Environmental Security Through Alleviating Thermal Energy Poverty in Poland: Assessing the Dual Effectiveness of Air Quality Programmes
Purpose: To examine whether Polish air-quality support programmes address environmental objectives and thermal energy poverty simultaneously, and to identify the gap between formal access to assistance and households’ reported participation. The study considers why improvements perceived at municipal level need not translate into comparable improvements in heating affordability. Design/Methodology/Approach: A critical review of policy and research literature, comparative analysis and descriptive statistics are combined with paper-and-pencil interviews with 1,222 households and computer-assisted personal interviews with 50 local-government representatives in ten purposively selected Polish towns and cities (January–March 2025). The two respondent groups provide complementary, rather than statistically representative, perspectives on programme implementation and outcomes. Findings: Reduced emissions or air pollution were identified by 36 of 42 municipal respondents assessing this outcome, whereas 20 of 44 reported a reduction in thermal energy poverty. Only 39 of 1,222 surveyed households (3.2%) reported receiving support over the preceding five years. The contrast points to a potential disconnect between perceived environmental achievements and households’ ability to benefit from support. The descriptive evidence cannot establish causal programme impacts or be generalised to all Polish municipalities. Practical Implications: Evaluation should assess environmental outcomes alongside heating affordability, thermal comfort and actual access to support. Better targeting, pre-financing and locally accessible advice may help address the barriers faced by vulnerable households. Municipal reporting should distinguish programme delivery from changes in household welfare. Originality/Value: The article advances a dual-effectiveness analytical framework that treats environmental improvement and the alleviation of thermal energy poverty as distinct but interconnected criteria of public-policy performance. By bringing together municipal assessments and household experiences, it exposes an evaluation blind spot: programmes may be judged successful on environmental grounds even when their distributional reach remains limited. This approach contributes to environmental-security research by linking programme assessment to social vulnerability without overstating causal inference.