Improving Eco - Efficiency Through Overcoming Sustainability Challenges: A Case Study For BSEC Member States

Abstract

Research question: The paper investigated whether a possibility for improving eco – efficiency of BSEC member states exists. Motivation: BSEC member states are primarily oriented towards accomplishing various economic goals, and they are very successful in this area. On the other hand, sustainability issue is still one of major problems for these states, since all BSEC member states do not pay full attention to sustainable development. Also, there are no quality researches that provide deeper analysis of sustainability issues for BSEC member states and so the goal research was to explore if there exists any link between factors that have impact on eco – efficiency of BSEC member states in order to provide sustainable solutions for BSEC member states. Idea: The core idea of this paper was to empirically evaluate the relationship between some factors that have impact on eco – efficiency on BSEC member states, but also to test the implementation of Ehrlich and Holdren equation on the BSEC member states. Data: Analysis was conducted for all 12 BSEC member states using data from several databases such as: IEA, Trading Economics and World Bank. Time series for analyzed data starts in 1995 and ends in 2015. Tools: Statistical analysis of all collected data (descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, linear regression analysis and panel data analysis) was used to draw conclusions between the analyzed variables and check if they have statistical evaluation. Findings: The results showed that full implementation of Ehrlich and Holdren equation among the BSEC member states is not possible due to social aspect of equation. Analysis also suggest that gasoline prices, CO₂ emissions and renewable resources should become vital part of future sustainable strategies for the BSEC member states, since all these variables have strong impact on eco – efficiency of the BSEC member states. Contribution: The paper expands existing research literature by providing detailed sustainable development analysis of the BSEC region, since there were no so many sustainability analysis of BSEC region like this in the past.