Sustainable development, environment, social and governance management, and digital transformation using artificial intelligence are areas with an increasingly strong impact on modern society. Behind them is the need for optimisation, including energy processes. Greater efficiency is understood not only through the prism of using energy resources but also, and perhaps above all, by reducing the negative impact that energy conversion processes have on the natural environment. Geothermal energy is a natural response to the need to use renewable, ecological and energy-stable resources. The complementarity of these three aspects is desirable and should be possible to measure and express numerically to assess the investment and achieve the desired social effects properly. The example of geothermal heating plants in Poland, in terms of their impact on the natural environment, is a quantification of benefits in the form of reduced emissions of pollutants into the natural environment. Energy generation was analyzed in all geothermal heating plants in Poland, and calculations were made of the avoided emissions of conventional fuel combustion products, the equivalent of which would have to be used if the investment in geothermal heating plants were not implemented. The results were presented in the context of PM10 and PM2.5 particulate matter, SOx sulfur oxides, NOx nitrogen oxides, CO carbon monoxide and CO2 carbon dioxide. Calculations of ZrSOx equivalent emissions were also performed, thus formulating a comprehensive conclusion regarding the impact of geothermal energy use on the natural environment at the local level.

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