In this paper, an aggregate indicator of a regional green economy (Regional Green Economy Index—RGEI) was proposed and applied to assess the level of green economy in Polish regions and its changes in the period 2004–2016. The TOPSIS (Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) method was applied, which is one of the multi-criteria decision making methods (MCDM), widely used to assess the spatial diversity of socio-economic phenomena. Common reference values (ideal and anti-ideal solution) were used for variables for the entire study period. It allowed not only for creating a ranking of regions, but to assess progress towards the green economy as well. It was found that all regions of Poland made progress in this respect. Most importantly, the regions ranked the worst before Poland’s accession to the European Union, made substantial progress. It was stated as well that none among the studied regions had high values of all variables included in the aggregate index. The maximum value of the RGEI index was about 0.5, while the index range is [0,1]. Additionally, an important finding was the fact that the weights of all diagnostic variables obtained using information entropy method were about equal, which confirms the approach of researchers and institutions who do not use weighting in aggregate indicators for well-being or sustainable development—which means implicitly using equal weights.

The aim of the article is to analyse and evaluate the implementation of socially responsible activities by enterprises, in relation to the specific stakeholder that is the natural environment. The survey was conducted in 2013 among the organizational units implementing the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Poland. In the research the purposive sampling was used. For the purpose of analysis of the survey results descriptive statistics and statistical inference were used. Based on the results of surveys, the factors and tools for measuring the impact of socially responsible activities on the natural environment have been identified.

This article is aimed at developing a proposal of indicators to integrate climate change adaptation into the process of designing legislation and assessing the effectiveness of this legislation in adapting the society, the economy and the environment to climate change. Based on a review of climate change adaptation monitoring indicators used in selected European countries, an assessment of potential indicators according to the proposed criteria was carried out and a proposed list of indicators for monitoring climate change adaptation in selected economic sectors was developed for use in the ex-ante assessment of legislation. The proposed set of indicators can be used for ex-ante assessment of legal acts in terms of implementation of climate change adaptation requirements - both to determine the values of indicators selected for a given sector that are relevant to climate change adaptation, and then to monitor changes in these indicators to assess the effects of implementing legal regulations in terms of supporting the state's climate change adaptation policy.

The increasingly severe effects of climate change have resulted in a shift in countries’ approach to climate policy. From an initial focus on mitigation efforts, adaptation to climate change is now given equal importance. Adaptation policies in individual countries provide for different sets of instruments owing to different natural conditions and climate change impacts and their resulting problems as well as different approaches related to the sociopolitical characteristics of the country. In the paper, we identify and classify adaptation policy instruments and then look for the differences and similarities in the adaptation instrument mixes included in the national adaptation strategic documents of selected European countries. We focused on Western European (WE) and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, as the latter are underrepresented in studies on adaptation policies. Based on text-mining methods, i.e., categorisation of policy instruments using a set of criteria and clustering, we looked for similarities and differences between the adaptation instrument mixes in the chosen European countries. We found similarities between the two CEE countries studied—Poland and Lithuania. These countries are also different from WE countries in this regard. The results indicate that CEE countries have a sectoral rather than systemic approach to adaptation policy, and instruments from the management sphere are less prominent.

Universities have an important role to play in the process of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations in its 2015 Declaration, which specifically addresses their contribution in the areas of education, research and social impact. The main objective of the article is to review the approaches of Polish higher education institutions (HEIs) to the formulation of sustainable development strategies by reference to their position in international rankings. The study focused on three international rankings: UI GreenMetric, THE Impact Rankings and QS World University Rankings: Sustainability. The methodology used included literature review and critique, analysis of documents and other source materials, descriptive analysis and comparative analysis. The paper contributes to deepening and advancing the academic debate on the role of universities in achieving the SDGs and improving institutional governance to accelerate progress towards their implementation.