Evaluation of Sustainable Economic Growth in Portuguese Agriculture and Other Sectors - The Agricultural Economics of the 21st Century - page 92

that this regularity only occurs when based upon many unreal suppositions, namely
that there is no influence upon environmental quality in production and no influence
upon international trade. Zuo and Ai ( 2011 ) also studied the relationship between
economic growth, sustainability, and energy consumption, with an endogenous
growth model. They concluded that it is important to improve technologies of
extraction and use of energy and to decrease dependence on nonrenewable energies.
Indeed, countries such as China, for example, had to consider for their great levels
of economic growth implementing policies of reducing the intensity of energy
consumption and the consequent carbon emissions, namely due to the use of fossil
fuels. Technical efficiency and technological progress were the source, after the
Chinese economic reform in the 1970s, for improvements in productivity and of the
consequent high and continuous levels of economic growth in China (Wu 2000 ).
Certainly, if China benefited from a first stage form of some process of catching-up,
it was after their successful economic growth, which in turn brought about innova-
tion and returns from the investments made in new technologies. The efficiency and
the necessity for adjusted policies in consumption and production of energy in
developing countries was also analyzed by Keong ( 2005 ). The improvements in the
evolution of economies and societies imply increased needs for energy by firms and
by families and this can be solved by increasing energy production, but also with
improvements in consumption behavior. Energy is crucial for economic evolution,
but this progress must use clean energy, in an efficient way and competitively and
by upgrading in productivity (Hefner 1995 ). It is also important to find strategies
which distribute the income obtained in a perspective of sustainable and balanced
development compatible with the environment (Li and Oberheitmann 2009 ). The
relationship between economic growth and environmental sustainability was, also,
examined by Chi et al. ( 2009 ), using an endogenous economic growth model.
However, economic growth and environmental sustainability may not be reconcil-
able, considering the current demands for economic growth in order to reduce
national public debts (Alier 2009 ). Fundamentally the questions related to environ-
mental sustainability are about the efficiency of the exploitation, utilization, and
resulting daily waste for natural resources from the daily activity of the various
economic agents (families, enterprises, etc.). One of these crucial, yet limited,
natural resources is drinkable water. Hallowes et al. ( 2008 ), for example, stressed
the importance for efficient water use in South Africa, given its scarcity. It is
predicted that in decades to come, water will be the major problem for sustainability
in many countries including the more developed economies, facing high levels of
pollution in soils, rivers, seas, and the atmosphere. The greenhouse effect derived
from the high index of gaseous emissions has promoted climatic changes with great
implications for the availability of water, namely in the world's southern regions. In
order to solve the greenhouse problem, it is fundamental to think about better
policies and regulations for the energy market (Ayres et al. 2007 ). There is a new
concept of environmentally friendly economic growth which is referred to as
“green growth.” Green growth is based on the following principles (Janicke
2012 ): increasing resource productivity, refinanced investments for efficiency
returns, innovation in conserving resources, improvements in the green markets,