The Culture of Ecological Security Policy; Research of Polish Regional Cities

1. Introduction: The Place of Ecological Safety Policy Culture in Science

Global and regional effects and implications of socio-economic growth usually result from the processes of governance of states in the context of their security [37]. The terms globalization and regionalization refer to the integration of multiple national development strategies in global or regional markets. I notice that in the context of similar needs of global or regional producers and consumers, the behaviour of local organisations goes beyond preferential environmental constraints. Globalization and regionalization may therefore neither lead to homogeneous markets nor to increased integration of national development strategies in the context of global ecological security values [9].

I understand this value as the foundation of civilization that has become the object of dangerous because it is dismissive and not rational criticism. The axiom of value has been seriously undermined. For example, through the importance of a broader perspective on the Hamas-Israel war since 2023 [19,30], the economic impact of the Russia-Ukraine crisis on nations since 2014 [10], Russia’s escalation of actions against NATO as a result of the war in Ukraine [15,21], climate change and its threats to ecosystems [31], the transnational political concerns of extended stakeholders as a result of the Belarus-Poland migration crisis since 2018 [11,20], or the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019-2022 [1,17].

Global ecological security is treated as the coherence of sets of political concepts of countries dividing the common good in the context of justice and law enforcement [26]. Global ecological security is therefore dependent on the process of association of nations, especially liberal-democratic nations. Global security problems are seen as local and regional problems because that is where they are created and have their effects [28,38,39,40,44,47,49]. Global environmental effects and their implications for increased socio-economic development therefore result from countries’ governance processes [8,18,24,25,29].

In this context, the change in security policy concerns the principles of state intervention to improve the life of its society. I ask three questions. Do competitive but practical actions for the ecologically safe development of the state still matter in the capitalist system? Do governments evaluate the ecological security of the state as a value? Are its cities organizations in a given country with an increased culture of ecological security policy if they lack sufficient depth of development of general security? To answer these questions, a diagnosis of the development of cities and their states is required in the context of five aspects of the depth of the public culture of security policy. These are [33]: (1) the basic needs of an orderly socjety, (2) justice as impartiality and honesty, (3) rights, freedoms and opportunities arising from the constitutional dis charge, (4) goods and perfectionist values of a liberal and democratic state, and (5) an active society that effectively benefits from self-integration and good life.

The term responsibility of public authority is no vaguer than the distinction between the principles of justice relating to the basic structure of society and the existing political, legal and social institutions which actually realise that structure [33]. In this context, the obligation to regulate the culture of the state’s ecological security policy is important because it means the obligation to identify the environmental aspects of the state.

I see the source of the practical application of the term obligation in the division of the common good in the concept of freedom, with which the concept of independence should not be confused. I relate the term freedom to four tenets: ecological security, sustainable development, social responsibility and environmental stewardship. In this context, there are different types of freedom depending on the spheres that make up the structure of the state (or only its cities) and the spatial form of the state (or only its cities). The connection between these different types of freedom naturally relates to human rights and the rights of nature. The next question is how this concept of freedom can be convincingly extended to encompass one nation’s relations with others. The goal is also to create a sensible the culture of the state’s ecological security policy for the nation based on the development of its urban areas.

From the point of view of the global culture of cological security policy, the ways in which diverse global organizations influence countries are important: (1) increase in competition, (2) development of techniques, technologies, methods and ways of development, (3) knowledge transfer, (4) transfer of funds between developing and developed countries, (5) regulation and deregulation of markets, (6) implementation of international standards of good quality, (7) market integration, (8) mobility of intellectual capital, (9) responsible management of the consequences of a financial, social or ecological crisis, and (10) the dependence of nations’ development policies on the natural resources they possess, included in the global set of common foods. In this context, the concept of the culture of a state’s ecological security policy is more detailed than considering only the internal security of a state as part of its external security. Moreover, the culture of the state’s ecological security policy is linked to the idea of a social contrach [33].

