SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT - MANAGERS' AWARENESS, INFLUENCE ON FUNCTIONING SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES IN POLAND

The negative impact of economic development led to the emergence of a new concept, which has been termed sustainable development. It has significantly influenced the way of thinking about relations occurring in the social, economic, and environmental areas. There are many definitions of this concept in literature. Effective implementation of the principles of this concept requires understanding and building environmental awareness. Implementation of the concept at the enterprise level requires managers to have a certain amount of knowledge and skills and at the same time the ability to perceive and look at the issue of sustainable development from the perspective of benefits. The paper presents the results of a study conducted in 2021 among 216 managers of small and medium-sized enterprises in Poland. The research aimed to assess the awareness of the idea of sustainability among the management staff of small and medium-sized enterprises in Poland and its impact on their functioning. The results of the research were compared to the results of research conducted by the author in 2008. The research has shown a significant increase in the awareness of the idea of sustainable development. This applies both to the everyday behaviors of respondents and declared actions carried out in enterprises they manage. The main factor motivating the surveyed companies to undertake pro-environmental actions is the conviction that it is necessary to care for the environment and not to avoid paying fines and fees. The respondents see specific benefits from such activities.

Sustentabilidade e Governança: Evidenciação Ambiental em Empresas Prestadoras de Serviço ## Sustainability and Governance: Environmental Disclosure in Service Providers

A necessidade de se utilizar os recursos ambientais de maneira adequada e sustentável deve estar cada vez mais presente no cotidiano das pessoas, do poder público e das empresas. Diante disso, este estudo tem por objetivo analisar as práticas e iniciativas ambientais adotadas em empresas prestadoras de serviços contábeis e de turismo da região da Serra Gaúcha, no estado do Rio Grande do Sul. Para atingir tal objetivo, foi realizada uma survey por meio de um questionário elaborado a partir do instrumento “Indicadores Ethos para Negócios Sustentáveis e Responsáveis” (Ethos, 2016). Os resultados indicam que as empresas pesquisadas apresentam uma preocupação com as questões relacionadas ao meio ambiente, mas essa ainda não é uma unanimidade. As empresas têm preocupação com o consumo consciente de materiais, tais como papeis e descartáveis, com o consumo de energia e água e a destinação de seus resíduos, mas deixam a desejar quando se trata de ações ambientais e comunicação com a comunidade acerca deste tema. ABSTRACTThe need to use environmental resources in an adequate and sustainable manner must be increasingly present in the daily lives of people, public authorities and companies. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the environmental practices and initiatives adopted by Brazilian accounting and tourism companies. To achieve this objective, a survey was carried out through a questionnaire elaborated from the "Indicators Ethos for Sustainable and Responsible Business" (Ethos, 2016). The results indicate that the companies surveyed have a concern about environmental issues, but this is not unanimous. The companies are concerned with the conscious consumption of materials, such as paper and disposable, with the consumption of energy and water and the destination of their residues, but they do not deserve when it comes to environmental actions and communication with the community about this theme.

PRESCHOOL CHILDREN’S SENSITIVITY FORMATION IN THE PROCESS OF INVOLVEMENT IN CHARITY EVENTS

In the paper, based on the study of national and foreign literature, a terminological analysis of the pedagogical essence of the category ‘sensitivity’ as a leading moral quality of the individual, the foundation of which is laid in preschool childhood. The category “sensitivity” is interpreted as an attentive, cordial, friendly, and sympathetic attitude to people, to someone’s grief, experiences, and needs; care for the people’s needs, requests and desires, attention to their problems, interests; compassion for others, willingness to help; the ability to actively, quickly respond to life events, facts with verbal approval or support action about the misfortune, grief that befell someone.The issue of involving preschool children in voluntary, charitable, motivated, socially useful activities and their sensitivity formation as a basic quality of personality is considered. It is proved that charitable actions are an active form of educational practice, in which the child becomes proactive and independent in choosing ways to express their interests, in providing selfless assistance to those who need it.The importance of socio-pedagogical and environmental actions as an environment where preschoolers develop a willingness to help, show compassion and empathy, understand the problems of another person (animal) and the nuances of their mental and physical condition. It is emphasized that the involvement of preschool children in charitable activities contributes to the exercise of the ability to see the difficulties of other people (animals), respond adequately to them, help, act selflessly, enjoy their kindness and care for others, education of indifference to others.

