ESG Assessment from the Perspective of the Management Board and Trade Unions on the Example of the Opole Power Plant

The Opole Power Plant is part of the PGE group (Polish Energy Group), the largest power company in Poland. It produces electricity from coal combustion, which means that ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) policy should be one of the power plant’s strategic priorities. The article focuses on evaluating the ESG activities implemented by the power plant and their relation to the standards set at the corporation. The article’s primary hypothesis is that ESG activities are a significant element of the power plant’s strategy, with most of them determined by policies undertaken at the level of the PGE Group as a whole. The secondary hypotheses assume that trade union representatives attach greater importance (than management) to the social elements of ESG (H2) and that individual management representatives rate higher regarding the importance of those ESG areas for which they are personally responsible (H3). The research method used in the article consists of interviews conducted with representatives of the power plant’s board of directors responsible for individual areas of ESG activities and representatives of trade unions. In addition to groups of questions relating to corporate governance, the empirical material was organized from the perspective of power plant stakeholders. The results obtained support the acceptance of the first two hypotheses posed and the rejection of the third one.