Poland Through the Eyes of Sustainability and Greenwashing

The programme was organized by the WSB University in Poland. The programme took place in the town of Dąbrowa Górnicza, located in the southwest of the country, near Katowice. In addition to students from Ljubljana, the programme was attended by students from universities in Croatia, Belgium, Lithuania and the Czech Republic. The programme took place partly through Zoom, and the main part was live at the university and in Katowice. The main goal of the programme was to acquaint students with various sustainable practices of larger companies and to draw attention to the problem of greenwashing, which is used by many global corporations. The main focus was on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are designed by the United Nations. There are currently seventeen objectives covering a wide range of areas, including life without poverty, hunger, equality and equity, environmental and renewable energy concerns, peace and partnership, etc. Every country or company within the country is working to achieve or at least improve all of these goals in every area by 2030. However, greenwashing defines the practice of organisations that only want to appear to act as if they are working towards sustainability, but in fact they are doing it for different motives and reasons (because this is a popular trend and thus gain more consumers, because they want to avoid criticism and so that they can hide other questionable practices). In many cases, therefore, this is false advertising, which is why it is right that companies also bear legal consequences.

The main activities of the programme were lectures, group work and study visits.

The part of the programme that took place online was carried out three weeks before physical work (7th and 14th of March). Before the first meeting, the students were divided into seven groups based on their expressed interests: information technology (IT), finance, media, marketing, human resources (HR), health and tourism. The task of each group was to select one company within the field during the programme and analyse it from the perspective of sustainable practices and sustainable development goals. The online meetings were aimed at presenting the programme, discussing cultural differences between the countries, presenting the Sustainable Development Goals, and introducing Poland from the perspective of the SDGs.

The live broadcast took place between the 26th and 30th of March. We stayed in a hostel on the outskirts of Katowice, and we took a train to the university every day. The first day of the programme was a reception at the university and introductions in small groups with “ice breaker” games and a “design thinking” workshop. After the introductions, country presentations were made. Students from each country prepared a fun presentation of their country, also from the point of view of sustainable development. For Slovenia, we presented general sights and interesting facts about sustainability, and in the second part we focused on the Slovenia Green brand, which brings together all sustainable destinations in Slovenia. On the second day, there was a lecture on greenwashing, followed by a lecture on managing finances and personal budgeting, which the students did not find very useful, as the main savings tips were along the lines of: don't buy coffee and expensive bananas and you will be able to save more. They probably wanted to present tangible advice for young people. The next day was more active as we visited the Silesian Museum with modern art and mining history of the city. Katowice is famous for its coal mines, coal is still burning today, which is why the city has dirty facades, bad air and black snow. Before that, we stopped for a study visit to the International Rescue Committee, where the current topic of Ukrainian refugees was presented. The study visit continued on the second day with a visit to the parcels of KSSE, where we did not look at the interior of the buildings, but stood on the pavement for a good twenty minutes and tried to hear the presentation in horrible windy weather. It could all be carried out inside, especially if the construction of a coffee-producing estate is not yet underway. After the last lecture by a student activist from the WSB about her experience with environmental activism, we started to complete our group work and analyse companies in terms of sustainability goals. The last day ended with presentations, where the groups presented a variety of companies including Meta, SunContract, Airbnb, Apple, etc. After all the lectures and group work, we certainly took a much greater view in the field of sustainability and increased awareness of greenwashing. The program was intense, but it still seemed too short, as we could listen to a lot of lectures on this topic.

Of course, there was also entertainment during the work. A bowling evening with pizzas was organised, an “international food break”, where each country brought its own typical specialties, a “city game” with treasure hunt and a joint dinner, and they also showed us a store with good vodka with hazelnuts called Soplica.

However, since trips don't always go without problems, we also experienced some trouble with accommodation, food and organisation. It is true, however, that the university organised such an event for the first time, and I am sure that they will learn from their mistakes and try harder in the future for some things. Katowice is definitely a city worth visiting for at least a day, I recommend visiting the Silesian Museum. In any case, the north of Poland is perhaps the nicer part, as there is still a strong influence of industry in the south due to tradition, and it is not strongly oriented towards tourism and sustainability. However, they are certainly leaning towards this and thinking about the future, which the blended intensive programme is also proof of.