Decision-making dilemmas in mining enterprise and environmental issues, i. E. green thinking in mining

One of the most important problems of the modern world is the pollution of the natural environment. Human activities associated with the development of various industries have a huge impact on the surrounding environment. Unfortunately, often this impact is negative and in many cases its effects are irreversible. Human activities strongly affect the environment by polluting the atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere. Currently, the degradation of the natural environment that has been observed is due to the economic and industrial development, in other words, due to general human activities. One of the areas of degradation is air pollution. The sources of air pollution are power generating plants, industrial power plants, industrial technologies, households’ furnaces or local boiler plants. The basis of the Polish energy industry is hard coal and lignite which are used to produce heat and electricity. Due to global trends in the area of greater use of renewable energy sources (RES) and decarbonization in the economic sector, Poland has to face many challenges related to the energy production, while at the same time looking for ways to reduce the negative impact of energy production from conventional sources on the environment. The article discusses the decision-making dilemmas that concern the management of mining enterprises producing hard coal. The author suggests that managers should take environmental considerations into account already at the stages of decision-making processes. Planning individual activities in the process of hard coal production, managers should be aware of the effects that their decisions have on the natural environment. For this reason, the article identifies the areas where it is possible to reduce the negative impact of mining production on the environment. In addition, the paper indicates how important the awareness of employees and management is for environmentally friendly production. Basically, it is necessary to think about the natural environment at every stage of the mining production process.