Nowadays more and more people understand that it is impossible to exploit natural resources endlessly. And the term of green economy is being used more frequently. But what is a green economy? Green economy is a trend within which economy is considered to be a dependent component of natural environment where it exists as a integral part [1].
The theory of green economy is based on the following axioms:
– it is impossible to expand endlessly the sphere of human impact within a limited space;
– it is impossible to meet endless human demands under the conditions of limited resources;
– everything on the Earth is interconnected [1].
Green economy also implies three Rs:
– Reduce
– Reuse
– Recycle.
How do the principles of green economy work in our real life? Let us have a look at the example of Sweden where 99 % of all waste is recycled. Moreover, Sweden annually purchases about 1 million tons of waste from other countries. Sweden is one of the first countries where people understood the necessity to tackle the problem of the decrease in natural resources. It was Sweden, which initiated the first conference of United Nations on the issues of environment protection, which was held in Stockholm in 1972.
Within the program Waste-to-Energy (WTE) all waste is turned to the source of cleaned energy for the country.
So, what is a key to the Swedish success in green economy? In our opinion, it is closely connected to the responsible attitude of its population.
A recent research shows that one third of the Swedish consider ecology and environment pollution as the most burning issue, whereas only 7 % of the Europeans as a whole are concerned with this problem [3].
Here are some examples of the responsible attitude of the Swedish:
- It is popular not to buy new things thus not to create the extra demand for some ‘environmentally-unfriendly’ goods. It is common to buy second-hand furniture, clothes, gadgets, etc to prevent excessive manufacture.
- The Swedish never throw away medicine after its expiry date but they take it back to pharmacies.
- Sweden ranks at the top of the green shoppers list. A study by the European Commission found that 40 per cent of Swedes had purchased an eco-labeled item in the past month, which is more often than the European average [4].
- In Sweden they build low-energy buildings, passive houses heated mainly by the energy already found there, such as the energy from people’s body heat, electrical appliances, lighting and sunlight.
- Plogging movement originates from Sweden and is gaining high popularity. Plogging is a combination of jogging with picking up litter (Swedish: plocka upp). It started as an organised activity in Sweden around 2016 and spread to other countries in 2018, following increased concern about plastic pollution.
The list of such examples can take dozens of pages but the most interesting one is a promatorium — a method of burying human remains which is also invented and implemented in Swede. It involves turning the dead body into compost through the use of cryogenic freezing, vibration, and freeze-drying and inserting the powdered remains in a biodegradable casket which is then shallowly buried in living soil.
Overall, which key global challenges can green economy tackle?
- The problem of increasing environment pollution.
- The health improvement and thus the problem of the lack of labour resources.
- The problem of poverty. For example. nowadays practically all big hotel chains prefer to give unnecessary food to charity organizations supporting the homeless.
- Solving the problem of poverty, we can decrease the level of criminality, as many crimes are committed due to the lack of money for buying food and necessary goods.
References:
- Лившиц В. Green economics // https://www.proza.ru/2013/02/19/2075
- https://wteinternational.com
- https://ru.sweden.se/ljudi/ekologiya-kak-norma-zhizni/
- https://sweden.se/nature/sustainable-living/
