ABSTRACT
Chapter seven opens the third part of the monograph, which deals with external stakeholders, including suppliers and recipients, competitors, local, regional and national government, as well as local communities and ecological organisations. This chapter begins with a review of case studies related to the value creation chain in coal mining enterprises, indicating a significant dependence of these entities on the final recipient, i.e. energy and heating. The requirements of the energy and heating sector regarding clean production are presented in this chapter as the main factor forcing mining enterprises to have more sustainable production and development. A separate chapter is devoted to suppliers, primarily including manufacturers of mining machinery and equipment, as well as material equipment for pit drifts and stopes. These suppliers carry out very specific activities and are therefore characterised by their high dependence on mining enterprises. Hence, in this respect, there is often a vertical consolidation of the above mentioned suppliers with coal mining enterprises or a horizontal consolidation as part of international machine or material corporations. The described regularities and behaviours affecting the environmental and economic aspects of SD have been summarised and universalised in the second and third sections of this chapter, and supplemented with recommendations for improving SD in the coal mining industry.
