Sustainable development in Poland in quantitative terms – state as of 2022

Kacper Zielak; Helena Gaspars-Wieloch

doi:https://doi.org/10.59139/ps.2024.03.2

Kacper Zielak Poznan University of Economics and Business, Department of Operations Research and Mathematical Economics, al. Niepodległości 10, 61–875 Poznań, Poland ORCID:https://orcid.org/0009-0002-6098-9095 , Helena Gaspars-Wieloch Poznan University of Economics and Business, Department of Operations Research and Mathematical Economics, al. Niepodległości 10, 61–875 Poznań, Poland ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0033-3836 Przegląd Statystyczny. Statistical Review, vol. 71, 2024, 3, pages: 19-40 Published online: 16 June 2025 DOI https://doi.org/10.59139/ps.2024.03.2 Citation: Zielak, K., & Gaspars-Wieloch, H. (2024). Sustainable development in Poland in quantitative terms – state as of 2022. Przegląd Statystyczny. Statistical Review, 71(3), 19–40. https://doi.org/10.59139/ps.2024.03.2.

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ABSTRACT

Sustainable development remains one of the major challenges for contemporary Poland, where dynamic economic growth often collides with social inequalities and environmental degradation. In relation to these challenges, this paper aims to assess the level of sustainable development in voivodships (highest-level administrative division of Poland, equivalent to a province) based on an extended analytical framework that adds an institutionalpolitical dimension to the three core aspects of sustainable development – social, economic and environmental. The study relies on data from 2022 on individual voivodships, from which 20 variables describing the aforementioned aspects of sustainable development are selected. In the extended approach, these aspects are often referred to as ‘orders’. For each voivodship, Hellwig’s measure is calculated using multidimensional comparative analysis and linear ordering. Based on these calculations, rankings of Polish voivodships are created and visualised by means of cartograms created in R. Additionally, an analysis of the similarity of objects relative to each other is conducted using Euclidean distance matrices. The research shows, among other aspects, which orders of sustainable development constitute the strengths and which represent weaknesses of a given voivodship. The study refers to literature discussing the concept of sustainable development and methods of quantifying it, as well as literature describing the applied research methodology.

KEYWORDS

sustainable development, Hellwig’s measure, multidimensional analysis, linear ordering, distance matrix, rankings of Polish voivodships

JEL

C44, Q01, Q5, R5

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