Challenges in Environmental Goods and Services Sector in Romania

The current challenges posed by globalization have led to changes in technology and new priorities for economic policies. Pollution and current patterns of resource use are unsustainable. The players involved have paid more attention to the environmental sector because it has a major role in the transition of economies to sustainable development. Economic growth is influenced by environmental conditions. The paper aims to study the evolution of the environmental goods and services sector in Romania, in 2014-2017. The paper analyses data related to the value of output in the environmental sector, employment and the value of exports. The number of people involved in this domain decreased by 16%, from 190,883.81 FTE (full-time equivalent) to 159,542.79 FTE in the period analysed. Regarding the output value from the total activities, it had an oscillating trend, and the environmental domains from CReMA (Classification of Resource Management Activities) registered the highest values compared to those from CEPA (Classification of Environmental Protection Activities). In the case of exports, there is a slight increase in environmental services from RON 13,630.51 million in 2014 to RON 14,555.15 million in 2017. Thus, Romania should focus more on the environmental goods and services sector as it can contribute to the growth of the national economy and can be an important pillar in the development of green economy.