Financial aspects of Corporate Social Responsibility based on the hard coal mining industry in Poland

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to present the financial aspects of Corporate SocialResponsibility in the context of the Polish mining industry. The aspects are mostly connectedwith the currently borne costs of natural environment protection and development in a stageof exploitation and liquidation of hard coal mining plants (collieries). Various types of thesecosts, their amount and long-term character affect in a considerable way the productioneffectiveness, reducing at the same time CSR implementation in a broader, voluntarydimension. The mining enterprises in Poland, consisting in their structures of 26 collieries,bear 16 types of obligatory fees and environmental costs in the course of exploitation. Themost important ones are: expenses connected with removing mining damages, devastated landdevelopment and reclamation expenses as well as sewage transport to surface water expenses.Furthermore, after collieries liquidation it is basically necessary to maintain the liquidatedlongwalls without time limit, the costs of mining damages liquidation also occur in a longterm. Apart from high costs, CSR application in the hard coal mining industry rises manycontroversies due to a dominant position of mining enterprises in a stakeholder chain. Theseenterprises very often use CSR only as an instrument that allows to obtain agreement forconducting exploitation, forgetting about its application in the course of exploitation and itsend.