Search

The European Union's climate policy aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 and to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. One of the instruments for achieving these climate goals is the development of offshore wind energy. Unfortunately, Poland, as one of the few European Union countries with access to the sea, does not have offshore wind farms yet. The purpose of this article is to determine the importance of offshore wind energy for the development of Poland based on the example of two sea regions: the West Pomeranian and Pomeranian Voivodeships. This article uses the input–output method to determine the economic effects of offshore wind power. The region's share in the supply chain was determined based on the location of the offshore wind energy sector. A comparative analysis with the Saint-Brieuc offshore wind farm in France made it possible to show the differences between the studied locations. The supply chain share of the regions surveyed was 2.28% and 6.00% in the CAPEX phase and 5.98% and 8.23% in the OPEX phase. The annual average global value in the CAPEX phase at the country level was EUR 2793 million, and at the regional level, EUR 243 million and EUR 663 million. In the OPEX phase, the corresponding values are EUR 2106 million, EUR 223 million and EUR 663 million. The average annual employment in the CAPEX phase at the national level amounted to 26,323 jobs and at the regional level, 1953 and 5804. In the OPEX phase, employment amounted to 4790, 558 and 751 jobs, respectively. On the other hand, the average annual value added in the CAPEX phase at the national level was EUR 1221 million, and at the regional level, it was EUR 106 million and EUR 290 million. In the OPEX phase, it was EUR 920 million, EUR 97 million and EUR 239 million, respectively. While not all of the findings are conclusive, in general, the domestic offshore wind industry has weaker economic linkages and lower wage levels than the location adopted for comparison. It uses more labour-intensive economic sectors with lower OPEX value added. The results of the analyses presented in this paper are of crucial importance not only for Poland, as their advantage is the possibility to present, from an economic point of view, the profitability of this type of investment in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability is understood as a balanced integration of economic, ecological, and social aspects. Sustainable manufacturing can be considered one of the most important issues to address in the pursuit of sustainable development. The main purpose of the paper is to identify the most important directions of research to date and to indicate new and emerging areas of research concerned with the usage of decision-making methods in sustainability assessment in steel manufacturing companies. A systematic review was based on the publications indexed in the Web of Science and Scopus databases. In the analysis, the correspondence analysis and log-linear model were applied. To sum up, this study examines decision-making modalities and sustainable performance in terms of approaches that influence sustainability in steel manufacturing. Firstly, the study determined key decision-making aspects, such as the appropriate material identification for the manufacturing process and material labeling for the manufacturing process, which is essential for sustainable metal products. Secondly, the identification of sustainability indicators is considered vital in the hierarchical process as their integration is essential for the decision-making process and its outcome. Furthermore, system efficiency and productivity, alongside increasing attention to environmental protection, have led to significant changes in all production systems. In addition, many factors play an important role in the selection of suppliers, such as increasing the importance of the environment, increasing the recycling rate of the products, and ensuring sustainability performance. However, companies in the steel manufacturing industry rely little on the application of decision-making to assess sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of the paper was to identify the most frequently discussed directions of research on green transformation. In the article, both the significant similarities in the existing studies in this field, as well as the newly emerging topics of research, are presented. For this purpose, the authors used a systematic literature review with elements of statistical analyses. This kind of approach is not popularly used in literature review papers, as it differs from the research practices employed previously, which mostly concentrated on applying qualitative methods, alternatively supported by the analysis of the co-occurrence of keywords. In this paper, the authors decided to include selected methods of dimensional analysis in the systematic literature review, namely the log-linear and correspondence analyses. The main results of the presented analyses are a more detailed division of studies related to green transformations into groups focused on the areas more difficult to distinguish in terms of the traditionally conducted literature review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of the paper is to present a proposal to measure the relationships between Goal 7 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and one of the areas considered in the green growth concept: environmental production efficiency. Both of these areas illustrate the relationship between the natural environment and the economy, emphasizing transformations in the field of energy use. Selected taxonomic methods, TOPSIS, and multicriteria taxonomy, were applied to study the relationships between the two areas. The results of the EU countries classification showed a variety of countries' development pathways within a single economic community. Despite continued attempts to equalize the development levels between European Union countries in many strategic areas, they remain highly diversified. That is also true for the areas analyzed in the paper, which is a disturbing situation, indicating that both strategies might not correlate in all respects. Further research into the relationships linking the remaining dimensions of both strategies is required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The competition between cities involves the search for different ways and means to create, attract, sustain, and use diverse resources, knowledge, ideas, and innovations to support the economic growth of each individual city and, as a result, to strengthen