THE ROLE OF GREEN ECONOMY IN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT ( CASE STUDY : THE EU STATES ) *

The analysis of various “green” concepts has historically been linked to a broader discussion of the relationship between sustainable development and the environment. Some authors believe that the solution to the problem of the impact on the planet’s environment is to reduce the level of economic activity, which would mean severe restrictions in the use of resources. Others think that economic activity can continue to grow, but with less impact on the environment; some experts claim that it is quite possible to achieve a balance between economic growth and care for the planet and people. In this context, it is necessary to use a new paradigm that clearly states that "environment" and" economic growth" cannot be seen as conflicting goals, which is confirmed by the authors of the article who studied the situation in the EU countries in the period 2016-2017. Key terms: sustainable development; Quintuple Helix model; green economy; the EU Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Lavrinenko, O.; Ignatjeva, S.; Ohotina, A.; Rybalkin, O.; Lazdans, D. 2019. The Role of Green Economy in Sustainable Development (Case Study: The EU States), Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues 6(3): 1113-1126. http://doi.org/10.9770/jesi.2019.6.3(4) JEL Classification: C43, O44, O52, O57, R11, Q20, Q30


Introduction
The idea of sustainable development and environmentally oriented economy which emerged in the second half of the 20 th century in the international scientific community, for example, ideas of the Club of Rome, then rapidly spread to all continents.The entire end of the 20 th century and the beginning of the 21 st century can be represented as a series of global forums which polished and refined this paradigm as the only possible, main path for development of the entire planetary system.Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, new conceptual approaches to the development of society and economy emerged within the framework of the UN structures, in particular, a new theory that had a huge impact on the discussion of new models: sustainable development.The UN Conference on Sustainable Development ("Rio+20") held in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012, which was the largest UN conference in the 21 st century, actually summarized the outcomes of attempts that had been made for twenty years, to change the traditional type of development to a model of sustainable development.The conference's greatest achievement was the recognition of the fact that problems of environment and development could not any longer be considered taken separately.The transition to sustainable development implies the preservation of natural ecosystems at a level that ensures the implementation of the needs of present and future generations of people, while maintaining the stability of the ecosystems themselves (the entire ecosphere as a whole).There were five documents adopted at the conference, the most significant ones being "The Rio Declaration on Environment" and "Agenda 21".In accordance with "Agenda 21", governments around the world must develop their national strategies for sustainable development -Local Agenda 21 (The World Bank 2012).
Sustainable development in general is a continuous process of satisfying needs of the present and future generations.The definition is unanimously accepted, alas ways of implementation of this approach towards development is under continuous discussion (Tvaronavičienė et al. 2015;Strielkowski et al. 2016;Tvaronavičienė 2017;Vegera et al. 2018;Stjepanović et al. 2017;Razminienė, Tvaronavičienė 2018;Tvaronavičienė 2018;Eddelani et al. 2019).
The economic content of sustainable development is a process of managing a set (portfolio) of assets targeted at preserving and expanding the opportunities available to people.Sustainable development implies, first and foremost, changes in three main areasfinance, social responsibility, and ecology, which are interrelated and interdependent (Rosha, Lace 2015;Ohotina et al. 2018).At the same time, the concept "sustainable development" is usually considered from two perspectives.In a narrow sense, the attention is mainly focused on its ecological component, but in a broad sense, sustainable development is interpreted as a process that denotes a new type of functioning of the civilization.Therefore, sustainable development is an objective requirement of our time.Balanced development may be considered as part of the concept "sustainable development"; it means a justification for the balance of common priorities (factors) of development (resource, social, economic, environmental, legal, cultural, environmental) in a particular organization and their harmonization with the interests of sectoral, regional and national development.Focusing on the ideas of the process approach, management of sustainable development is a set of techniques, methods, and procedures of the targeted impact that provide a qualitative transformation of the system in the conditions of evolutionary functioning.Sustainable development is a new type of functioning of the production and economic system (society, organization, industry, etc.) that enables to ensure strategic competitiveness over the long term (Kozhevina 2015;Aleksejeva 2016).
The world is now facing the global challenges of a rapidly growing population and the increasing pressure on the environment related to it that should be prevented (Kasztelan 2017).The concept of "green economy" includes ideas of many other approaches in economics and philosophy related to the issues of sustainable development.Supporters of the "green economy" concept believe that the economic system prevailing now is imperfect, although it has produced some considerable results in improving people's living standards.However, it also resulted in a number of environmental problems (climate change, desertification, loss of biodiversity), depletion of natural capital, large-scale poverty, lack of fresh water, food, energy, inequality of people and countries.The survival and development of humanity requires the transition to "green economy".This is a system of economic activities related to the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services that lead to the increase in human well-being in the long term, but at the same time without exposing future generations to significant environmental risks or environmental deficits.
The concept of "green economy" appeared more than 20 years ago (Pearce et al. 1989;Barbier 2009).The implementation of the green economy concept was described as a long-term strategy for national economies to overcome the crisis (Barbier 2009), with the objectives of economic recovery; poverty eradication; as well as reducing carbon emissions, and stopping the degradation of ecosystems.
The UNEP (UNEP 2011) considers a "green economy" as the economy that leads to the improvement of human well-being and social justice and which does not have any ecological downsides.At the operational level, the green economy is designed to reduce carbon emissions and pollution; to improve the efficiency of energy and resource usage; and "… it aims to promote economic growth and development while ensuring the use of natural assets for sustainable development" (UNEP 2011) and it supports the progress of social development ... "(International Chamber of Commerce 2012)."…Тhe economy where the growth of the people's welfare and employment increase are provided owing to the state and social investments ensuring reduction of emissions and environmental pollution and stimulating effective use of energy and resources as well as preventing any harm to biodiversity and ecosystem" (Diyar et al. 2014;Stjepanović et al. 2017;Smaliukiene, Monni 2019).
The Global Environmental Forum in Nusa Dua recognized the UNEP's leading role in promoting the green economy concept (Allen, Clouth 2012; ) which leads to the improvement of human well-being and social justice, while significantly decreasing ecological risks and deficiencies, at the same time being low-carbon, resource efficient, and socially inclusive (UNEP 2010).Therefore, a green growth corresponding to the green economy concept inevitably leads to sustainable development (Kasztelan 2017, Ohotina 2016).However, it is necessary to continue performing certain tasks for the development of global models and scenarios in order to assess strategies for national "green economy" and "green" growth (Kasztelan 2017).
The aim of this research is to assess the sustainable development in the EU countries, as well as to assess the importance of the green economy factor in the model of sustainable development in the EU countries in the period 2016-2017.

