CALCULATION OF ECOLOGICAL LOSSES FROM EXPLOITATION OF INNOVATIONS

Innovation may have negative environmental effects. Their calculation becomes even more complicated, because negative environmental effects of innovations, as well as effects of measures aimed at their elimination or reduction are calculated by the traditional scheme 'producer - consumer'. Therefore, another component should be added: consumers of negative environmental effects of innovations' generation and exploitation. Because innovation-related effects and losses are felt by several categories of consumers, they should be calculated for the three consumer segments: business enterprises; population; government. For business enterprises, the above mentioned effects can be reduced fish catch, degraded fertility of agricultural lands, which causes harvest reduction. For population, the effects can be smaller production output in food and other consumer industries, along with reduction of employment and, consequently, of purchasing capacity of the population; higher expenditures related with supply of high quality foods and other products to the population of the ecologically unsafe region, causing price growth and losses for population; shortage of high quality food, causing body dysfunctions. Also, negative environmental effects increase the mortality rate, which, accordingly, increases government expenditures on social compensations, while absence of workers on job cause income losses (although the latter are losses of business enterprises). For government, losses may occur due to reduction in tax inflows, or due to the increased expenditures on unemployment benefits, due to shrinking consumption of households, as a result of unemployment growth. For each category of losses in the above three segments, algorithms are shown.