Generolo Jono Žemaičio Lietuvos karo akademija

Climate change and environmental aspects are key issues on public agenda. Governments and politicians try to implement new regulations and limits to reduce the environmental burden of the industries around the globe. However, success can be seen only to a limited extend in many areas. On the other hand some industrial sectors themselves start to think about solutions to handle the big impacts. Some pioneers in this field discovered already also the competitive and economic advantage of implementing so called green and sustainable solutions in their business. This includes production, manufacturing and transport activities but also ways how to manage and monitor such activities from an eco-friendly perspective. This paper will give an overview of the implication of green logistics along the supply chain in regard to the automotive industry including supply companies from SME sector and will demonstrate the application of this issue. For that an example of the European market leader Volkswagen AG in Germany is chosen and analyzed in the case description.

Economic growth and country’s industry dependence on the assessment of energetic resources arise as comprehensive approach. The increase in global energy prices, significant dependence on imported energy and increase in energy consumption might result international competitiveness of the country and pose constrains towards sustainable development. Restructuring of the economies from energy intensive industries towards more technologically advanced products and services might lead to higher value added per unit of product, and energy saving sectors with lower energy consumption per unit of output. In order to sustain international competitiveness of exporting sectors, it is necessary to diminish gradually intensity of expensive energy resources. The problem of this study related to the scientific discussion concerning relationships among the intensity of energetic resources’ use, economic growth and export. The analysis of the theoretical and empirical studies of the effects of energy on the economic growth and export showed that energetic resources precede and predict the economic growth and export, however, the question concerning the direction of causality remains open, since unobserved variables may drive both developments. This paper analyzes the case of Lithuania. The authors investigate economic growth and industry sectors’ export dependence on energetic resources.