Methodology
The only way to solve global problems related to the increasing pressure on the environment is the use of the assets of human knowledge (Carayannis and Campbell 2010;Bhaskar 2010)."The Quintuple Helix" model is one of the models based on the quality management of effective development, restoring balance with nature and preserving Earth's biological diversity.It can solve existing problems applying knowledge and know-how, as it focuses on the social (public) exchange and transfer of knowledge within the subsystems of a particular state or a national state (Barth 2011a).The innovative model Quintuple Helix explains in what way knowledge, innovations, and environment (natural environment) are interrelated (Carayannis and Campbell 2010;Barth 2011a).The Quintuple Helix model is both interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary: the complexity of the fivespiral framework implies that a full analytical understanding of all spirals requires the continuous involvement of the entire disciplinary spectrum, ranging from Natural Sciences (due to the natural environment) to Social Sciences and Humanities, to promote and visualize the system of collaboration between knowledge, know-how, and innovations for more sustainable development (Carayannis and Campbell, 2010).Therefore, the specific character of the model can be described in the following way (see Fig. 1).
The first subsystem is the system of education where the necessary "human capital" is formed.The second subsystemthe economic one -concentrates and focuses the "economic capital" (e.g.entrepreneurship, machines, food, technologies, and money).The third subsystem -the political one, i.e. the "political and legal All subsystems in the Quintuple Helix perform functions which influence each other.In the innovative Quintuple Helix model, the natural environment is defined as an opportunity for further development and provision of sustainable development and co-evolution of the knowledge economy, knowledge society and democracy, which also influences the way we perceive and organize entrepreneurship (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff 2000;Carayannis and Campbell 2006, 2009, 2010;Barth 2011).

Research results
Sweden is a leader according to mean values of the five subsystems (60.57).The top six countries also include Denmark and Germany (58.41 and 58.35 respectively), the United Kingdom (57.69),Finland (57.43), and the Netherlands (56.41).Romania (42.90),Poland (43.19),Cyprus (43.54),Bulgaria (43.67), and Hungary (44.34) are at the bottom according to the assessment of the subsystems.The cluster analysis carried out in the obtained fivefactor space allowed to group all EU countries into two homogeneous clusters (see Fig. 1).The first cluster (CL+) includes 13 countries which are characterized by higher indicators according to all five subsystems; other 15 countries (CL-) are characterized by a lower level of these indicators.The first cluster (CL+) mainly includes the so-called "old" EU countries: Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Spain, France, Italy, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Austria, Slovenia, Finland, Sweden, the United Kingdom.The second cluster (CL-) mainly includes the countries in Central and Eastern Europe which joined the EU later: Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Croatia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Portugal.
Considering the mean values of subsystems according to the clusters, it can be concluded that all mean values of subsystems in the CL+ cluster considerably exceed the mean values of subsystems in the CL-cluster: the mean value of the "political" subsystem by 15.4%, the mean value of the "civil society" subsystem 22.6%, the "natural environment" subsystem by 7.8%, the "economic aspects" subsystem by 15.2 %, the "quantify of education system" subsystem by 21.2% (see Fig. 4).Sweden is a leader according to the values of the five subsystems in the CL+ cluster, Italy is at the bottom of the list.The United Kingdom is a leader in the "Quantify of education system" subsystem (73.89),Luxemburg is at the bottom of the list(43.59);Sweden is a leader in the "Economic aspects" subsystem (60.54),Slovenia is at the bottom of the list (49.29);Slovenia and Austria are leaders of the "Natural environment" subsystem (56.88 and 56.85 respectively), Ireland is at the bottom of the list (48.35);Sweden is a leader of the "Civil society" subsystem (67.77),Slovenia is at the bottom of the list (45.62);Sweden is a leader in the "Political system" subsystem (63.34),Ireland is at the bottom of the list (47.86) (see Table1).Belgium is a leader according to the values of the five subsystems in the CL-cluster, Romania is at the bottom of the list.Belgium is a leader in the "Quantify of education system" subsystem (54.84),Croatia is at the bottom of the list(40.51);Belgium is a leader in the "Economic aspects" subsystem (48.99),Poland is at the bottom of the list (42.94);Croatia is a leader of the "Natural environment" subsystem (52.98),Belgium is at the bottom of the list (43.25);Belgium is a leader of the "Civil society" subsystem (51.47),Bulgaria is at the bottom of the list (36.73);Portugal is a leader in the "Political system" subsystem (53.36),Cyprus is at the bottom of the list (40.11) (see Table 2).The assessment of the contribution of each subsystem to the sustainable development model is estimated by calculating the correlation coefficients of the Quintuple Helix model's subsystems in 2016-2017 with the mean value of all 5 subsystems: Therefore, there is a weak positive linear dependence of the indicator that characterizes sustainable development on the sub-component "Natural environment" in the EU countries.However, in the CL-cluster this dependence is slightly stronger than in the CL+ cluster.The authors found interesting the fact that the sub-component "Civil society" has the most impact on sustainable development in the CLcluster, whereas the sub-component "Quantify of education system" affects sustainable development the most in the CL+ cluster.

