Stable top of eco-innovative voivodeships in the Millennium Eco-Index 2023

Pomerania, Lesser Poland and Mazovia are once again at the top of the list summarizing the eco-innovation potential of voivodeships in Poland. In this year's edition, compared to the previous year, the value of the Millennium Eco-Index increased in five voivodeships, while seven regions achieved a result higher than the national level.

The results of this year's Millennium Eco-Index - eco-innovation potential of voivodeships have not changed significantly compared to the previous year. The Pomeranian Voivodeship remained the leader of the ranking, maintaining its last year's position. The second and third places, as last year, were taken by the Lesser Poland and Mazovian Voivodeships, respectively.

The leaders of individual sub-indices (categories) of the Eco-Index also remain unchanged. The Pomeranian Voivodeship achieves the highest scores in two sub-indices "Effects of eco-innovation" and "Resource efficiency". In the sub-Index "Expenditure on eco-innovations", the highest score was obtained by Lesser Poland Voivodeship. On the other hand, another year in a row, the "Socio-economic activity" sub-Index has the highest value in the Mazovian Voivodeship.

The Kuyavian-Pomeranian, Lubusz, Opole, Podlaskie and Greater Poland Voivodeships moved up in the overall Millennium Eco-Index ranking. The biggest advance was recorded by the Podlaskie Voivodeship, which improved its listing by 5 positions. However, the differences in the values of the Millennium Eco-Index for individual regions in the middle part of the ranking are not large.

In this year's update of the index, three regions shortened the distance to the leader compared to the previous year, most noticeably in the Opole Voivodeship. Considering that eco-innovation is a long-term process, it should be added that over the last three years, the Łódź and Warmian-Masurian Voivodeships came closest to the leader. These regions also rose the most in the ranking over the last three years.

- "In the long run, in order to maintain the competitiveness of the Polish economy, high eco-innovation and change towards a circular economy will be a must, and consequently, i.a., higher energy efficiency, lower material consumption and emissions. This cannot be achieved without broad cooperation between the private sector, public administration, local government, and academia. Activities that increase the environmental awareness of the society are also very important, as it is consumers and their purchasing decisions, as well as the strategies and business decisions of enterprises operating in local communities that have a decisive impact on the development of eco-innovation throughout the country. That is why the discussion on eco-innovation at the regional level is extremely important and necessary" - said Grzegorz Maliszewski, Chief Economist at Bank Millennium, author and originator of the Millennium Eco-Index.

It is worth noting the result of the variable including patents for eco-innovations, the absolute number of which remains the highest in the Mazovian, Lesser Poland and Silesian Voivodeships. In the opinion of the authors of the Millennium Eco-Index, the share of eco-innovative patents in the total number of granted patents is an indicator emphasizing the region's orientation towards eco-innovation. This indicator is the highest in the Pomeranian, Greater Poland and Łódź Voivodeships. Last year, the distance to the leader in terms of the share of eco-patents was shortened the most by the Kuyavian-Pomeranian and Opole Voivodeships.

- "The publication of the Millennium Eco-Index is, as always, an opportunity to discuss the directions of development of the Polish economy and its readiness to become increasingly more environmentally friendly. It is also particularly important in the context of the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, among which environmental issues hold a very important place. Analysing this year's results, we can see that versus the previous year, the number of eco-patents increased from 383 to 449 on a national scale, while their share in the total number of patents granted by the Polish Patent Office in a given year decreased from 16.9% to 13.8%. Individual voivodeships also differed significantly compared to the previous year under review. All this proves how dynamic the current economic situation of the country is", comments Edyta Demby-Siwek, President of the Polish Patent Office.

In this year's edition of the report, the authors pay special attention to issues related to the circular economy (CE). Taking these aspects into account is critical to improve the efficiency of the use of natural resources and, consequently, to transform towards sustainable economic development. Conceptual work has begun to include variables reflecting this area in subsequent updates of the Millennium Eco-Index. According to the authors, their inclusion in the range of variables may have an impact on the results of the list, which is why more in-depth analyses are necessary, the results of which will be published in the next update of the Eco-Index.

- "Eco-innovations are the basis for the development of a circular economy, although we may associate them more often with new technologies. However, eco-innovation is not only about technological solutions, but also about organizational solutions that enable us to reduce the consumption of resources. Examples include economic symbiosis, as well as the reuse of different types of waste. So let's look for these business models that are common to eco-innovation and the circular economy", said AGH University Prof. Joanna Kulczycka, AGH University of Krakow.

The Millennium Eco-Index: eco-innovation potential of regions is an analysis prepared by Bank Millennium in cooperation with substantive partners: Polish Patent Office, AGH University of Krakow and Warsaw School of Economics. The aim of the study is to continue the discussion initiated in 2022 on the scale and pace of involvement of regions in the green transformation of Poland. It is also the intention of the authors that this report will support the implementation of the objectives of the sustainable development strategy of regions, i.a. by identifying and indicating the strengths and weaknesses of regions in the area of green transformation.

The Millennium eco-Index is based on data from the Statistics Poland and the Polish Patent Office, which prepared data on patents for eco-innovations for the purpose of the report. These data include patents granted to domestic entities for inventions in the area of so-called "green technologies". The Millennium Eco-Index consists of four sub-indices based on 17 variables. The idea behind the selection of variables was to take into account a wide range of economic and social activities that make up the eco-innovation process, as well as environmental awareness, which in the opinion of Millennium Eco-Index authors is conducive to the process of eco-innovation.

The full text of the Millennium Eco-Index report is available herelink opens in a new window.