Economic Growth and Environmental Pressure in Kazakhstan: Social Implications

In the context of increasing environmental pressures and waste volumes, there is a growing need to assess the relationship between economic growth and environmental performance indicators. The purpose of the study is to assess the relationship between Kazakhstan's economic growth and indicators of waste generation and recycling, energy consumption, energy intensity, and energy productivity. The study's information base consisted of official statistical data from the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2015-2024. The research employs normalization, gray relational analysis, and multiple regression analysis. According to the results of the gray relational analysis, the highest coefficients of correlation with GDP dynamics were established for the specific volume of municipal waste per unit of GDP (0.717), the volume of hazardous waste (0.714) and the volume of industrial waste (0.707), which indicates that the changes in these indicators most closely coincided with the direction and nature of the change in GDP in the studied period. The volume of hazardous waste has statistically significant negative relationship with GDP (B = -0.645; p = 0.012), while the association of industrial waste with GDP has not been statistically confirmed (B = -0.033; p = 0.827). The results show that Kazakhstan's economic growth was more closely related to an increase in waste volumes, especially hazardous waste, than to the development of recycling and increased energy efficiency. The findings substantiate the need to develop recycling infrastructure, strengthen control over hazardous waste, and transition to a more resourceefficient model of economic growth.

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