ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND THE GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT

Improving energy efficiency can be powerful tool for achieving sustainable economic development and most important for reducing energy consumption and environmental pollution on national level. Unfortunately, energy efficiency is difficult to conceptualize and there is no single commonly accepted definition. Because of that, measurement of achieved energy efficiency and its impact on national or regional economy is very complicated. Gross domestic product is often used to assess financial effects of applied energy efficiency measures at the national and regional levels. The growth in energy consumption per capita leads to a similar growth in gross domestic product but it is desirable to provide for the fall of these values. The paper analyzes some standard indicators and the analysis has been applied to a very large sample ensuring reliability for conclusion purposes. National parameters for 128 countries in the world in 2007 were analyzed. In addition to that, parameters were analyzed in the last years for global regions and Serbia.