Abstract
The article justifies the mission of environmental investment in the context of the neo-industrial paradigm of modern development. This approach considers socio-economic development in its organic connection with the environment (the green lifestyle). Environmental investment involves solving the complex growth dilemma of the economy by reducing the negative impacts of the latter on the environment and introducing positive social changes. The authors determined the role of this process in the neo-industrial aspect of economic growth. The goal of this research is to prove the hypothesis of the interinfluence between environmental investment and economic growth. The authors built a multi-factor regression model to analyze the data, which showed a statistically significant relationship between environmental investment and Russia’s GDP growth during 2000–2017. This led to the conclusion that the tightening of environmental policies in Russia is accompanied by not a decrease but an increase in the real GDP. On the basis of tree clustering and k-means clustering, the authors classified the regions of Russia and found that the high level of air pollution is not always accompanied by an increase in investment in environmental protection and three atypical clusters were identified. Moreover, the authors identified the main factors hindering environmental investment in the modern Russian economy, as well as determined the main conditions for its enhancement, which will increase the country’s potential for economic growth in the long run, considering its neo-industrial accumulation.
Highlights
Environmental issues are currently the most acute of global problems. They constitute a wide range of phenomena threatening human life and health, as well as the depletion of the natural resources required for economic growth
The authors tested the hypothesis about the influence of environmental investment on the growth of the Russian economy by building a multifactor regression model, which appears as follows: rgdp = + β1env + β2i+ β3epsi, (1)
Where rgdp is the logarithm of the real GDP of the Russian Federation in 2011 prices; env is the logarithm of real investment in fixed assets allocated for environmental protection and rational use of natural resources; i is the logarithm of real investment in fixed assets minus environmental investment; epsi is the index of compliance with environmental policy requirements (in this equation (1) env, i and epsi are the explanatory variables);
Summary
Environmental issues are currently the most acute of global problems. They constitute a wide range of phenomena threatening human life and health (increasing carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere that lead to climate change, reduction of biodiversity and fresh water, and soil degradation, among others), as well as the depletion of the natural resources required for economic growth. As indicated in the World Bank Report (2014), the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere has risen by almost 1.50 °C compared to the preindustrial era and is approaching the threshold value of dangerous anthropogenic climate change that equals 2.00 °C. At this point “it will be more difficult to solve socio-economic problems due to the drop in crop yields, changes in the water cycle, pollution of water sources, and the increased number of tsunamis, typhoons, floods and pandemics” (Gubanov, 2014). Scientists’ calculations show that, if the per capita consumption of the BRICS countries alone equals that of the USA, the natural resources of five planets like the Earth will be required (Meadows et al, 2005; Spence, 2011)
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