Transformations  in
Business & Economics

Logistic Growth Models for Analysis of Sustainable Growth
Dalia Štreimikienė, Stasys A. Girdzijauskas

ABSTRACT. The article deals with sustainable growth concept and analyses the application of logistic growth models for sustainable growth analysis. In the phase of limits becoming obvious today the unlimited growth is unsustainable, since it requires unlimited drawdown of limited planetary resource storages and unlimited environmental capacity to absorb externalities. Seeking to achieve sustainable growth new technologies resources and using renewable resources are necessary. The main idea is to apply the carrying capacity of the earth for the definition of sustainable growth. The term “carrying capacity” is used in biology and ordinarily it is defined in terms of the population being carried by the resources of an environment. We will use the term “carrying capacity” in term of the resources that carry the population and the consumption of those resources by the population. We will show the sustainable and unsustainable paths of growth by applying the carrying capacity of resources concept and the logistic growth models. The logistic growth models can be applied to analyse sustainable growth concept, to define resource carrying impact on growth limits and to show the ways to achieve sustainable growth. The aim of the article is to use logistic growth models for sustainable growth analysis.

The main tasks of the article are:

• to analyse carrying capacity concept;
• to apply the carrying capacity concept to economic growth;
• to present logistic growth models;
• to apply logistic growth models for the definition of sustainable growth;
• to make recommendations for the sustainable growth concept.

Traditionally sustainable growth is considered as decoupling of economic growth from resources consumption and decoupling of resource consumption growth form pollution growth. However as we will show in our article it is not enough to ensure such decoupling. The use of renewable energy resources which help to decouple from pollution and resources consumption however the use of renewable need to be management as well seeking not to overcome the limits of maximum sustainable harvest.

KEYWORDS: sustainable development, carrying capacity, logistic growth.

JEL classification: Q01.