ECONOMICS MANAGEMENT INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Review Article ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF THE PRICING POLICY Radmilo Nikolic 1 , Aleksandra Fedajev 1 , Snežana.Urosevic 1 , Igor Svrkota 1 1 University of Belgrade, Technical Faculty in Bor Abstract:Economy or ecology, or both of this? For a long period of time ecology didn’t occur as a specific problem in the economic development. All of the activities were mainly focused on business economy, economic improvements and enlargement of profit. However, serious ecological issues occurred in the second half of the last century and changed the relations between ecology and economy. Ecology has become an important factor of the economic development. Significant changes are visible in the economy of business entities, too. Ecological issues are truly respected, both in ecological costs and income benefits. It is especially explicit in the area of products policy and service prices. Keywords: ecology, economy, ecological costs, prices. 1. INTRODUCTION In the past, economic development and business economy were a constant threat to the environment. Everything was subordinated to profit. Natural resources had been carelessly destroyed or used improperly. The environment was polluted and human health endangered. As time passed by the conflict between economy and ecology became more evident. Ozone holes, Greenhouse effect, increasing pollution of water and soil and rain forests were some of the environmental problems which caused serious concern in the entire world. Everybody realized that this situation was unsustainable. Providing a sustainable economic development now means overcoming the antagonisms in this field. In other words, the environmental protection has to become an important factor in the industrial development and a binding aspect in the economy of business entities. [1] In the business economy, the ecological component may have a double role, i.e. it may represent a cost, but it could also contribute to the increase of the income. This role could especially be reflected through prices of products and services, which is the topic of this paper. 2. ECOLOGICAL COMPONENT AS AN ELEMENT OF COSTS AND SELLING PRICE When ecology was not regarded as a factor in the business economics, ecological costs were not included in calculations of costs and business results. The logic was that natural resources were available for free, while damages occurred in the process which should have been repaired by the society or government. That is the reason why natural resources were used recklessly and the environment suffered global damages. On the other hand, business entities which used natural resources had an economic freedom in this aspect, since the significant share of costs had no influence on their business results. Volume 1/ Number 2/ 2012 122