Numerous publications and expert reports indicate plastic pollution as a widespread environmental problem. About 10 million tonnes of litter end up in the seas and oceans each year. It is estimated that 80% of all litter in saltwater is mainly plastic food packaging. Facing this challenge compostable packaging seems to be an alternative to conventional plastic ones and a feasible solution. Despite the environmental opportunities of the packaging produced from bio-based biodegradable polymers, the compostable packaging market is growing relatively slowly. Therefore, the aim of the paper is to recognize the key factors hindering the expansion of the food compostable packaging market for sustainable development. To achieve this objective 29 in-depth interviews with respondents of the key groups of biopackaging market stakeholders were conducted. The results of the qualitative study allowed us to identify environmental, economic, social, and governance barriers in the light of four main problems disrupting compostable packaging market development. This is an important contribution to the business and academic discussion on the importance of compostable packaging in achieving sustainable development goals as well as implementing the circular economy concept. The paper is the effect of the international R&D project.

Research background: Bankruptcy in court proceedings has been of interest to researchers for many years. Researchers look for internal and external factors which influence the effectiveness and efficiency of bankruptcy proceedings; for example, the impact of the country’s level of development on the efficiency of bankruptcy proceedings, a system of incentives for the active participation of creditors in bankruptcy proceedings to increase their recovery rate, and mechanisms which encourage the early filing of an application for bankruptcy. Against the background of the research to date, a research gap was identified in the scope of the impact of the bankruptcy (pro-debtor/pro-creditor) law model on the effectiveness of the calculated recovery rate for creditors. The research fills a cognitive gap in New Institutional Economics by examining formal institutions in action, i.e. whether bankruptcy law meets its objectives in practice.Purpose of the article: The aim of the article is to answer the question of which model answers the expectations of stakeholders – creditors who expect the highest possible rate of return. Poland is an example of a country where since 2016 there has been a change in the model of bankruptcy law from pro-creditor to pro-debtor.Methods: The authors of the article conducted constant monitoring of the effectiveness of bankruptcy law in Poland through the examination of bankruptcy proceedings filed in bankruptcy and restructuring courts. The research on the efficiency of bankruptcyproceedings was based on the analysis of files from bankruptcy proceedings conducted at the District Court in Warsaw. The analysis covered the period i) from 01.01.2004 to 31.12.2015 n=150 files of the pro-creditor model of bankruptcy proceedings and ii) from 01.01.2016 to 31.12.2019 n=66 files of the pro-debtor model of bankruptcy proceedings. The statistical analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics Program Version 26. The Kruskal–Wallis H non-parametric test was employed.Findings & Value added: The results of the research show that the new pro-debtor model of bankruptcy proceedings implemented in Poland after 31 December 2015 is less effective than the previous pro-creditor model of bankruptcy proceedings. In the pro-creditor model, creditors’ interests are managed more effectively. Practice shows that frequent changes in the law and model of bankruptcy law do not contribute to its effectiveness and efficiency. It seems that the stabilization of legal solutions is an important factor. The legal activity should be aimed at improving the solutions in force and their consolidation in the case law. Unfortunately, in Poland, entrepreneurs as well as citizens, due to its communist past, do not trust the legal system, formal institutions or other people (ESS 2020). For this reason, the pro-debtor model of bankruptcy proceedings may also have a negative impact on the development of Polish entrepreneurship in the future. To the best of our knowledge, no previous studies have made a comparison of the effectiveness of the pro-creditor and pro-debtor models of bankruptcy proceedings in a transition country such as Poland. Research data encompassing 16 years over the period of 2004–2019 used in the analysis is unprecedented in bankruptcy procedure studies in the post‑transition economies. Also, a set of indicators showing the effectiveness of bankruptcy proceedings employed in the research is unique.

Compostable packaging is one of the innovative alternatives to conventional packaging. This is also an opportunity in view of the current energy crisis and rising oil prices, firstly, because compostable packaging is produced only from renewable resources, and secondly, it can feed both the composting process and biogas plants. According to the CE principles, it is vital to effectively close product life cycles. Therefore, this paper is aimed at expounding the triggering role of social innovations co-created by stakeholders for improving compostable packaging waste management in accordance with the CE concept. The research procedure consisted of four integrated research phases. A qualitive study was undertaken by conducting 29 in-depth interviews and 3 Social Innovation Labs, engaging 67 bio-packaging market stakeholders, which are national and international companies (e.g., manufacturing, distributing), institutions and other organisations from the social, public and private sectors. The results show that one of the key problems for the development of the CE compostable packaging market is the low level of compostable waste packaging management. Its detailed analysis showed that this problem is associated with several barriers and their numerous causes. According to stakeholders, this can be effectively minimised by applying three social innovations that when combined stimulate all elements of waste management, moving it to a higher level of development.

The purpose of this article is to verify whether there is a research gap referring to the potential application of ESG-related information in bankruptcy early warning signals. There is a problem of a strong information asymmetry in the enterprise-investor relationship, with the issuer being the privileged party. The problem is so urgent that, undoubtedly, the global effect of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic will be a sharp increase in the number of economic entities threatened with insolvency and bankruptcy. The question then arises – can environmental, social and governmental (ESG) criteria be used as elements of the bankruptcy early warning system? The study covers the time period beginning January 2016 through June 2021 and includes scientific indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection database provided by Clarivate Analytics. The following research hypothesis guides this study: There is a research gap referring to the role of ESG-related information in bankruptcy early-warning systems. To verify the hypothesis (H0) the model was built, based on the concept of citations count regression (Staszkiewicz, 2019). The study confirmed the existence of a research gap indicated in the research hypothesis. Possible legal obligation referring to the disclosure of certain ESG-related, standardized information sets would be helpful to diminish the market information asymmetry. Research shows, that strong regulatory activities support the ESG-compliant performance of a business venture (Ortas et al., 2019). Also, standardization of ESG rating criteria and evaluation process would be helpful in this matter and would endure comparability of sourcing data and outcome.