Discussion and conclusions
Many researchers made the assessment of "green economy".For example, in the research (Kasztelan 2017) founded on 33 selected indicators of "green economy" on the basis of the OECD methodologies and database, the level of green growth of selected 21 OECD member countries was determined by means of one of the most popular taxonomic methods-the Hellwig's pattern model (Hellwig 1968).The reference years 2010-2014 were chosen due to the data availability.Diagnostic variables defining the level of green growth for particular countries were adjusted in an attempt to meet three criteria: substantive, formal, and statistical.Based on the results obtained, the author concludes that the green growth can provide solutions to economic and environmental problems and create new sources for growth (Kasztelan 2017;Šipilova et al. 2017), however, its level in the OECD countries is still insufficient (Kasztelan 2017).Denmark was awarded the highest score, followed by Germany and Sweden.The United Stated are characterized by the lowest level of the green growth.Examining 23 EU countries on the basis of 26 indicators in the period 2010-2014 (Kasztelan 2016), А. Kasztelan (Kasztelan 2016) applying the abovementioned methods determined that 5 countries related to Group I -Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Denmark, and Italy -were awarded the highest synthetic score of the green growth level.Group II consisting of 6 states -Estonia, Austria, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Spain had an outstanding green growth level.Group III which demonstrated the average level of green growth was the most numerous and included Slovakia, Romania, Germany, France, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Hungary, the United Kingdom, Poland, and Belgium.Group IV which is characterized by the lowest green growth level among the countries included only two countries -Bulgaria and Cyprus.In the 2018 research Kasztelan (Kasztelan 2018) analyzing the green growth level in 28 EU countries applying the same methods, determined 4 groups of countries: Sweden (0.6477) is the leader, followed by the countries from the second group Croatia (0.5668), Latvia (0.5447), Austria (0.5399), Finland (0.5383), the Netherlands (0.5249), Slovenia (0.4925), Denmark (0.4874), Hungary (0.4808), Belgium (0.4777), Italy (0.4722), and the United Kingdom (0.4666).Slovakia (0.4647), Lithuania (0.4589), the Czech Republic (0.4570), Luxembourg (0.4538), Germany (0.4521), Portugal (0.4469), Spain (0.4461), Poland (0.4406), France (0.4336), Ireland (0.41 TJ.), Estonia (0.4038), and Romania (0.4015) belong to the third group.The fourth group countries Greece (0.3913), Malta (0.3865), Bulgaria (0.3755), and Cyprus (0.3614) are at the bottom.Therefore, there are both similar trends in the assessment of the green economy presented in this research and other studies, and differences due, in the opinion of the authors, the method of creating the index, the time period, as well as the of the countries under research.
The authors proved the positive role of "green economy" in the sustainable development in the EU countries in the period 2016-2017."Green economy" as part the concept of sustainable development Quintuple Helix model possesses a significant potential.It is possible to draw similar conclusions analyzing the findings of the research carried out by other authors (Kasztelan 2015).

Figure 3 .
Figure 3.The EU countries included in CL+, CL-clusters of a five-factor space of the Quintuple Helix model's subsystems in 2016-2017 Source: the authors calculations in SPSS according to statistical data

Figure. 4 .
Figure.4.Mean values of the Quintuple Helix model's systems in 2016-2017 according to the clusters.Source: the authors' calculations in SPSS according to statistical data

Table 1 .
Values of the cluster CL+ Quintuple Helix model's subsystems in 2016-2017

Table 2 .
Values of the cluster CL-Quintuple Helix model's subsystems in 2016-2017

Table 3 .
The correlation coefficients of the values of the Quintuple Helix model's subsystems in 2016-2017 with a mean