Smart Cities—A Vision of the Future or the Present? - Technology Management for Sustainable Production and Logistics - page 118

inter-generation equality. It is essential to ensure this equality for societies to
acquire an ability of sustainable development (Turner et al. 1994 ).
The above definition indicated the necessity of economic and social develop-
ment of the population taking into account not only the environment but also cur-
rent problems such as increasing social discrepancies in the possessed income,
violating human rights, no access to education, insufficient health protection
systems or a growing urbanization ratio and expansion of cities. It additionally
includes postulates concerning the rational usage of natural resources. Thus devel-
opment cannot be encouraged at the cost of other people or the natural environ-
ment. It should be harmonious and keep a balance in various areas it relates to.
In Poland the definition of sustainable development directly refers to previously
quoted definitions also to the interpretation included in the Law on Environment
Protection from 2001 . Apart from equality issues overriding social goals of the
sustainable development concept comprise prosperity and broadly understood
social safety. Social and economic developments as well as maintaining ecological
functions are to secure achievement of these social goals (Łojewski 2007 ). It is of
key importance to take into account development of transport infrastructure con-
nected to an increasing number of cars.
The idea of sustainable development is becoming especially valid in view of
the crisis that took place in 2008. It naturally resulted in the necessity of detailed
analysis and introducing relevant changes to the previous business model used by
the majority of enterprises. Changes mean a broader look on completion of basic
goals of an organization in the long-term as well as paying particular attention
to stakeholders being near the company and elaborating programmes targeted at
environment protection or helping local communities.
The economic and financial crisis has reviewed opinions of not only organiza-
tions but also made governments change the way they think. A lot of countries and
organizations focused on internal problems with generating costs and minimis-
ing time of particular processes. Shortening cycles leading to savings in logistics
costs, improving the level of customer service or the speed of satisfying expecta-
tions of the society living and moving faster and faster constitute only some of
noticeable market phenomena (Brdulak 2012 ).
In addition we may observe a growth in wealth of the society which translates
into a bigger number of cars owned by households. Unfortunately, appropriate
infrastructural changes preventing the congestion do not go with it. In Allianz
Global Wealth Report (Brandmeir et al. 2013 ) the authors characterise the trend in
detail indicating societies with growing wealth. Inhabitants of analysed countries 1
are divided into three groups according to the wealth level. The middle class com-
prises people owning assets worth between EUR4,900 to EUR29,200, people with
assets worth less than EUR4,900 belong to a low wealth class however the richest
group consists of people having net financial assets of over EUR29,200.
1 The Allianz Global Wealth Report is based on data from 52 countries. This group of countries
covers around 90 % of global GDP and 69 % of the global population.