Green growth is a key tool for countries that are seeking to promote economic growth, to create new economic opportunities and jobs while ensuring high protection of environment and quality of life.
In the framework of the Slovak Presidency of the Council of the EU, the Slovak Ministry of the Environment of the Slovak Republic organized an international conference 'T2gE – Transition to the Green Economy'. T2gE aimed to attract the attention of all relevant stakeholders and create a space for informed discussion of the key questions on the transition to a green economy. The focus of the discussions was on actions of key stakeholders, including financial and investments ones.
One of the main discussion sessions was aimed at the role of research and innovation in accelerating such a transition, the issues of a demand to the community of researchers and innovators, the obstacles that researchers and innovators meet when developing and deploying innovative solutions, including their implementation in a real life. A part of the conference was devoted to present examples of innovative solutions and approaches from Slovakia and EU countries.
With this conference the Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic intended to create a space for open discussion and a wide exchange of views and experiences on how to initiate a new era of economic transformation to one that respects the environment and social aspects of development. With the choice of the main theme of the conference Slovakia naturally reacts to the current global crisis, which is related to rapid population growth, scarcity of natural resources, a rise in prices, the loss of biodiversity and climate change. It is time to start to respect the capacity of the planet and to act more responsible. The transition to a green economy will require courageous and visionary decisions. We have to change our way of thinking and decision making.
As a result of the discussions, final conclusions and recommendations on how the transition to the green economy should be accelerated have been produced and published.
As a follow up event to the T2gE, the national workshop „Transition to the Green Economy – Challenges and opportunities for business“ was organized. Participants from business sector, policy makers and NGOs discussed conclusions of the international conference and presented concrete examples and experiences from activities supporting the practice implementation of green growth principles in Slovakia and made recommendations and proposals aimed at streamlining and speeding up the transition.
