THEORETICAL AND METODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF GREEN ECONOMY DEVELOPMENT IN SMALL TOWNS AND RURAL SETTLEMENT OF SOUTHERN RUSSIA

Paper reviews a genesis and evolution of the concept of a green economy from 1989 to the present, its interpretation in scientific sources and documents of international organizations. Also there is reviewed a foreign experience of generating integrated indicators for measuring a development of green economy, in particular, the Green Revenues Index Series of the British company FTSE Russell, detailing the “green” economic activity on the level of corporate finance, and the Global Green Economy Index of the American company Dual Citizen LLC, considering indicators on the level of national economies. It was revealed that traditional methodological approaches to the green economy are only partially applicable to the conditions of small towns and rural settlements in Russia, since the prevailing methodology is characterized by actual prevalence of an ecological principle over the economic one, difficulty of separating purely scientific and political aspects of green economy. In its quantitative assessments, priority was given to such factors as a reduction in carbon emissions, which is of little relevance for rural areas for objective reasons, and the development of alternative energy, which, given the current level of technology, is hardly able to increase the competitiveness of domestic agricultural producers due to the increased cost of such electricity. This gives reason to identify the green economy of rural areas with the practical implementation of the decoupling effect, that is, the cessation of the direct correlation of economic growth and the anthropogenic pressure on the environment, which is achievable through the introduction of end-to-end technologies for the biologization of agriculture and the production of organic products. For this, paper offers the concept of practical implementation of green economy and green economic growth by a buildup of a system of mutual enhancement of the environmental and economic sustainability of rural areas with new low-cost production chains represented by organic meat farming, poultry farming, aquaculture and vermiculture.

green economy, green economic growth, green economy methodology, sustainable development, rural areas, decoupling effect, expanded reproduction of soil fertility, vermiculture, vermicompost, organic animal husbandry.

Kozenko K. Yu. Theoretical and metodological aspects of green economy development in small towns and rural settlement of southern Russia. Business. Education. Law, 2020, no. 3, pp. 198–204. DOI: 10.25683/VOLBI.2020.52.319.