CSR and Environmental Reporting in the Czech Republic and Romania: Country Comparison of Rules and Practices

This paper focuses on the development of corporate social responsibility, with special emphasis on environmental issues in two countries that have recently joined the EU: the Czech Republic and Romania. The article analyses the short tradition of Corporate Social Responsibility reporting in both countries and the current state of development, as well as its future perspectives. The paper also deals with the recent developments of environmental reporting in the Czech Republic and Romania, and plans to introduce some basics of environmental reporting into compulsory reporting statements in the Czech Republic. This is then compared it with country-specific approach in Romania. On the Czech side, the comparison is drawn from two short case studies of the Czech heavy industry sector. Similarly, in Romania, the approach is documented on companies from the energy sector and a major shipyard, representing the approach of Romanian heavy industry sector. We conclude that the standard of CSR and environmental reporting is based on the same principles in both countries, but the particular approaches differ. Non-prescriptive approach to environmental reporting should be adopted in the Czech Republic, similarly to other developed countries. Furthermore, in our opinion, more systematic regulatory approach may be adopted in Romania.Corporate social responsibility, environmental accounting, sustainable development, Czech Republic, Romania

Sustainable Development Policies in Europe

The objective of this paper is to investigate the actual situation in the shift towards the implementation of Sustainable Development Policies in Europe. The aim is to highlight the key role of the European Union in bringing about sustainable development within Europe and also on the wider global stage. It will show how the European Commission performs its commitment in reaching a sustainable regulation by issuing some documents and declarations. The paper frames the EU action into an international framework of strategies, agreements and policies on SD and, at the same time, provides an overview on experiences of SD strategy implementations at the national level, according to the commission pressing on MS to produce their own SD strategy and implement it. Indicators systems, issues of interest and fields of actions are compared: the analysis of these elements aims to highlight common scenarios of SD strategies that reveal the trends towards a more sustainable growth in the European Union.Sustainable Development, Globalization, Environment Policy, Strategy for Sustainable Development, Good Governance, Participation

Czech machinery cluster and its role in sustainable development of Moravian-Silesian enterprises during the post-transformation era

The paper intends to contribute to the field of geographical economics by an extensive questionnaire survey carried out in Moravian-Silesian region, which represents one of territories of traditional industry in the Czech Republic. The purpose of this paper is to analyse and assess the co-operation among enterprises, educational institutions, and public administration from the perspective of sustainability in the Moravian-Silesian region during its post-transformation era. The article deals specifically with the Czech machinery cluster. The research question that lies behind the survey is as follows: Is the co-operation of entities present in the Czech machinery cluster beneficial to the parties involved? The contribution of the paper is in uncovering the role of this cluster in the sustainable development of Moravian-Silesian enterprises during post-transformation period. Since the Moravian-Silesian region is a typical old industrial region, which moreover underwent a difficult transformation process, there are numerous peculiarities in functioning of its enterprises. Machinery was traditionally one of the supportive pillars of regional industry and it is not surprising that the machinery cluster was created as the first one. Yet, regional characteristics lie behind specific trajectories towards economic sustainability. The above ways toward economic sustainability differ markedly from the concepts that are in vogue in developed western territories.Web of Science102art. no. 23

Mid-term Evaluation of NGO Programmes Under EEA Grants 2009-2014

The EEA Financial Mechanism (2009-2014) have committed 160,4 million to support seventeen NGO Programmes in sixteen countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia and Spain. The overall objective of the EEA Grants NGO Programmes is strengthened civil society development and enhanced contribution to social justice, democracy and sustainable development in each of the beneficiary countries. As of 30 of June 2014, 957 projects in total of 53,793,561 have been supported mainly in the fields of democracy, citizen participation, human rights, social justice and empowerment, sustainable development and provision of basic welfare services. The mid-term evaluation of the NGO Programmes funded by the EEA Financial Mechanism (2009- 2014) is an independent formative evaluation. Its objective was two-fold: 1) to assess the progress and needs for improvement of the current Programmes, and 2) to inform policies for the next financial period. The main purpose of this evaluation was to provide an expert independent mid-term assessment of the contribution of the EEA Grants 2009-2014 to the NGO sectors in the beneficiary states operating NGO Programmes. The evaluation was of dual nature: (1) of a formative evaluation to identify progress and needs for improvement of the current Programmes and (2) of a forward oriented strategic review to inform policies for the next financial period

Policy Performance and Governance Capacities in the OECD and EU. Sustainable Governance Indicators 2018. Bertelsmann Studies

This year marks the release of the third edition of the Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI). The highly developed industrial nations continue to face enormous challenges, due not only to aftereffects of the global economic and financial crisis and the associated labor-market and sociopolitical upheavals. In other areas too, these nations look forward to a future rife with complex problems. Aging and shrinking populations, environmental and climatic changes, and social, cultural and technological shifts are placing democracies under massive pressure to adapt. As early as the first edition of the SGI, it was evident that despite often-similar reform pressures, political systems’ approaches and track records show significant variance. And in times of advancing globalization, the need for effective governance driven by capable leadership remains important. The previous SGI editions have also underscored the fact that this steering capability depends critically on the ability to combine short-term responsiveness with long-term resolve in policymaking

Time to death and health expenditure of the Czech health care system

Growing concern about future sustainability of public budgets in the context of population ageing has given rise to a large debate on the role of age in the context of health care expenditure. Growing evidence on the so called death related costs hypothesis arguing that the positive relationship between age of the cohort and related health care expenditure is the result of growing probability of death changes in an important manner the results of the projections. The aim of this paper is to explore the importance of the death related costs hypothesis in the Czech health expenditure data and the impact of the hypothesis on the projection of the financial sustainability of the Czech health care system.health care, last year of life, financial sustainability

An Institutional Analysis of European Systems for Impact Assessment

Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management, Land Economics/Use,

Assessment of communication of socially responsible activities in selected companies

Significance of socially responsible business activities has been growing constantly in recent years, mainly in the context of increasing competitiveness and gaining of goodwill. The companies pay bigger and bigger attention to the area of social responsibility and spend more and more financial funds on it. However, the specialists in theory and practice agree that companies do not know how to communicate these activities efficiently. And communication of CSR activities towards stakeholders is one of the key steps of successful introduction and efficient development of corporate social responsibility. Therefore the main aim of this paper is to analyse and assess how socially responsible companies fulfil and communicate their CSR activities towards their stakeholders. In this respect, responsible companies are considered to be the entities which were acknowledged as regards application of social responsibility. A basic precondition is the fact that these companies are active in the area of social responsibility, they communicate their responsibility towards their stakeholders in a certain way and they try to publish their CSR activities