Sustainability transition needs sustainable finance

Successful energy transformation is interconnected with greater citizenry participation as prosumers. The search for novel solutions to implement the transition to renewable energy that will neutralize the barriers to this process, e.g., the reluctance of citizens to get involved, lack of trust in decision-makers and lack of co-ownership of energy projects, is inevitable as a part of the bottom-up process. Energy communities have vast potential to scale up Renewable Energy projects. Due to the fact that in Poland, establishing citizen energy communities in the cities is not allowed, the key success factor of energy transformation is to engage housing cooperatives and other housing communities in this process. A similar legal framework prevents communities from establishing themselves in the Czech Republic and Hungary. The research problem of this paper is to identify determinants of the co-creation process in Renewable Energy project activation at the housing cooperative level. The aim is to identify key conditions that housing cooperatives should establish in order to successfully undertake Renewable Energy project implementation using a co-creation approach. The literature study shows that the term “co-creation” is not often used in energy transition projects, although many local energy transitions are indeed co-created, unfortunately not in a structured methodical manner. In the research, we apply the DART (Dialogue, Access, Risk, Transparency) model as the framework to conduct the analysis. The study has been carried out using quantitative and qualitative research methods and based on primary and secondary data. Our findings indicate that considering the different areas of the DART model, co-creation was most visible in the area of dialogue-communication between cooperative authorities and its members, while it was least visible in the area of transparency. Based on the results pertaining to the implemented project, the researchers postulate the inclusion of factors beyond the DART model that further shape the co-creation process.

Energy justice literature generally treats its three tenets, distributional justice, procedural justice and recognition justice, as separate and independent issues. These are seen as separate dimensions by which criteria can be formulated for a just state of affairs. And a just state of affairs regarding energy should fulfill all criteria. However, we show, using empirical research on six European energy communities that the tenets of energy justice are interdependent and negotiated in practice. We show this interdependency using three core concerns of justice—risk, effort and power—which we identified through our empirical work. Our findings reveal that community members are often willing to take risks and put in effort, if they are compensated with more power within the community. Similarly, members are willing to compromise power if no effort or risk-taking is required from them. This demonstrates the interdependency of the tenets “procedural justice” and “distributional justice” within energy communities. We reflect on the need for energy justice theory and policymakers to recognize the significance of this interdependency.

Literature review suggests that rural hospitals are in the worst financial conditions due to several factors: They are smaller, located in remote areas, and they provide less specialized services due to their problems with employing well-qualified staff. We decided to check whether it is true in the case of Polish hospitals. Based on the literature review, we have assumed that rural hospitals have less favorable financial conditions. In order to verify this assumption, we use seven indicators of financial health as well as a synthetic measure of financial condition. We have found that, in fact, there is no difference in financial condition between rural and urban hospitals, or even that the financial health of rural hospitals is better if we employ the synthetic measure. Additionally, we have found that the form of activity can be a crucial driver of better financial performance. The concept of rural sustainability is supported by good financial conditions of rural hospitals, which helps to provide better access to medical services for inhabitants of rural areas.

Sustainability transition is changing the role and function of banks, specially their products and services also in relation to stakeholders. Banks are one of the main actors supporting the transition to sustainable economy. The purpose of this study is to emphasise the role of world’s largest banks in that process. Banks are slowly responding to the new demand of sustainability and responsibility, and they try to align with it. The paper is based on an overview of the world’s five largest banks that employ corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting standards, together with detailed enumeration of pro-environmental activities included in the reports. The first section of this paper presents the most popular approaches to the problem at hand, as reported in professional literature. Section two presents the characteristics of the CSR actions in banks. The third section discusses the environmental actions of the biggest banks in Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) reporting the most popular standard for reporting non-financial information. And the last part of the paper presents the conclusions resulting from the article. The research was conducted using a variety of sources, such as scientific articles, statistical data, CSR reports of the world’s largest banks, as well reporting principles and standard disclosures. The basic method used in the process of writing was a critical analysis of literature and reports concerning the CSR reporting standards, environmental responsibilities of different kinds of entities, as well as own observations based on special reports of banks. In the article, also the analysis of financial market data, induction method and comparison method have been used. The main conclusions of the analysis of the CSR reports disclosed by the world’s largest banks confirm all three of the theses presented in the article. The findings suggest that the banks under study can be regarded as environmentally responsible entities. Their reports and disclosures are produced according to the internationally recognized standards. There are also critical opinions about the standards for reporting environmental information, but the weaknesses of reporting these aspects do not undermine the benefits of using the GRI guidelines.