In the recent years the debate about the environmental consequences of economic growth and about the importance of sustainable development has move up the international agenda. There is a broad consensus that development has an economic, a social and an environmental dimension and will only be sustainable if there is a balance between the different factors that contribute to the overall quality of life. According the related EC documents, all policies must have sustainable development as their core objective. A sustainable development strategy should be a catalyst for the policy- makers and public opinion in the coming years and become a driving force for institutional reforms and for changes in corporate and consumer behaviour. Policy should focus on steady long-term management strategy which allows business and individuals to plan better and adjust gradually, thereby greatly reducing the costs of change. Systematic dialogue with representatives of consumers, whose interests are often overlooked, should improve the quality of regulation and accelerate its implementation. Sustainable development calls for sweeping economic reform to create new markets and ‘get prices right’, for example, by ensuring that prices paid for goods and services include the costs of damage caused by pollution. In this way, markets will stimulate companies and consumers to take better account of the effects of their behaviour. Science and research also have a central role to play in guiding political decisions. To assess progress toward these objectives, they need to be supplemented by a set of accurate indicators, measuring sustainable development at an aggregate level the economic, environmental and social changes. Finally, as the success of any sustainable development depends on changes in people’s behaviour, governments must do more to educate ad inform business and citizens.
All these presuppose at least three successive steps of a common algorithm: support of research progress, interactive socio-economic environmental scientific options, translated into appropriate management tools. The critical point in this cycle is the close interaction between researchers and decision-makers, both still in need of continuous learning how to communicate and work together. Thus joint training and workshops involving scientists and stakeholders might prove efficient.
Dr. Maria Ketsetzopoulou
Senior Researcher, National Centre for Social Research
Athens (Greece)
Visiting scientist to IO-BAS, CESUM-BS Project
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