the city's position in the urban hierarchy both short-term and long-term. However, for each city, urbanisation does not only mean an increase in competitive economic power but also a number of problems such as pollution, poverty, crime and unemployment. In order to address the challenges posed by the urbanisation processes, the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) issued the 1987 Report that emphasised the need for sustainable socio-economic development that would also consider ecological factors. Given this, the article examines the issue of urban competitiveness on the basis of sustainable development principles. After a systematic and comparative analysis of the concepts published in the scientific literature, this article accomplishes the following: It defines the concept of competitiveness in urban areas; it identifies the inclusion aspects of the sustainable development principles into the assessment of urban competitiveness; it presents the research into urban competitiveness assessment models; and it carries out an integrated competitiveness assessment of the Baltic capitals in the period of 2014–2019 based on the principles of sustainable development by applying the integrated competitiveness assessment model that is based on the principles of sustainable development (MDK). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many years different scientists have published the results of research related to the usage of UDI (user-driven innovation) concept and its impact on innovation activity of enterprises. None of them, however, concerned the relationship between various determinants for developing the R&D (Research and Development) sphere. It is the reason why the main purpose of the study is to present the empirical evidence in finding the determinants for usage of "user-driven innovation" concept (UDI). The work focuses on using this concept in R&D departments, which are very often responsible for introducing this kind of innovation in a firm's practice. The use of the UDI concept in R&D in the enterprise will be influenced by various factors which, in the literature, are divided into external, independent of the enterprise; and internal, which can be a result of adopted strategies, action plans and/or operating standards. The implementation of UDI in enterprises gives a number of benefits resulting from interaction with the environment, but also encounters barriers and internal problems that need to be neutralized. It is why, in this paper, the internal factors will be considered. To present the relationship between the selected variables, the correspondence analysis which constitutes one of the methods for multidimensional statistical analysis, was applied. The results presented in the paper allowed to formulate several important conclusions about the potential level of implementation of UDI concept in R&D departments in Poland. Firstly, it should be noted that in Poland, the UDI concept is still seen as new. This is why there are no scientific publications on this topic, as well as a lack of system solutions and strategic documents encouraging entrepreneurs to conduct research and development activity based on contacts with users. That is why authors have made some recommendations regarding the promotion of activities related to the use of UDI in research and development processes. Our research supplements the current knowledge in the field of internal conditions affecting the implementation of the UDI concept in enterprises which are starting to implement this concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literature review showed that finance is a driver of sustainability. However, to achieve sustainability through finance, it is necessary to rebuild and adapt the financial system to the specifics of sustainable development. Modern financial systems can be described as one-dimensional, focusing on ensuring the economic security of transactions. Meanwhile, the growing role of risk related to non-financial factors means that the factors referred to as ESG (environmental, social, governance) become the main source threatening the stability of financial systems. Adaptation activities toward the design of so-called three-dimensional financial systems rely on incorporating ESG risk into the financial decisions of the financial institutions that make up the financial system. This is found, among other factors, in the risk assessment methodology. The general goal of the paper is to investigate which ESG criteria are incorporated into the decision-making process of financial institutions and to verify the level of sustainability of financial systems in selected OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries. The main research hypothesis assumes that incorporating ESG factors into the decision-making process of financial institutions makes financial systems more sustainable. A two-stage research procedure was used to achieve the research goal. In the first stage, to determine the ESG factors that affect the level of sustainability of financial systems and identify dependencies between ESG factors incorporated by financial institutions into the decision-making process, a fuzzy cognitive map (FCM) was used. The collective map elaborating on the basis of the opinions of experts participating in the study was built using the software FCMapper_bugfix_27.1.2016. In the second stage, based on multiple-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) using the PROMETHEE method (Preference Ranking Organization Method of Enrichment Evaluation), 23 OECD countries that respect the Equator Principles were ranked according to seven groups of criteria defined for financial system assessment (financial depth, development, vulnerability, soundness, fragility, stability, and sustainability), based on a literature review. The ranking confirmed the strong position of Scandinavian countries for assuring best sustainability practices in financial institutions and in the economy. The added value of this paper can be considered at two levels: theoretical and empirical. From the theoretical point of view, it should be noted that it is the first of this kind of analysis which prioritizes ESG factors in financial decisions and ranks financial systems according to fulfilling sustainability criteria. The original empirical approach based on the two-stage research procedure provided analysis of 62 factors, of which 21 represented the environmental scope, 25 the social scope, and 16 the governance scope, which is the main advantage of the empirical study presented in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]