Eco-Innovation in Europe: Circular Economy and Sustainable Development

Literature Review

In the professional literature is possible to find different concepts regarding characteristics of an economic system: red, brown, green, blue and solar economics. The Red Economy concept was also used for the countries with domination of planned economy. The red economy is a set of authoritative rules that define and manage the economy. In the professional literature is also known as the extreme form bureaucracy, where the amount of regulations is overwhelming, prescribes and influences the entire economy, with appears as extremely inefficient (Burkett, 2009; Dickson, 2014).

Brown economy is a model whose economic growth is largely driven by extraction of hydrocarbon fuels and the processing of petrochemical products such as coal, oil and natural gas. This model is associated with large amount of pollution, large amounts of emissions of carbon dioxide and other harmful substances in the air and water that have a negative impact on the environment. Economic development in this case depends largely on the use of resources that are non-renewable, while environmental pollution in their production and the risk of unsustainable growth (Winpenny, 1996). As an example, Russian Federation and the structure of its exports in 2018, where the export of mineral of raw materials and metals represented more than 70% of total country exports (EIA, 2016).