EURO-ECO 2010

Hanover

2 - 3 Dezember 2010

Environmental, Engineering - Economic and Legal Aspects for Sustainable Living

European Academy of Natural Sciences, Hanover

European Scientific Society, Hanover

University of Bremen, Bremen

Larisa Shulgina THE PRINCIPLE OF ECOLOGICALLY SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Voronezh State Technological Academy, Voronezh, Russia

The concept of sustainable development - as a category of management - was firstly employed in the end of the 20th century due to the necessity of dealing with the current global instability of economic and ecological systems. An overwhelming majority of scientists pointed out that humanity and nature need to exist in harmony. Among them was a famous Russian scientist V.V. Vernadskiy, who developed the concept of the noosphere in his theory of noosphere. The theory is characterized by the idea of the balance between the increased human activity, ecological aspect of this increase and revolutionary development of science and technology.

In the early 1970s American scientists J. Forrester and D. Meadows warned about exponential environmental disaster which could occur due to the high production intensity and consumption growth observed around the world. The necessity of rational control over transgenerational capital (capital belonging to all the generations including the future ones – as it is stated in the documents of the UN World Commission on Environment and Development) remains an acute problem which has been tackled by modern management.

For the first time the term “sustainable development” was used at the UN Conference on the Human Environment held in 1972. The Conference adopted a Declaration consisting of 26 Principles for the preservation and enhancement of the human environment and an Action Plan containing 109 recommendations for environmental action at the international level. As a result many countries issued policy documents recognizing a healthy environment as a basic human right.

What is ecologically sustainable development? It is fast-paced autonomous development not preventing human development in the future. Fast developing principles of the marketing made commercial structures aware of social and ethical marketing with the principle idea of damage compensation caused to the environment and people by manufacturing enterprises.

All the models of sustainable development are based on the concurrence between production and consumption, reduction of consumption to the rational level. That is why from the middle of the 20th century onward questions concerning efficient use of resources and preservation of environment have become so acute. Economic sustainability of systems varying from an enterprise to a national economy can be energetic, industrial, commercial, organizational, environmental, social, financing. All the types of sustainability are interconnected and irrevocably bound to the natural resources.

Economic development of a separate entity (for example, of an enterprise) and global economy appears to be a contradiction in the system. Environmental expenses of an economic growth of multinational corporations remain very high. There are a lot examples provided. The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989, when the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker spilled 260,000 to 750,000 barrels of crude oil. It is considered to be one of the most devastating human-caused environmental disasters. In 2005 during the hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico 30 million liters of oil spilled. Finally, 2010 saw the Gulf of Mexico disaster. The damage caused is estimated at $5 billion. It will take centuries to improve the environmental situation in the region. Nowadays, it seems difficult to estimate environmental effects of business activity in Russia due to the fact that extended territories and obscure information cause external effects. Environment programs and research on sustainable development carried out by the specialists from all over the world enable us to assume that sustainable development is aimed at the coordinated work of commercial production and consumption systems providing vital processes that are necessary for present and future generations under the conditions of production and consumption optimization.