The achievement of goals regarding sustainable development requires radical reforms of the way of thinking with reference to the aims of management and doing business and also redefinition of the approach to the problem of satisfaction of needs (consumption). The idea of permanent consumption, which results from the issue of sustainable development, is not tantamount to a demand that the needs should be limited, but it entails a demand for another approach to ways of their satisfaction, i.e. for such consumption which does not generate unnecessary environmental and social costs. To meet this demand, a rise in activity of the public sector is essential.