Background: Circular economy (CE) is a development priority of the European Union and it is part of the EU industrial strategy. The transition to a more circular economy is an essential contribution to the EU’s efforts to develop a sustainable, low carbon, resource-efficient and competitive economy. The author focuses her CE-related reflections and research in this paper on the macro-level (research subjects: 28 EU countries), the level which is least represented in scholarly publications addressing CE (as follows from the analysis of literature in the Scopus database). This study aims to fill this gap partially. The aim of this paper is to identify and group the EU-28 countries according to their advancement towards circular economy. CE indicators proposed by the European Commission were used for the analysis. Given the research subjects and after an analysis of the literature they were concluded to be the most adequate. The theoretical part was based on an analysis of the literature, whereas the empirical work used the principal components analysis, hierarchical and k-means clustering and a grade correspondence-cluster analysis. Results: On the basis of the research, the existence of a “two-speed Europe” was identified in terms of EU countries’ advancement towards CE. Leading countries, those most advanced in pursuing operation according to CE principles, include Germany, Belgium, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The second pole accommodates EU countries in which transformation towards CE is happening at the slowest pace. This group includes mainly countries of the Central and Eastern Europe and the countries of the south of Europe. Conclusions: Differentiated levels of advancement of individual countries towards CE result inter alia from the adoption by some of the latter of different development strategies for their economies’ transitioning to circular economy (according to recommendations of EU ministers at the Environment Council in June 2016) and also from the differences occurring in social and economic development (it is mostly noticeable between the EU-15 and the EU-13 countries). Unfortunately, as can be concluded from the effects obtained so far, only a few of the adopted development strategies may be considered effective in meeting the challenges of circular economy according to the European Union’s standards.

There are many studies which implement and assess existing measurement manners and document the progress of entities towards the circular economy (CE) at various levels, or present or propose new possibilities of measurement. The majority of them refer to the micro level. The aim of this paper is to conduct a multidimensional comparative analysis of the implementation of circular economy by EU countries. After an in-depth critical analysis of the literature, CE indicators which were proposed by the European Commission were adopted as a basis. Owing to the research population-Member States of the European Union (EU-28), focusing on the said indicators was declared reasonable in all aspects. The classification of EU countries according to the level of their advancement in the concept of CE was adopted as a main research task. In order to do so, a relevant index of development of circular economy was created (IDCE). This will allow us, inter alia, to trace changes in the spatial differentiation of advancement of the EU countries in implementing CE over the years, to identify CE implementation leaders as well as countries particularly delayed in this regard. The comparative analysis was conducted by means of statistical methods. On the basis of the analyses, it was concluded that among all EU countries, those of the old EU are the most advanced in terms of CE. The analysis confirmed significant rising trends for IDCE only in the case of Belgium and The Netherlands.

The initiatives taken by the European Union (EU) and the strategies it adopts aim to achieve sustainable development in a long-term perspective. This, however, requires continuous and consistent efforts to minimise the pressure on the natural environment. By obliging and encouraging Member States to take action in the environmental area, the EU wants to be a leader in conducting the green energy transformation. The main aim of the article is to assess the level of advancement of the EU countries (taking into account their division into two groups: EU-13 and EU-15) in making efforts to preserve the natural environment, with a particular emphasis on the position of Poland among the EU countries. An environmental index (EI) was used to make comparisons between EU countries. This index was designed on the basis of selected indicators during a statistical analysis. The Principal Component Analysis and the cluster analysis are employed in the article. This analysis puts forward a claim that it was mainly the countries of the EU-15 (Denmark and Sweden, in particular) that ranked highest in the environmental area in the period analysed and thus are the most advanced in terms of taking action for environmental protection—they took leaders’ positions. Romania and Bulgaria took the lowest positions in these comparisons. Poland’s score was low for the EI in the period analysed compared to the EU-28 countries. Establishing a more effective environmental policy in Member States with the lowest results is most crucial. The consistency of ordering countries according to the EI was noticeable in the period investigated. This proves the stability of the positions occupied by the EU-13 and the EU-15 group. Even though the European Union has made great progress with regard to the protection of the natural environment and green transformation, there is still much more to be done to increase the efficiency of resource use, waste recycling, energy efficiency or RES sharing in energy mixes.

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Objective: To empirically investigate the relationship between education quality and technological progress in the business sector at different stages of economic development. Research Design & Methods: We divided 160 countries into four groups by GDP per capita. The research period was 2007–2021. We use Spearman’s correlation analysis to verify associations between nine indicators for education quality and ten indicators for technological progress. Findings: Our outcomes show that if education quality does not improve, countries do not move up the economic development ladder. Adult literacy, primary education quality, adult skills, and women’s average years in school have the strongest influence on technological progress. Implications / Recommendations: Our paper contains many implications for those seeking to improve social well-being. For example, governments should ensure that women have access to education on equal terms with men. Otherwise, they lose an important source of technological progress and impede the development of human capital. Greater emphasis should be placed on learning how to write and describe reality, read with comprehension, perform simple calculations without a calculator, and teach various learning methods. In the absence of these, the skills of primary, secondary and higher education graduates will not improve. Contribution: The outcomes of our research, both theoretical and empirical, create a multi-faceted approach to the issue of the mutual influence of education and technological progress. They allow us to look at this problem from the perspective of subsequent stages of economic development.

Biblioteka cyfrowa regionu śląskiego - kulturowe dziedzictwo Śląska w jego historycznej i współczesnej różnorodności.