UNIS/INF/7
16 April 2004
European Forum Proposes New Economic Model Towards Sustainable Development
Book from Club of Rome’s European Forum for Sustainability Urges an Integrated Social and Economic Approach
VIENNA, 16 April (UN Information Service) -- Potential solutions to the environmental and social price the Earth has paid for the success of globalisation were proposed by the members of the Club of Rome's European Forum for Sustainability, in a book titled “Sustainability Creates New Prosperity”. The book presents a new economic model, advocates an international global treaty between North and South, stresses the importance of making the right to food a fundamental one and lays out the principles of a sustainable retirement reform. The book also stresses the necessity of an immediate and extensive global course correction across the board.
Klaus Töpfer, Executive Director of UNEP - the United Nations Environment Programme (headquartered in Nairobi), said in the preface of the book that to achieve resource efficiency as a basis for Sustainable Development requires an integrated economic and social approach. This task can not be left to the environment ministries alone.
“Sustainability Creates New Prosperity” is a collection of commentaries by international experts on the subject of sustainable development. It was released in Vienna by the European support centre of the European Forum for Sustainability of the Club of Rome this week.
The book presents sustainable development as a holistic concept. With every decision that mankind makes, we have to consider the relevant mutual consequences and give equal attention to the three pillars - economy, ecology and social policy. This principle should be recognized in all parts of life.
“If the exploitation of our natural resources continues at its current rate, development will slow down,” said Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker, one of the authors and the founder of the Factor Four Concept - Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use.
The concept of sustainability requires long-term thinking in order to use natural resources in such a way that future generations have the same opportunities we do.
The European Forum for Sustainability was founded in autumn 2002 in Vienna, Austria, by the European Support Centre of the Club of Rome in co-operation with the Austrian Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Labour and in partnership with the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) Vienna, together with high-level experts and scientists.
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