GREEN ECONOMY IN NATURAL CAPITAL MANAGEMENT: IMPLICATIONS FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Building a green economy is a complex process whose dynamics, among other things, are directly related to the application of many traditional and new concepts within the framework of natural capital management. In this paper, the essence of numerous concepts widely applied in the management of natural capital and the construction of a green economy, as well as the achievement of sustainable development goals, is explained by means of descriptive analysis. Using panel regression analysis, a model was created to determine the impact of changes in the use of natural resources, the state of the environment and gross national income on the sustainable development index of 166 countries in the period between 1990 and 2019. Research has confirmed the finding that the growth of the material footprint, gross national income per inhabitant, and CO2 emissions per inhabitant have a negative impact on the index of sustainable development. The obtained results speak of the necessity of building a green economy in order to stop the further growth of the ecological footprint and reduce CO2 emissions per inhabitant. The results also implicitly point to the imperative of increasing efficiency and improving the effectiveness of natural capital management in order to build a green economy and achieve the goals of sustainable development.