Investment activity and environmental protection: Balancing investors’ interests and environmental challenges

¹ Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Sofia Kovalevskaya St., 16, 620990 Ekaterinburg, Russia
² Ural State University of Economics, 8 Marta/Narodnoy Voli St., 62/45, 620144 Ekaterinburg, Russia

^* Corresponding author: valeryvs@rambler.ru

Abstract

At present, the issue of environmental pollution is gradually becoming one of the central problems facing individual countries and the international community. Meanwhile, the analysis of investment projects shows that most of them are focused on profit making, without due consideration of public environmental interests. In this regard, there is a serious need to find a balance between the interests of investors and the interests of society and citizens in preserving and improving the natural environment. In such circumstances, the state environmental policy should be based on an optimal combination of both administrative methods of influencing investors (penalties, environmental taxes, compensation for environmental damage) and the promotion of so-called environmental investment which implies the development and implementation of a specific investment project, whose goal will be to solve a specific environmental problem. The authors identify various legal forms of environmentally oriented investment, as well as formulate proposals for improving the current legislation in this area.