Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues

Protecting natural resources, for example through a functioning of environmentally protected areas at present is actually connected with eco-development concept, which helps to avoid some mistakes and socio-economical wastes. Creating and functioning of protected areas must be correlated with the development of the neighboring areas, in such a way that it would not be a threat for natural environment. Such neighboring areas are for example military training areas, which partly conserve the environment, as rich nature reserves, including protected areas are located on the majority of them. Therefore, the aim of the article is to examine the connection of protected areas on active military training areas. The article contains the diagnosis of military training areas in connection with protected areas and evaluation of the role of military training areas in nature conservation. The activity of the army on training areas, in view of current intensity and form of activities, should be regarded as not detrimental for nature.

Considering lack of benchmarking and observation data, the article analyses issues of technology transfer in Lithuania. Comparison of Lithuanian innovation performance with EU country members is given as well as foreign direct investments in last period. While analysing main technology transfer networks, article explains what problems Lithuanian clusters meet in each model. The main conclusion is that Lithuanian clusters lack experience and investments, also Lithuanian enterprises are mainly small and may not be interested to invest in the development and adoption of technology.

As an alternative to the conventional GDP, a new “progressive” GDP termed as the “Holistic Progress Index” or the HPI has been proposed; and an original approach to its quantitative evaluation has been presented. The HPI integrates social, economic, ecological and political aspects of human progress. The rationale of HPI and its evaluation methodology are presented. As proposed, the HPI is based on three major parameters i.e. the Net GDP per capita, Socio-Ecological Progress Index and Socio-Political Progress Index representing Peaceful Development, Sustainability and Human Freedom respectively. The factors involved in the quantitative evaluation of HPI are GDP, military expenditure, health, education, carbon emission, poverty reduction, leisure, population growth, crime and human freedom. Hence the proposed HPI is much more comprehensive than the conventional GDP. Future actions / projects required to utilize the concept of HPI are also proposed and discussed. It is concluded that a pursuit of the growth in HPI (rather than a growth in GDP alone) will lead to Peaceful and Sustainable Development without curtailing Human Freedom.

The article highlights the importance of the development of the society, as well as the measurement of this development, in the context of security, sustainability and competitiveness and goes much further by guiding to further research focus on the introduced new conception of “Secure and sustainable competitiveness” in the context of globalisation. The definition of “Sustainable competitiveness” was broadened by including new aspect of security. The development of the society was introduced as common output of the globalization which goes hand-in-hand with competitiveness, sustainability and security. The interrelation of certain facets between security, competitiveness and sustainability lead to the proposal to create the new index of “Secure and sustainable competitiveness” with possibility to evaluate the progress by looking back and provide prospects by looking forward. The research findings are in line with policy context and the development of the new index of “Secure and sustainable competitiveness” could be an important research contribution to the European Union Strategy Europe 2020 for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth (2010).

Security and sustainability conception analysis is being provided in the paper. The conceptions of security and sustainability have been selected due to their significance for contemporary globalized world’s issues. Initially, the perceptions encompassing even ancient times are being elaborated. Onward, with an intention to get a more sophisticated view of above mentioned expressions, relevant scientific literature has been critically reviewed accentuating to the dimensions of those two phenomena. The following common dimensions could be proposed: social, economic, environmental. The implication could be stated - security conception provides not only those three dimensions some other important dimensions could be distinguished as well. One more important finding composes the perception of dimensions interactions to analyzed conceptions. Some important implications are being provided in the paper, which elevate the significance of security to sustainability for today’s globalized society - security can be proposed as expression with ponderable value, while sustainability gains this power only with “sustainable development” phenomenon.