The Financing of Renewable Energy Sources and the Level of Sustainable Development of Poland’s Provinces in the Area of Environmental Order

Abstract

The overall purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of financing renewable energy sources on the assessment of sustainable development in Poland’s provinces. There are also two detailed objectives: (1) define how Polish policies are being passed on to local authorities; (2) realize a Poland’s provinces ranking, taking into account the indicators of sustainable development, thanks to the taxonomic measure of development in the area of environmental order. This study deals with the taxonomic assessment of local sustainable development in the local administration units of Poland. To this end, the methods of linear ordering were applied for the assessment of the level of objects differentiation with the use of a closed set of statistical features. The presented analysis proved that the taxonomic distances between synthetic measures for particular provinces are considerable. The highest values of the integrated measure in 2018 were obtained by the following provinces: Podlaskie, Subcarpathian and Lubusz. It is noteworthy to point to the big changes in the ranking between 2018 and 2016. The cluster analysis showed some progress in achieving the goals of sustainable development. The group of provinces with an average level of sustainable development in 2018 included six provinces compared to two provinces in 2016. Removing one indicator from the integrated measure (the financing of renewable energy sources (RES)) led to a moderate increase in the integrated measure across all the provinces. This implies that, on average, the financing of renewable energy sources exerts increasingly smaller impacts on the level of sustainable development in Poland.

Assessment of the Feasibility of Implementing Shower Heat Exchangers in Residential Buildings Based on Users’ Energy Saving Preferences

“…For several years, the Podkarpackie Voivodeship has been in the top three Polish regions in terms of the integrated measure of sustainable development in the area of environmental order, which was already mentioned in the introduction. However, it should be emphasized that this is mainly due to the low level of sustainable development in other regions of the country [44]. The data presented in [49] show that the share of energy from renewable sources in the national energy consumption in the household sector is on average 17.5% in the European Union, while in Poland it is only 13.7%.…”

“…This is mainly due to the lack of promotion and funding of such solutions, both at the national and regional levels. Despite the fact that the financing of renewable energy sources in Poland has a smaller and smaller impact on the level of sustainable development [44], it should be remembered that the lack of financing pro-ecological installations may constitute a significant barrier to their implementation [45]. Therefore, it should be assumed that the implementation of heat recovery systems from wastewater will not be possible without the introduction of appropriate incentives and motivators, being a response to the real needs and preferences of residents.…”

“…In order to understand the situation, limitations and challenges, as well as to indicate solutions allowing for the increase in the use of shower water heat recovery systems, a survey was conducted on a sample of 462 inhabitants of the Podkarpackie Voivodeship. This region was selected as the subject of research because it is at the forefront of Polish regions in terms of the integrated measure of sustainable development in the area of environmental order [44]. The heuristics of average users of domestic hot water installations, being a procedure of unconscious, simplified inference [47], allowed for a relatively quick assessment of the situation and indication of an appropriate strategy in terms of increasing the possibilities of implementing shower water heat recovery systems.…”

Linkages between Energy Delivery and Economic Growth from the Point of View of Sustainable Development and Seaports

“…To a certain extent, the sustainable economy stands in opposition to the traditional economy, accounting for a wider range of issues, also those referring to social and environmental problems (the need to protect ecosystems for ethical reasons, e.g., ecocentrism) [18,19]. Sustainable development is strongly connected to economic growth and related with environmental protection and social inclusion [20][21][22]. Hence, there is a need for an inclusive economy [23], understood in terms of including all resources [24].…”

Bank as a Stakeholder in the Financing of Renewable Energy Sources. Recommendations and Policy Implications for Poland

“…International and national policies ought to promote the development of the renewable energy sources sector [14,15]. The strategic documents of the European Union (EU) indicate the need for the intensification of this process across all EU member states [16].…”