University of Zielona Góra (UZG)

The mission of the Institute of Environmental Engineering (IIS-UZG) is to provide modern and applicable solutions in efficient management of environmental resources. Its main scientific activity focuses on key issues related to three environmental components: water, soil and air. IIS-UZG is studying, analysing and modelling processes that occur during water and wastewater treatment; sewage sludge management; exploitation of soils in urban, industrial and post-mining areas. Its speciality is the optimization of the methane fermentation in biological treatment of wastes as a contribution to mitigation of the effects of greenhouse gas emissions.

The Institute of Sociology deals with contemporary society research and education in the field of sociology. It conducts ongoing and one-time empirical surveys, public opinion surveys, and case studies, comparative research studies, using modern methods of qualitative and quantitative research, while developing sociological theory and methodology. Research at the Institute also use information, concepts and methods taken from related scientific fields such as economics, ethnography, anthropology, political sciences, demography, social policy, gender research and environmental sciences.

UZG will assist in the identification of key indicators relevant for emission mitigation and 3P-sustainability assessment and for Polish conditions related to dairy production systems (WP1). UZG will develop meeting protocols and questionnaires, engagement of stakeholders and conduction of analysis including the social, economic and ecological situation of small farms in eastern and south-eastern Poland (farm case studies); providing input parameters for the MilKey emission mitigation and sustainability platform (WP3). UZG will further develop research concepts and their implementation to assess social impacts and farmers’ acceptance of the different production strategies for two different categories of dairy farms: large industrial-type farms and small farms of less than 5 dairy cows operating in Poland. Economic assessment of the mitigation strategies based on tool developed by NIBIO (WP4). UZG will disseminate and implement project results through the collaboration with multiple actors in national and international scale (WP5). UZG will finally assist in the project-internal communication (WP6).