The Relationship Between Environmental Protection and Economic Growth from the Perspective of Sustainable Development

The use of the natural resources of the environment for the purpose of economic development, ignoring the maintenance of ecological equilibrium and triggering irreversible negative environmental phenomena, has generated, at the level of theory and also at the level of environmental policies, disputes, concerns and initiatives. Outlining the idea of economic development in close connection with that of sustainable development of the environment was aimed at identifying solutions and setting objectives to solve the complex problems that concern the quality of life and the environment. Starting from the concept of sustainable development of the economy, we fry to prove that the exploitation of resources and the quality of the environment implies a gradual process imposed by the existing realities, but also by the objectives of the strategies or policies of environmental protection at national and external level. In this paper we will show that the new orientation of the economy, namely towards a sustainable development, requires the realization of a process of economic growth that must take place in the conditions of ensuring the social welfare of the population, but which must be correlated with ensuring the preservation of the environment and of its natural resources. The basic idea that must be retained is that the environmental protection is not only necessary but is also extremely important, such as is, as well, the economic growth, as it must be seen as a way of supporting human development which, from a sustainable standpoint, has at the center of its priorities, the human being. The present study attempts to demonstrate that the solving of economic problems involves taking into account ecological problems that can generate negative consequences for the quality of human life and of the environment, so that any economic decisions must be made in accordance with the ecological aspects.