The two most obvious obstacles to maintaining a culture of ecological security policy are the global and regional expansion of resource-intensive economic practices and the lack of capacity of countries to enforce international conservation law [41]. The ecological image of states – even among leading organisations on global markets – is no longer sufficient in applying voluntary monitoring and reporting of their own impact results on the social and natural environment. Hiring independent organizations to certify the results of these activities does not at all stimulate competition between organizations at the level of developing countries. The context of competition takes on a different meaning in developing the obligation to grow the culture of ecological safety policy. I see this incorrectness of obligation in the concept of sustainable development of the impact of the organization of cities on their natural spacer [36,45,46]. Therefore, the political recognition of ecological security as a beneficial socio-economic phenomenon in a situation where the state is not at risk of losing its development potential is not sufficient [26].

International law as a positive legal order – although incomplete in some respects – does not constitute a thorough implementation. Environmental aspects as the essence of the state development policy do not characterize the values of national law. Local management structures and systems are not burdened with determining environmental aspects [49]. It is therefore impossible to realistically define either a national or global culture of ecological security policy. For example, Poland did not immediately cease lignite mining in the Turów opencast mine located in Poland near the borders of the Czech Republic and Germany, although the factual and legal allegations raised by the Czech Republic justified the application of the requested interim measures [32]. The term immediately, however, did not take effect immediately.

It can be generally said that issues of internal security and external security are anchored in ecological security. I do not refer the modeling of the sense of global culture of ecological security policy to the world state [33]. I explain it as part of the good organization of democratic nations dependent on a certain kind of consciousness and knowledge. Understanding this global culture leads to self-defense and liberation from irrational political decisions.

2. Methodology

2.1. Purpose and Scope of the Research

I do not separate the definition of a state from the definition of a nation or society. I relate the definition of the state to the development challenges and development policies that inequality poses for global sciences on the management of the state and its cities. The analysis draws attention to the underrepresented discussions in the scientific literature on state development in the context of the coherence of four dogmas: ecological security, sustainable development, social responsibility and environmental management. They are useful in understanding how a state shapes its security to maintain its international public interest in various other spaces. Institutions specify the concept of public interest when such a situation arises in order to explain its content and demonstrate that such interest speaks for or against the proposed solution [4,13,24,25,32]. The concept of public interest is therefore not an abstract concept because it is a concrete concept and must result from a specific situation that requires the defense of this interest even by violating the good name of another person, group of people or institution.

In a state governed by the rule of law, the concepts of social interest and public interest or state interest are semantically identical but are not synonymous. In discussions about real social aspects – as opposed to philosophies that advocate political parties or entire societies – the public interest is more popular than justice, fairness, equality or freedom [33]. Additionally, the public interest cannot be considered as the economic or fiscal interest of the state. From the point of view of the culture of ecological security policy, one can therefore expect the process of satisfying the public interest to eliminate the negative effects of the imperfections of the market mechanism.

I define the subject of my research as an outline of the theory of the culture of the development policy of an ecologically safe state, conducted since 2019. I pose the research question of whether difficulties in modeling the state’s ecological security are a consequence of local limitations in the identification of environmental aspects. Research implements the objectives of the European Union’s urban Policy [12].

My goal was to define a theoretical framework for determining when a state is ecologically safe using the example of 18 Polish regional cities. The continuation of this goal required the formulation and definition of the state’s ecological security and the culture of the state’s ecological security policy, as well as the definition of a socially responsible city and sustainable city development.

I have adopted the thesis: the concept of the culture of politics of an ecologically safe state is based on the concept of cities as an object of cognition – as opposed to cities as a tool for action. In this article – unless otherwise stated – the state or the city is always understood as the object of knowledge.

In the context of the purpose, subject and thesis of the research, I have formulated and provide my own definition of the ecological security of the state: it is comprehensive security, i.e., protection of the health and life of people and protection of the environment, protection of cultural heritage and protection of property, i.e., a rigorous and broad-based system of protection in advance, which consists in preparing and effectively responding to an emergency (e.g., natural disasters, cyberattacks, pandemics and potential war invasions).

