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Economic and Environmental Studies is a scientific journal,
focusing on a wide range of economic and environmental issues, with a focus on
sustainable development. Issues discussed in the journal include:
• Problems of governance and institutional change for sustainable development.
• Social, environmental and economic issues on a local, national, transnational
and global level.
• Economic, social and political transformation.
• Local governance’s capability to direct its sustainable development.
• Interdisciplinary approach for socio-economic and sustainable development.
• Eco-efficiency, innovation and technology transfer for sustainable
development.
• Global corporate responsibility.
• Regional development.
• Issues of spatial economics.
• Issues of European integration.
• The research agenda for sustainable development.
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Issues of governance have gained importance in the discourse on sustainable
development. In particular, the importance of good governance has been stressed
in EU documents (SEC, 2005) and so-called World Bank indicators of good
governance (Kaufmann et al., 2008). It seems that the underlying paradigm of the
importance of good governance is expressed by the European Union’s Lisbon
Strategy (COM, 2008) which aims at making Europe the most dynamic and
competitive knowledge-based economy in the world.
At the same time, sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and
greater social cohesion should be gained while the carrying capacity of the
ecological environment needs to be respected. The Lisbon Strategy sets out a
comprehensive programme to direct action to investing in energy efficiency to
create jobs and save energy, clean technologies fit for the low-carbon markets
of the future, and infrastructure and inter-connection to promote efficiency and
innovation. Indeed, these ambitious goals call for innovations, in the meaning
of social and organisational changes, new product development or more
sustainable industrial processes.
Good governance stresses the importance of, among other things, peace and
political stability, stakeholder involvement in policy making, accountability of
decision-makers, access to information and the rule of law. Peace and political
stability is a factor increasing the quality of life by itself, as it is
unlikely that many people would like to live in a situation of war, upheaval,
revolution and the threat of terrorist attacks. Stakeholder involvement,
accountability and access to information are important elements of the European
Union’s subsidiarity principle, where the idea is that people should possess as
much capabilities as possible to influence their own life and well-being.
However, as Jarl Kampen shows in his article on “Good governance at the local
level,” the power and capability to govern at the local level is reduced in
processes of globalisation, even when the concept of the city republic may be
most viable for supporting sustainable development at the local level.
This brings about an important issue for future research. With the increasing
urbanisation and importance of urban areas for economic and social development,
rural areas may be threatened to remain behind in development, creating the
threat of exclusion of large areas from the “good life.” The idea resembles
Castells’s (1998) approach to social exclusion, where he expects parts of the
world (e.g., Africa) and groups of people within countries to be excluded in an
age of development of mega cities and the importance of information technology.
This may be related to current processes of globalisation, where stakeholders
with access to informational and financial networks are more likely to influence
the future social, political and economic order.
Issues of sustainability touch all features of daily life on any human being and
organisation. An issue often forgotten by scientists, is the importance of
universities not only in providing research and educating for sustainable
development. The importance of inclusion of sustainability issues in governance
of universities is discussed by Dainora Grundey in her article on “Sustainable
governance of universities”. Her approach seems to fit very well in discussion
on Corporate Social Responsibility and searching for new governance structures
aiming at finding solutions for different aspects of unsustainable development.
An example is “The Carbon Trust,” described by Florian Kern, established in the
UK with the aim of stimulating innovations which reduce emissions of CO2. A
crucial question is whether good practice somewhere else can be easily
transferred to other institutional settings. Following Nobel Prize winner
Douglas North’s (1990: 37) argument, examples of efficient rules of the game or
solutions provide incentives for institutional change.
However, as institutions and structures of governance differ in different
countries, the functioning of organisations based on similar principles may
differ in different countries. This issue comes back in Romy Kohlman, Steffen
Preisler and Malgorzata Stengel’s article on “National Councils for Sustainable
Development.” They conclude that because National Councils for Sustainable
Development throughout the European Union and particularly in Central and
Eastern Europe exhibits a very diverse picture, the EU Commission and the
European Economic and Social Committee should act as main drivers for a
concerted and effective approach to implementing SD strategies in every EU
member state, especially in the new EU states in Central and Eastern Europe.
A similar conclusion is reached by Marianna Gorban, Matthew Johnson and Steffen
Preisler’s article on “EU Communication on Corporate Social Responsibility and
corporate sustainability agendas.” They state that local created policies and
national agendas would enhance companies’ communications on international
standards, and that these communications might in turn help to encourage
businesses to take greater responsibility in achieving sustainable methods of
production.
Finally, an institutional approach to sustainable development is discussed in
Joost Platje’s article on indicators of institutional capital. A question
addressed is why institutions and enforcement mechanisms are relevant for
sustainable development, and some proposals are provided in order to identify
potential indicators. The analytical problem that needs to be addressed is that
different factors of institutional capital are interrelated, which is why some
indicators of good governance may in fact be indicators of institutional
strength and institutional equilibrium.
As pointed out at great length in the other articles in this journal, in reality
there are many trade-offs between economic, social and environmental issues.
Therefore, there may exist the need to rethink the indicators used, and focus
more on the social and environmental aspects of quality of life, as well as the
importance of the ecosystem for human survival.
We thank all authors for their valuable
contributions to this issue.
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