Economic evaluation of environmental protection activities in the context of sustainable development: the experience of Ukraine

This paper explores the challenges of economically evaluating environmental protection measures, emphasizing their role in shaping sustainable national economic development.These measures contribute to ecological safety, quality of life, and economic growth while conserving natural resources.Effective economic evaluation ensures long-term benefits from ecosystem preservation and sustainable resource use.The study proposes evaluating efficiency using indicators like service payment costs, current expenses, and the volume of services rendered.Using the coefficient method, the analysis focuses on Ukraine and calculates ratios of payment and current expenses to service volume.Findings show that only the water supply, sewage, and waste management sectors fully offset their costs through services rendered.In other sectors (construction, finance, public administration, defense), only partial cost recovery occurs.An environmental functional analysis method was also applied, assessing efficiency by comparing service volume to costs.A total efficiency coefficient was calculated against inefficiency metrics, revealing sector-specific trends and cost-related drivers.The paper highlights the importance of adjusting costs when higher service volumes are unattainable, ensuring more accurate efficiency assessments.While grounded in Ukraine's context, the findings are relevant to EU countries prioritizing sustainable development.Applying these methods across the EU could support more effective, adaptable strategies for economic evaluation of environmental protection and advance the implementation of ecologically sustainable economies.