Environmental Citizen Science Initiatives as a Springboard towards the Education for Environmental Citizenship: A Systematic Literature Review of Empirical Research

Environmental Citizen Science (CS) initiatives have been recognized over time as a promising way to engage citizens in the investigation and management of various socio-ecological issues. In this context, it has been often hypothesized that these CS initiatives may also contribute to the education and subsequent transformation of citizens into environmentally aware and active citizens. However, the potential of CS to serve as a springboard for supporting Education for Environmental Citizenship (EEC) has not been explored yet. A systematic review was conducted, seeking to examine how citizens’ participation in environmental CS initiatives contributes to the EEC, as a venue through which citizens can undertake actions in different scales (local, national, global) to achieve environmental citizenship. A content analysis procedure was implemented on thirty-one empirical studies (n = 31) retrieved from a systematic review of the literature covering the timespan of the last two decades (2000–2020), according to the PRISMA methodology. The findings indicated that the majority of the reviewed environmental CS initiatives primarily enhanced citizens’ skills and knowledge over the competences of attitudes, values, and behaviors. In addition, it was found that CS initiatives empowered primarily citizens’ personal and responsible environmental actions, which were situated in the private sphere and at the local scale. The derived environmental outcomes were mainly related to the solution and prevention of environmental problems. Finally, correlational statistical analysis indicated that there were strong correlations between the Environmental Citizenship (EC) competences, actions and EEC outcomes and unveiled a set of keystone components; namely, components of crucial significance in the field of EC. We reflect on these findings, and we discuss directions for future research.

Towards Higher Quality of Recycled Plastics: Limitations from the Material’s Perspective

The increasing consumption of plastics and plastic products results in correspondingly substantial volumes of waste, which poses considerable environmental burdens. With the ongoing environmental actions, the application of circular economy on this waste stream is becoming inevitable. In this paper, the topics of plastics recycling, circular economy on plastics, and challenges to plastic waste recycling are critically reviewed. In the first part of this paper, the development of research on plastic recycling was viewed from 1950 until 2020 using the scientific database Web of Science, and 682 related studies were found and used to assess the changing research priorities along that timeline. The following sections discuss the potentials and requirements to enhance the quality of the produced recycled plastic, in connection with the factors that currently limit it. In conclusion, the quality of recycled plastic is generally determined by the homogeneity of the recovered plastic feed. There are various strategies which could be implemented to overcome the hindrances identified in the paper and to improve the quality of the recycled plastic, such as working on enhanced product designs for minimised waste heterogeneity and controlling the materials’ degree of contamination by applying advanced sorting.

Green library: Reducing carbon footprints towards Sustainable Development in libraries: A Case Study of Federal College of Education Library, Zaria, Nigeria

Carbon footprint has become a popular way of communicating climate change issues and the need to change behaviour. Reduction of environmental burden or everyday environmental actions played an important role in the day-to-day activities of libraries. Libraries are in an excellent position to be both an ecological operator and promoter of environmental awareness. The methodology employed is survey. data collected was analyzed using decision mean of 3.00. findings from the study revealed that, libraries in Nigeria are not well ground on green library requirements, due to insufficient manpower, and tools. As a result of this, this study recommends that librarians must faces the challenge of finding solutions that adequately address these issues without compromising its economic development goals and the living standards of its people through environment awareness, communication strategies and reduction on environmental burden.

IMPLEMENTASI BUDAYA SEKOLAH BERWAWASAN LINGKUNGAN DALAM MEMBENTUK KARAKTER PEDULI LINGKUNGAN SISWA SEKOLAH DASAR

The purpose of this study is describe implementation of environmental school culture for shaping character environmental care students at SDN Temas 01 Batu. This study used a qualitative approach with descriptive research. The study is conducted in SDN Temas 01 Batu with the subject of his research is the principal, 3 teachers, 4 students, 1 janitor, 1 cafeteria guard and 2 parents of students. Data is collected through interview, observation, and documentation. Data analysis is carried out through 3 stages, datareduction, data display and verification. The validity of the information is tested by triangulation of techniques and triangulation of sources. The research results show that environmental school culture is implemented through 3 steps, planning, implementation and evaluation. Planning activities are forming school environmental management team, making environmental studies and planning environmental actions. Activities carried out during implementation are make environmental policies, implement environmental based curricula, conduct participatory based environmental activities, and manage environmental supporting facilities. The success of the implementation is evaluated by monitoring the state of biodiversity in schools, electricity bills and spending on purchasing office stationery, weighing the amount of waste and monitoring students' ability to manage the environment in terms of cognitive, affective and psychomotor aspects. The supporting factor that influences the implementation of an environmental school culture is the location of the school which is in a location that is still beautiful and gets a lot of support from outside parties. While the inhibiting factor is limitation of budget, there are still students who lack awareness in sorting waste and there is still a lot of plastic waste in schools.

Interindividual differences in environmentally relevant positive trait affect impacts sustainable behavior in everyday life

Emotions are powerful drivers of human behavior that may make people aware of the urgency to act to mitigate climate change and provide a motivational basis to engage in sustainable action. However, attempts to leverage emotions via climate communications have yielded unsatisfactory results, with many interventions failing to produce the desired behaviors. It is important to understand the underlying affective mechanisms when designing communications, rather than treating emotions as simple behavioral levers that directly impact behavior. Across two field experiments, we show that individual predispositions to experience positive emotions in an environmental context (trait affect) predict pro-environmental actions and corresponding shifts in affective states (towards personal as well as witnessed pro-environmental actions). Moreover, trait affect predicts the individual behavioral impact of positively valenced emotion-based intervention strategies from environmental messages. These findings have important implications for the targeted design of affect-based interventions aiming to promote sustainable behavior and may be of interest within other domains that utilize similar intervention strategies (e.g., within the health domain).