Then I formulated and provided a definition of the culture of ecological safety policy, which is the achievements of the nation in the field of legal and constitutional institutions, including views, ideas and theories and norms of conduct, as well as the actual actions of individuals and groups within the framework of state coexistence.

In turn, I have formulated and provided a new definition of sustainable development of the state, which means a model of state development in which meeting current and future social needs is treated equally and the document presented by governments combines development activities in a harmonious and socially responsible manner with progress in the global civilizational and economic-political system - as well as with the preservation of the historical and natural heritage of the nation – which are the share of all social groups based on environmental aspects.

And further I formulated and provide a comprehensive definition socially responsible and sustainable development of the city as an organization means universally accepted ecological issues, i.e., in the process of city management, in the system of organizing the urban community and in economic relations with interested partie; the city as an organization creates a coherent system of values of the community using the natural and technical space of the city; this space serves to achieve real ecological security of the city; in this context, environmental aspects of the city in all its spatial forms, i.e., production, consumption, power, symbolism, exchange and habitation, are continuously identified.

The essence of these three definitions stems from the fact that the global market has not developed specific proposals for an objective and independent of will or worldview combination of the four dogmas (mentioned above). Meanwhile, the interpretation of their essence and role in each state results from new philosophical directions that have not been referred to before [10,19]. In the definitions, I emphasize the property of environmental aspects as a natural quantity that influences the increase or degradation of ecological security according to the cause-effect principle in the context of the global civilization system.

The thematic scope of any scientific work is always a matter of choice. This is partly due to the definition of the scientific discipline – rarely clear-cut – that this article addresses. In this article, I examine specific issues of ecological safety using the example of the development of 18 regional cities in Poland. The choice of these regional cities resulted to some extent from editorial limitations. It was also the result of a conscious choice by the author. It resulted from the awareness of the colossal amount of knowledge that had to be selected and organized.

In terms of content, I base my work on three assumptions. Firstly, that knowledge about Polish regional cities is important from the point of view of cultural interests and traditions. It should be understood in a conservative way – more as a set of knowledge about some explanations referring to formal or structural properties of the development system expressed in philosophical categories. This fact distinguishes these explanations from mechanistic explanations and from general processes [3,7,22,23,27,35,42,48]. Secondly, the article is based on the concept that the development of the state as an ecologically safe organization is not limited to describing how it is, but how it should be. Thirdly, the ultimate source of the practical significance of the development of states as ecologically safe organizations can be found in the concept of freedom. Freedom should not be confused with “independence”, of which there are different types depending on the sphere of life that freedom concerns after 2004, when Poland achieved the long-awaited and mythical “return to Europe” as the core of the global social and political system.

I focused the procedure of selecting the population for research on the state as an ecologically safe organization on the most developed cities in Poland. I assumed that the community that constitutes Poland’s regional cities has features resulting from the advanced social and economic development of these cities. The individual characteristics of cities become apparent only during the performance of duties. In this context, statistical certainty was increased by the purposive selection of regional cities for the study. Ultimately, I took 18 regional cities of Poland as the subject of my considerations: Białystok, Bydgoszcz, Gdańsk, Gorzów Wielkopolski, Katowice, Kielce, Kraków, Lublin, Łódź, Opole, Olsztyn, Poznań, Rzeszów, Szczecin, Toruń, the capital city of Warsaw, Wrocław, Zielona Góra.

I conducted the research based on five data sources, which are: (1) presentations by other authors (post-conference, in peer-reviewed journals, monographs and reports with university, industrial or organizational characteristics), (2) eighteen development strategies of regional cities, (3) eighteen environmental protection programs of regional cities in Poland, (4) a list of organizations registered in the national “Register of organizations in the Community eco-management and audit scheme (EMAS)” [34], and (5) an original research questionnaire on the “model of an integrated eco-management and audit system of cities with the goals of sustainable development of cities and social responsibility of cities”. I referred the first data source to the theoretical part of the article and the remaining four data sources to the empirical part of the article.

