Directions of green transformation of the European Union countries

Abstract

Green transformation has become one of the most important directions in the further development of the world. It involves the development of green technologies and the creation of legal regulations enforcing, for example, saving energy or reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases, as well as any other activities aimed at changing society’s attitude towards the acceptance of – frequently more expensive but more environment-friendly – technological solutions and legal norms. Thus green transformation can be defined as combining economic growth with caring about the environment in order to guarantee a high quality of life for present and future generations at the level which is attainable due to civilisational development, as well as to an effective and rational use of the available resources. Still, there is no single globally accepted way to this transformation. It is proceeding in a variety of ways and depends on many different factors. The main purpose of the paper is a comparative analysis of the directions of changes occurring in the process of green transformation in EU countries. The added value of the research presented in the paper and its novelty is the analysis of the current patterns of green transformation in EU countries. The paper concentrated on recognizing them and drawing attention to the unfavourable directions of this transformation as well as to its positive aspects. The changes in the process of green transformation were analysed based on data used by the OECD to describe green growth in two periods: 2004 or 2005 as initial data and the last available data (usually 2018 or 2019). For this purpose the TOPSIS method was applied. The EU countries were divided into groups according to their way of applying green transformation. The provided research allows to better understand the course of this transformation in various EU countries.