Sustainability indicators and environmental safety management as illustrated with an example of the Polish Energy Sector

Power engineering is one of the key areas of sustainable development. Many countries create new concepts of environmental safety management and modify their energy systems to be in line with the goals of sustainable development in the EU. Sustainable development indicators can be a tool for monitoring the set goals of environmental safety management. The aim of the article is to assess the environmental safety management of the energy sector in Poland in relation to EU as well as presenting the concept of sustainable energy development and indicators used to assess the development of energy in the following dimensions: social, economic and ecological. The indicators used to assess the sustainable development of energy in the following dimensions were compared: sustainable consumption and production, marking the production and consumption of energy; organizations and sites with eco-management and audit scheme (EMAS); registration climate change, marking GHG emissions and the share of renewable energy in gross final energy consumption; sustainable transport, marking the energy consumption of transport relative to GDP. The article will test the hypothesis that the structure of obtaining energy in Poland and the tempo of change in this respect differ from the EU average.