Impact of sustainable development on economic growth : evidence from OECD countries

During the last few decades, the developing and emerging economies have shown noteworthy progress reflected in high levels of GDP growth rates. However, in that pace of ongoing growth, the natural resources were used thoughtlessly. One of the initial steps to promote the policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of the people around the world with considerate use of natural resources and limited environmental degradation was provided by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) as an alternative economic growth model. The study aims at estimating and evaluating the relationship between Sustainable Development and Economic growth in the OECD countries. The study adopts the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis as a methodology to deal with the effect of Sustainable Development on Economic growth. In particular, we utilize a defined set of fifty three indicators of sustainability given by Global Reporting Initiative on the thirty five member countries of OECD. Among others, aspects like "materials", "energy", "biodiversity", "emissions, effluents and waste", "economic performance", "market presence", "labor practices and decent work performance indicators" are the indicators with utmost importance. The study aims at investigating the link between exhaustive list of sustainable indicators listed by Commission on Sustainable Development and the GDP growth of the member economies of OECD over a period of fifteen years. The study employs panel data regression analysis during 2000-2016 for the thirty-five member countries of OECD. Apart from a general strategic plan that is a requirement as per the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development guidelines at the international level proposed by Commission on Sustainable Development, the study focuses on the policies that may be applicable in the member OECD countries due to their distinctive characteristics of their Economic levels, initiatives to provide energy-efficient or renewable energy based products and services, reductions in energy requirements as a result of these initiatives, initiatives to reduce indirect energy consumption, constant monitoring of the water sources significantly affected by withdrawal of water, percentage and total volume of water recycled and reused, description of significant impacts of activities, products, & services on biodiversity in protected areas & areas of high biodiversity value outside protected areas, habitats protected or restored, Strategies, current actions, and future plans for managing impacts on biodiversity, number of IUCN Red List species and national conservation list species with habitats in areas affected by operations, by level of extinction risk, total direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions by weight, initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reductions achieve, and other relevant indirect greenhouse gas emissions to name a few. In particular, the idea of sustainable development constitutes an exceptional opportunity for the countries that could lead to significant economic achievements.