Macroeconomic Modelling of Sustainable Development and the Links between the Economy and the Environment

Europe 2020 is the EU's growth strategy for the coming decade, pushing the EU to become a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy. Under the Europe 2020 strategy the flagship initiative for a resource-efficient Europe points the way towards sustainable growth and supports a shift towards a resource-efficient, low-carbon economy. The purpose of the MACMOD project by Cambridge Econometrics, GWS, SERI and the Wuppertal Institute is to strengthen the economic underpinning for resource policy. Essentially to analyse, how important resources are to our economy, how we will use resources in the future under a business as usual scenario, what are the economic and environmental potentials of improved resource use, how we could achieve that, and what this would mean for our economy, our competitiveness, jobs and our environment. This report presents an overview of the results which provide strong support in favour of a resource policy.