4 April 2022 - Green transition and sustainable economy no longer have an alternative, and companies that acknowledge that will do business with a greater return on investments and easier access to cheaper sources of financing, it was said at a conference in Zagreb on Monday.

The event, entitled "With ESG Criteria towards Sustainable Economy - Future Perfect Business", was organised by the International Institute for Climate Action (IICA), Media Val and the Croatian Employers Association (HUP), as part of the Future Perfect Business initiative and with the partnership of the European Commission.

Its purpose is to open a broad debate on the need to raise awareness of the sustainability of the economy and society and implement new EU regulations on environmental protection.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria are a set of business standards for companies which environmentally aware investors use for potential investments.

Addressing the event, Economy and Sustainable Development Minister Tomislav Ćorić said companies in Croatia recognised sustainable, green business as the direction in which to go, confident that in a few years' time the success of firms competing on the global market would depend on business sustainability based on principles of sustainable development.

The minister said he was confident the Croatian business community would do its best to use the available funds to become globally competitive, thus enabling GDP growth and better living standards and promoting sustainable development.

IICA president Marija Pujo Tadić said that ESG criteria were one of the tools to help in the transition to a low-carbon sustainable economy and in the fight against climate change, and that their introduction would soon become obligatory for corporations and their managers.

"Businesses that recognise that, face the challenges and start implementing the necessary processes to achieve ESG goals will do business with a higher return on investments and better access to cheaper sources of financing than companies that continue to manage their resources in the traditional way," she said. 

HUP director Mihael Furjan said HUP was involved in defining legislative and regulatory frameworks related to energy efficiency, social responsibility and new sources of financing at the EU level and provided its members with education and counselling. He expressed confidence that ESG criteria were the basis for achieving greater added value, better jobs and greater competitiveness.

In that context, the HUP director mentioned the Pliva pharmaceutical company and its many initiatives aimed at making its business greener, with one of the biggest being a project to build a big solar power plant on an area of 13 hectares in Savski Marof.

ZAGREB, June 10, 2020 - Leader of the Restart Coalition and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) Davor Bernardic on Wednesday announced that his government would work actively on a prompt transition towards a circular economy so that it reaches a share of 25% and by the end of the decade creates 100,000 jobs.

"Based on numerous indicators, Croatia is at the bottom in Europe in terms of the judiciary, corruption, living standards, the economy's competitiveness, absorption of EU funds, and in applying a circular economy," Bernardic warned while presenting the Restart Coalition's green development election platform.

"The share of circular use of the material is 4.4% whereas the average in the EU is 11.7%. We are eighth from the bottom with regard to ecological innovations and we account for just 38% of the EU average with regard to productivity in all sectors of the bio-economy or €13,000 in added value for each employee, while in the EU that is €41,000," said Bernardic.

The EU's New Green Deal is a key development document that foresees Europe's social and economic transformation by 2050, which means that Croatia has to work more intensively and faster on the transition from a linear to a circular economy by adopting and implementing the green transformation strategy, he underscored.

Considering that Croatia imports 50% of its food and energy, there is room in these sectors for green development and employing a large number of people, he added. 

One of the first moves will be to adopt a Circular Economy Strategy which foresees the construction of 100 bio-composting and waste sorting plants and 50 smaller bio-gas units with EU funds.

He announced that the main source of green transformation funding would be from the EU's Horizon Europe fund, in addition to state and local government budgets, the Environment Protection and Energy Efficiency Fund, the Croatian Bank for Reconstruction and Development and commercial banks, along with private investments and donations.

SDP green policy advisor Mirela Holy underlined that green transformation has to be the main paradigm of change and that the New Green Deal is the EU's key development document which entails large investments in energy efficiency.