I used a multi-criteria comparative and descriptive analysis of the collected scientific material because it is a helpful instrument for assessing the local and regional application of the tenets of social responsibility and sustainable local development when they are integrated with spatial values. In urban development, decision support systems constitute an instrument of urban planning when they combine planning alternatives and scientific knowledge and facilitate stakeholder consensus. The method of combining multi-criteria analysis with a management decision support system is a tool for quantitative and qualitative solving of problems resulting from these decisions in the spatial planning and development of the state. This tool does not provide an objective answer in terms of what and how to do best, but supports decision-makers in three ways: identifies spatial decision-making criteria for the country’s development, assesses ecological options for investment activities by referring to spatial decision-making criteria and analytically combines assessments of environmental aspects of the country’s development. The synthesis of techniques for assessing the environmental aspects of the state creates a basis for analysing the impact of investment decisions on state security.

Multi-criteria analysis enabled the integration of spatially diverse interests of cities and the assessment of their specific dogma – ecological safety. The theoretical issues of this dogma were established in the context of consistency with the dogmas of sustainable development, social responsibility and environmental management. The empirical issues of this study are summary in nature because they refer to the entire group of regional cities in Poland. The results revealed specific regularities for assessing the ecological safety of Poland’s regional cities with a clear concise characterization of the country’s ecological safety. I did not use probability theory because inference takes place when the study is representative in the context of a random sample.

I see the practical global application of my research results in four political and economic decisions of each country. These are: (1) strategic and operational assessment of the ownership of cities and the value of environmental management of these cities that should be implemented to achieve real ecological security of the state, (2) identifying mitigation measures to counteract development benefits resulting from meeting public interest needs but having a negative impact of spatial solutions on the social or natural environment, (3) determining positive and negative development activities in cities and regions, and (4) establishing the state’s competences to promote development solutions only based on the coherence of ecological safety, sustainable development, social responsibility and environmental management.

2.2. Axiology of the Culture of Ecological Security Policy

The discussion about the state as an ecologically safe organization is characterized by terminological and conceptual discipline. However, the concept of ecological safety policy culture has never been formally defined in Polish and international law. It was sometimes used interchangeably with the – also essentially undefined – concept of “concrete actions” aimed at protecting citizens and their future generations from threats resulting from insufficiently harmonized social and economic development with the requirements of environmental protection [2,5,9,11,14,30].

I conducted my research based on the duties of authority specified in the Polish Constitution of 1997. Environmental protection as a tool for ensuring ecological security should be guided by the principle of sustainable development. Ensuring this obligation assumes achieving a state of the natural environment that allows for safe residence in it and enables human development – using its resources. The Constitution distinguishes two types of actions by public authorities: (1) preventing the deterioration of the environment and (2) improving that environment. However, by implementing this law, each organization becomes an ecological organization without going into the details of how ecosystems function. However, this is still not sustainable development of the organization. This means that sustainable development of the organization is an argument for the social responsibility of the organization in the context of justifying the existence of the state as an organization, but it is their partial acceptance mutated by various interests [33,37]. Real sustainable development requires referring only to such practical modifications of development that are useful for environmental management [34].

Figure 1 illustrates how the concept of a global culture of security policy can be implemented. It requires adopting the correct orientation in the policy of organizational dissemination of values common to the network of organizations that make up the state. The model of the global culture of general security policy is based on the cooperation of governments in the field of internal and external security in the context of ecological security. It identifies global investment interventions and connects market practices with non-market practices. I relate investment interventions to the organizational order in the state’s spatial policy when using common goods. I relate the dissemination of values to the strategy of market practices in determining the global effects of public activities. The aim of the global security policy culture model is to take over threat control systems to protect people and the environment.

In theory, state security is traditionally considered in terms of territorial integrity, inviolability of borders, presence of authority in order to be subject to the same laws and create unity [14]. However, one argument should be taken into account in these considerations: the natural environment prefers diversity.

