Sustainable Development between Recent Experiences and Future Challenges

AbstractThe concept of sustainable development demands countries all over the world to use their natural resources rationally while aiming their economic development, and at the same time to take into account the quality of environment as a determinant of their societies welfare. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence in time and space of the variable resource productivity on economic development (using GDP indicator). To examine this linkage, the paper applies a cross time cross section method of the 27 European members over the period 2000 – 2009.Based on the result obtained, the author shall try to trace, in the conclusion, a few guiding lines which could be of strategic importance for stimulating action and awareness that the efficient use of natural resources can create a high degree of welfare and that the complex and dynamic relationship between environmental quality and economic development must be a contemporary concern