EPA - Ireland's Environment 2016 - An Assessment

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159 Chapter 9: Environment and the Economy
exports is intimately linked to environmental quality and
sustainability. National economic growth and success is
inextricably linked to environmental sustainability and we
have to strive for carbon neutrality to remain sustainably
competitive.
Conclusions and Outlook
Sustainable competitiveness should be at the heart of
thinking about sustainability. This is because competitive
economies tend to be more innovative, more resilient
and better able to respond to external shocks and,
therefore, maintain high levels of prosperity into the future.
A 2015 report by a group of experts convened by the EU
Commission provides advice in the form of a roadmap
for systemic eco-innovation to achieve a low-carbon
circular economy; the report concluded that the economic
challenges currently facing Europe are not cyclical, but
of a structural nature (EC, 2015). The report added that
European production and consumption practices and
expectations are not equipped to face a global climate of
slow demand growth and resource volatility, commenting
that “without change the EU will become inevitably less
competitive, less attractive, and less economically viable”.
Growing population, the competition for diminishing
resources, the appropriate recognition of ecosystem
services and natural capital, as well as the adaptive
challenges arising from our changing climate and our
national climate change commitments will, over the
next 30 years, require ambitious social and economic
interventions and responses. The emerging consensus is
now focusing around the need to put economies on a
more sustainable footing, resulting in a resource-efficient,
carbon-neutral, circular economy. This will require an
all-of-society response: essentially we have to rethink,
and redesign what we mean by social and economic
‘prosperity’ in order to deliver the resilience essential
for us to prevail. We must all learn to live, produce and
consume within the physical and biological limits of
the planet. To achieve this will require integrated and
enduring governance, including brave social and economic
measures. Ireland’s economy needs to strive for sustainable
competitiveness, which the World Economic Forum defines
as the set of institutions, policies and factors that make
a nation productive over the longer term while ensuring
social and environmental sustainability. We cannot
necessarily wait for regulatory intervention to change;
non-state actors are already leading and coalescing
around goals and ideals to progress climate change and
sustainability agendas.
The EU Commission’s 2016 winter forecast bulletin notes
that the European economy is now entering its fourth
year of recovery, and growth continues at a moderate
rate, driven mainly by private consumption. In Ireland this
growth is predicted to be between 3% and 4% in 2016
and 2017. Without market-wide eco-labelling and life
cycle analysis for consumer products and services, it is not
possible to determine the sustainability of this growth.
We know from previous national statistics that excessive
consumption can lead to significant wastefulness and
other environmental burdens. The EU’s Eurobarometer
survey of environmental attitudes notes that 94% of Irish
people rate protection of the environment as fairly or very
important, and 96% agree that they can play a role in
protecting the environment.22 The governance challenge is
to realise these declared intentions in displayed behaviours.
The State must consider market interventions and other
policy instruments that correct market failures, and
also both direct and where possible “nudge” (through
elective and, in time, normalised value-based decisions)
consumption and production behaviours towards a more
sustainable outcome.
Our conventional measures of prosperity (e.g. gross
national product, GDP, value added) are of limited use in
that they do not factor in elements such as environmental
quality, social wellbeing, ecosystem services and drawdown
of natural capital into any measure of economic and social
progress and sustainability.
References
Bullock, C., and Hawe, J., 2014. The Natural Capital Values
of Ireland’s Native Woodland. Woodlands of Ireland, Dublin.
Ciscar, J.C., Feyen, L., Soria, A. et al., 2014. Climate
Impacts in Europe. Results from the JRC PESETA II Project.
JRC Scientific and Political Reports, EUR 26586EN.
Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg.
DECLG (Department of Environment, Community and
Local Government), 2008. The Economic and Social
Aspects of Biodiversity – Benefits and Costs of Biodiversity
in Ireland. DECLG, Dublin. Available online:
(accessed July
2016)
DECLG (Department of the Environment, Community
and Local Government), 2012. Our Sustainable Future.
a Framework for Sustainable Development for Ireland.
DECLG, Dublin. Available online:
(accessed July 2016)
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