Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues

The green economy is one of the important tools to ensure the sustainable development of any country. Green economy is defined as an economy with a high level of quality of life of the population, careful and rational use of natural resources in the interests of present and future generations and in accordance with the country’s international environmental obligations. The paper tackles a case of Kazakhstan. New policy towards green economy, as it is claimed, provides the basis for deep systemic reforms to improve the welfare, quality of life of the population of Kazakhstan and the country’s entry into a list of the 50 most developed countries in the world. In modern conditions, the relationship of economic development with changes in the environment, the impact on many forms of international economic relations is an important feature of the globalization of the economy. One of the most pressing issues among the international community is the issue of introducing a green economy, which is a reliable driving force of economic growth in emerging markets, providing new opportunities of overcoming the economic crisis. The paper analyzes efforts of Kazakhstan trough its active economic policy to transform its economy into green one.

The paper analyses the results of a research conducted with the aim to study topical questions on social innovation attempting to disclose its role expressed via its mission and impact on the Latvian society in the context of sustainable development. The authors present the methodology, conduct and results of the qualitative content analysis of the texts of a focus group discussion with participants from the fields of entrepreneurship, education, communication, sport and charity. The empirical data were analysed with open coding using AQUAD 6 software for the registration of conceptual codes, data processing and creation of frequency tables of categories developed. Having summarised the main findings, it was concluded that social innovation may promote the development of both individuals and the entire society improving the quality of people’s life. The research resulted in the revelation of five domains of social innovation impact including the development at the: intrapersonal, interpersonal interaction, societal growth, innovation, and work opportunity levels.