At the methodological level, I am making a “synthesis” of ecological security, but without success – I cannot demonstrate the existence of ecological security in Poland. I notice that it is acceptable to reject innovations in creating ecological safety when these innovations may increase investment costs. An excess of these “traditional” behaviors leads to a loss of value. In this context, security science cannot justify the facts because at the same time as the unknown circumstances of the threat are announced and security is increased, the realization of anti-security is announced.

3. Results

The analysis of the current state of development and quality of 18 regional cities in Poland identified six specific features that commonly characterise these cities: (1) regional cities are the administrative centers of their regions, (2) regional cities are the economic centers of their regions, (3) regional cities are the central labor markets of their regions, (4) regional cities are the central educational centers of their regions, (5) regional cities are the cultural centers of their regions, and (6) regional cities are the centers of influence on the ecosystems of their own and other regions. It cannot be ignored that all these features of the 18 regional cities of Poland are not common because only some of these features are possessed by other urban centres. In the objective sense, regional cities – as special places for investing capital within the region or even the country – are also the largest markets within their region or country.

Survey questionnaires are often used by researchers as a source of information [45]. I developed a questionnaire containing 79 questions and 13 tables. The time limit for completing the survey was 30 days. I sent the questionnaires to the Presidents of Poland’s regional cities online. The recipients were given the opportunity to join the city authorities who create the best model of environmental management.

The comparative analysis showed partial completion of the surveys by 17 % of regional city Office. Other written and substantive explanations of the city management system were sent by 33 % of city Office. The remaining 50 % of regional city offices in Poland did not provide any response to the survey questionnaire. The lack of an implemented integrated eco-management system was reported in a written and substantive explanation by 50 % of the regional city offices in Poland.

The collected research material was prepared in two regional cities by the departments of the offices related to the term environmental protection. Then, two other regional city offices responded through departments with names corresponding to the term sustainable development. In turn, six regional city offices responded through various other departments.

The survey questionnaire was to indicate the objective coexistence of the environmental management system with social responsibility and sustainable development in regional cities.

The analysis showed that 50 % of regional cities do not have a decision on implementing a city environmental management system.

The empirical analysis covered the national EMAS register to draw attention to the need to distinguish the issue of geographical individuality of regional cities from the issue of the location of their borders [34]. The sectoral reference documents of city offices – regarding best environmental management practices, environmental performance indicators and development excellence criteria – refer not only to the public administration sector but also to other sectors.

The analysis showed that 4 106 708 entities conducted business activity in Poland; of these, 91 entities (0,0022 %) were recorded in the national EMAS register. However, this fact does not mean that all these entities were economically active. Among these 91 entities were organizations that: suspended their activities and information about this fact was recorded in the national EMAS register; ceased their activities but information about this was not recorded; they are not entrepreneurs but foundations and associations.

The analysis revealed that 65 entities with a potential impact on the environment were active and had environmental declarations in the national EMAS register (0,0016% of 4 106 708 entities).

The analysis also revealed that one regional city had an environmental statement in EMAS.

The empirical analysis covered 18 development strategies of regional cities to identify which environmental aspects are important when making decisions on the implementation of a public investment.

Comparative analysis of 18 regional cities development strategies allowed to identify the directions of development of regional cities in Poland. It is assumed that the directions of city development are identical with the development challenges of cities or city development policies [6,16,43]. The adopted development directions or development challenges or development policies of regional cities are characterized by different specific functions and level of detail of spatial data of the future forms of these cities. It can therefore be said that these are public services aimed at meeting the public interest of future urban communities. The analysis showed that the development challenges of cities determined the directions of development of these cities according to the spatial significance of investment interventions. Moreover, the directions of development are based on development visions rather than any natural values or even obvious social and natural values of regional cities.

As a result of the analysis, I developed a Catalogue of Development Challenges arranging 123 development challenges (also understood as public services from 18 development strategies). The qualification criterion was seven development directions (according to these development strategies) and they are: (1) green space of the city with 6 % of services, (2) natural capital of the city with 6 % of services, (3) adaptation to climate change and improvement of air quality with 4 % of services, (4) friendly space of the city with 19 % of services, (5) social responsibility and sustainable development of the city with 18 % of services, (6) well-being of the city with 8 % of services, (7) other development challenges with 39 % of services. The directions of development of regional cities were the basis for developing development programmes for these cities. This means that development programmes require further research to determine their culture of ecological safety policy in Poland’s regional cities.

