from economic growth. Over the long term, the use of renewable natural resources must be linked to the capacity of such resources to regenerate themselves. Non-renewable natural resources must be used sparingly, and anticipated scarcities must be counteracted through innovation. The global economic policy framework must be shaped in such a way that enables people in every country to participate actively in the economic system. One of the most crucial components in this framework is the advancement of a world trade system based on the continued opening of markets.