Title: Sustainable development - calling for a new industrial strategy

Authors: Patrick Gillam

Addresses: Managing Director, The British Petroleum Company p.l.c., UK

Abstract: The idea of sustainable development is now widely accepted. Industry is now regarded as part of the solution to the world|s environmental problems - not their cause. How then do industrialists apply the litmus test of sustainable development to their everyday decisions? Where there are no regulations and there is no economic incentive, how does industry sustain development in a friendly way? And who pays? Evidence for the link between economic growth and industry|s environmental role is compelling. Environmental advance is much more likely to be made by prosperous countries than by poorer ones. Technological advance provides one of the surest methods of increasing efficiency and of minimising waste. We need to undertake and to encourage more work to determine how we can better approach the trade-offs between environmental purity and economic cost. We should endeavour to approach all environmental questions with the principle of |Good Economics, Sound Science and Proper Information|.

Keywords: competition; environmental protection; industrial growth; sustainable development; Third World; sustainability; economic cost.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGEI.1991.063684

International Journal of Global Energy Issues, 1991 Vol.3 No.4, pp.182-184

Published online: 18 Jul 2014 *

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