Development directions and development challenges were determinants of the creation of sub-policies for the development of regional cities. I identified 16 sub-policies of spatial activity in the development of regional cities. These are: (1) spatial sub-policy, (2) municipal sub-policy, (3) housing sub-policy, (4) transport and communication sub-policy, (5) sub-policy of improving public safety and order, (6) sub-policy of supporting the development of science and higher education, (7) educational sub-policy, (8) health and solving social problems sub-policy, (9) sub-policy of supporting the development of culture and protection of cultural heritage, (10) sub-policy of physical culture, tourism and recreation, (11) sub-policy of developing civil society, (12) sub-policy of supporting economic development, (13) sub-policy of city promotion, (14) sub-policy of international cooperation, (15) sub-policy of managing local government structures and (16) financial sub-policy.

On the basis of conceptual realism, the cases of spatial activity presented 18 sub-policies of development conditions depending on the location of the Polish regional city. Based on the comparative analysis, I distinguished 1 267 public services which I classified according to the sub-policies of the conditions for the development of regional cities. These are: (1) environmental protection sub-policy with 11 % of services, (2) spatial order sub-policy with 9 % of services, (3) health care sub-policy with 7 % of services, (4) employment promotion sub-policy with 2 % of services, (5) culture development sub-policy with 5 % of services, (6) sports, tourism, recreation and leisure development sub-policy with 3 % of services, (7) city and metropolitan area development sub-policy with 7 % of services, (8) rural development sub-policy with 2 % of services, (9) science development and growth of economic innovation sub-policy with 5 % of services, (10) pro-social behavior development sub-policy of civil society communities and structures with 7 % of services, (11) human resources development sub-policy with 3 % of services, (12) stimulating the creation of new jobs sub-policy with 2 % of services, (13) sub-policy of creating and modernizing social infrastructure with 4 % of services, (14) sub-policy of creating and modernizing technical infrastructure with 14 % of services, (15) sub-policy of supporting the modernization of state institutions with 7 % of services, (16) sub-policy of supporting the development of entrepreneurship with 3 % of services, (17) sub-policy of supporting economic growth with 5 % of services, and (18) sub-policy of increasing the competitiveness of the economy with 4 % of services. The essence of the sub-policies of the development of regional cities cannot be ignored; their limited implementation due to unequal access to financial resources, even if they are of strategic importance for the regional city. In the context of the national and international activity of regional cities, this function had a different scope of implementation due to the dependence on internal and external political conditions (e.g., change of the ruling party).

Ultimately, he developed an additional 12 catalogues of elements of the structure of the development strategy for Poland’s regional cities. These are: (1) a catalogue of development strengths of cities with 7 % of services; (2) a catalogue of development opportunities of cities with 10 % of services; (3) a catalogue of development weaknesses of cities with 10 % of services; (4) a catalogue of development threats of cities with 8 % of services; (5) a catalogue of development directions of cities with 10 % of services; (6) a catalogue of development activities of cities with 7 % of services; (7) a catalogue of strategic development goals of cities with 9 % of services; (8) a catalogue of detailed development goals of cities with 7 % of services; (9) a catalogue of operational development goals of cities with 8 % of services; (10) a catalogue of strategic development tasks of cities with 8 % of services; (11) a catalogue of detailed development tasks of cities with 7 % of services and (12) a catalogue of results of development activities of cities with 9 % of services. The above-mentioned catalogues are open collections of public services, which means they can be supplemented with other services of various organisations operating in urban areas. In this way, larger, coherent and thematically unique catalogues of public services classified according to urban development sub-policies can be created.

Generally, it can be said that the development strategies of regional cities do not contain information on the environmental aspects of these cities. This means there is no real culture of ecological security policy in these same cities. Moreover, it is a lack of progress in sustainable development and social responsibility of the government towards its communities.

