New Concept of Sustainability and Scandinavian Countries’ Sustainable Development Policy

This paper is to answer the question: how effective has the Scandinavian countries’ sustainable development policy based on the new concept of sustainability been? At its first part it is given a brief overview of sustainability concept new vision evolution. Then the basic peculiarities of modern Nordic countries’ policy are determined, which is mostly focused on the following directions: decreasing of anthropological burden on the environment, the control of ecological standards maintenance in enterprises activity and increasing the level of energy saving due to the new innovative technologies introduction. The key part of the research is devoted to the policy results justification. For this purpose the basic indicators of economic and social development are analyzed in dynamic from the starting point of Scandinavian Countries’ Sustainable Development Policy (from 1974 and till now). Moreover, they are compared with the world and the European Union average to show the visible progress and the effectiveness of the policy. Being among thirty leaders in the world ratings (Global Competitiveness Index Rating, Human Development Index Rating and Environmental Performance Index Rating) Scandinavian countries demonstrate today strong positions in the world economy and confirm in a better way the right priorities of their policy.