Finally, it should be noted that in the literature the issue of recording environmental aspects is not directly addressed, although references are made to these issues in publications.

4. Discussion

The research method revealed several facts. From the point of view of selecting Polish regional cities for the study, this selection was not intended to fully present how the country’s ecological security is achieved. It was intended to show what this process looks like in Poland because it also has international significance. The author of this article is aware that the selected regional cities are seriously over-represented in the selection and other developing cities were not included.

From the point of view of the analysis of scientific literature, in-depth descriptions of urban projects were not always available even on the Internet. A complete listing of all available web applications in each literature database was not considered a realistic intention within the study.

From the point of view of the 18 development strategies of Poland’s regional cities, the examples selected for analysis cannot be perceived as comprehensive solutions to achieve my research on the culture of ecological security policy in Poland. Similarly, the selection of regional cities was not intended to fully present what an ecologically safe city currently looks like in Poland or even the world. The documents I looked at are visions or dreams transformed into policies, plans, projects and programs to obtain the initial capital expectations of producers and consumers in Polish regional cities. The course of their creation was not controlled and their effects were not analyzed, but possible effects were discussed from the point of view of the global ecological security model.

In Figure 2 I present a model of the system of global resources understood as sets of states’ capital. The structure of six concentrically overlapping circles represents a model of inclusive relations between countries. In this model, every resource of the inner circle belongs to the outer (more inclusive) circle, never the other way around. The inclusive arrangement recognizes the connections between the six resources of countries as common goods. It is the foundation of a culture of ecological security policy, internal and external, aimed at global prosperity.

No credible control studies were found in the literature regarding the impact of urban development policies on the internal and external environment of the state. Superficial or common information was found as colorful and attractively designed presentations of products and services of Polish regional cities.

No complex data was found on the effects of political decisions that led to the non-implementation of development policies due to the lack of knowledge about the environmental aspects of cities. The lack of such political decisions could have resulted from two reasons: this information is not available on the Internet and implementations in such cases abandon formalized principles of public information.

The national register of organizations in the EMAS system enabled the identification of economic entities that have voluntarily implemented a culture of ecological security policy. A comparative analysis of 18 processes of managing the development of regional cities revealed a lack of identification of environmental aspects of cities. This also means a lack of description of how to reduce the negative environmental effects of development. Therefore, such a social transformation is needed to use the positive results of the development of Poland’s regional cities. Which can also apply to other implementations in the spatial management of these cities. This requires real respect in development of the dogmas: sustainable development, social responsibility and environmental management.

5. Conclusion

Various concepts and terms are created regarding environmental safety, but their complexity leads to different opinions because they can be considered in many different ways. The concept of the coherence of the four dogmas enabled me to formulate, provide and explain three definitions: the ecological security of the state, the culture of the ecological security policy of the state and socially responsible and sustainable development of the city.

I conducted research on the impact of development strategies on society, economy and ecology on the example of 18 Polish regional cities. I have developed 13 catalogues of elements of the structure of the development strategy of Poland’s regional cities. These catalogues contain 1 390 public services aimed at meeting the public interest of producers and consumers of Poland’s regional cities. Diverse public services were identified and organised based on their formal planning and adoption in 18 development strategies of regional cities by the Presidents of these cities. Public services were categorized according to the identified 16 sub-policies of spatial activity of regional cities and 18 sub-policies of development conditions of these regional cities. I state that there are hidden positive and negative environmental aspects in these public services because they were not identified either before or after the adoption of the regional cities development strategy. What is important, the lack of environmental aspects means a hidden negative cause and hidden negative effect that will more or less unpredictably manifest itself in the future of regional cities. This blurs and complicates the understanding of the country’s overall security because organizations see other development opportunities or are encouraged to manage differently.

The realistic concept of a global culture of ecological security policy is a theoretical result of ensuring freedom through security as a general aspect of the development of societies. This culture is determined by the global limit of tolerance of societies and nature.