A novel approach for barriers to industrial energy efficiency
TL;DR: In this paper, a taxonomy of barriers to the adoption of industrial energy-efficient technologies is proposed, which is based on an extensive literature review of the literature and is able to evaluate the differences between perceived and real barriers, the effect of barriers on decision-making processes, and the interactions among barriers.
Abstract: A critical review of the literature highlighted the need for a new taxonomy encompassing the most relevant barriers stemmed from previous studies, and accounting for interactions and independences of the barriers to avoid overlaps and implicit interactions. Based on an extensive literature review the paper provides a novel approach for barriers to the adoption of industrial energy-efficient technologies, coping with the issues risen by the review of the literature. We developed a taxonomy adaptable to empirical research, and able to evaluate the differences between perceived and real barriers, the effect of the barriers on decision-making processes, and the interactions among barriers. We modeled three types of interactions, i.e., causal relationship, composite effect and hidden effect, in order to start analyzing the dynamics among barriers, and tested the taxonomy in a preliminary investigation. The study proposes a useful instrument both to enterprises and policy-makers to identify critical factors to improve industrial energy efficiency and to open the research to further investigation in this topic.
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors conducted a broad investigation within 222 manufacturing SMEs located in a Northern Italy region and found that awareness and behavioural issues are critical, affecting the very first steps of the decision-making process, related to the punctual identification and evaluation of plausible EEMs.
237 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated four aspects that are associated with the adoption of cost-effective energy conservation measures: barriers, drivers, energy management practices and energy services, and found that the most important barriers were internal economic and behavioural barriers.
188 citations
Cites background from "A novel approach for barriers to in..."
...…the barriers for the steel sector of the members of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (Okazaki and Yamaguchi, 2011) and barriers for foundries in different European countries (Trianni et al., 2013) and categorise them with the Cagno et al. (2013) taxonomy (see Table 4)....
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...7.1 Whole sample size The most important perceived barriers, i.e., technical risks, limited access to capital and other priorities for financial investment, can be related to the economic area in the Cagno et al. (2013) taxonomy....
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...The classification of the results according to the Cagno et al. (2013) taxonomy gives a distinct overview of the origin and the areas that are affected by the barriers....
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...Cagno et al. (2013) identified several issues (e.g. missing elements, overlaps and implicit interaction) in the current approaches and suggested a novel taxonomy....
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...…Economic, Investment costs, information issues on energy contracts, Behavioural, Organisational, Related to competences, Awareness (based on Cagno et al., 2013) hidden costs (Wentemi Apeaning and Thollander, 2013) Selected industries (Iron and Steel, Aluminium, Food, Plastics, Chemicals)…...
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate the factors driving the adoption of energy-efficiency measures by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and find that high investment costs, which are captured by subjective and objective proxies, appear to impede the adoption energy-efficient measures, even if these measures are deemed profitable.
Abstract: This paper empirically investigates the factors driving the adoption of energy-efficiency measures by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Our analyses are based on cross-sectional data from SMEs which participated in a German energy audit program between 2008 and 2010. In general, our findings appear robust to alternative model specifications and are consistent with the theoretical and still scarce empirical literature on barriers to energy efficiency in SMEs. More specifically, high investment costs, which are captured by subjective and objective proxies, appear to impede the adoption of energy-efficient measures, even if these measures are deemed profitable. Similarly, we find that lack of capital slows the adoption of energy-efficient measures, primarily for larger investments. Hence, investment subsidies or soft loans (for larger invest-ments) may help accelerating the diffusion of energy-efficiency measures in SMEs. Other barriers were not found to be statistically significant. Finally, our findings provide evidence that the quality of energy audits affects the adoption of energy-efficiency measures. Hence, effective regulation should involve quality standards for energy au-dits, templates for audit reports or mandatory monitoring of energy audits.
181 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a case study of 65 foundries located in Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and Sweden has been conducted, where the most relevant perceived driving forces were found to be financially related, followed by organizational driving forces.
180 citations
Cites background from "A novel approach for barriers to in..."
...Barrier models have been the widely accepted model for explaining the existence of the energy efficiency gap [40-41], e....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors present an empirical investigation of 71 Italian manufacturing SMEs through a multiple case-study approach, focusing on the most effective means to promote the adoption of energy-efficient technologies and practices.
176 citations
References
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the trade-off between environmental regulation and competitiveness unnecessarily raises costs and slows down environmental progress, and that instead of simply adding to cost, properly crafted environmental standards can trigger innovation offsets, allowing companies to improve their resource productivity.
Abstract: Accepting a fixed trade-off between environmental regulation and competitiveness unnecessarily raises costs and slows down environmental progress. Studies finding high environmental compliance costs have traditionally focused on static cost impacts, ignoring any offsetting productivity benefits from innovation. They typically overestimated compliance costs, neglected innovation offsets, and disregarded the affected industry's initial competitiveness. Rather than simply adding to cost, properly crafted environmental standards can trigger innovation offsets, allowing companies to improve their resource productivity. Shifting the debate from pollution control to pollution prevention was a step forward. It is now necessary to make the next step and focus on resource productivity.
8,154 citations
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01 Jan 1997TL;DR: Organization theory as mentioned in this paper describes the environment of organization strategy and goals technology organizational social structure organizational culture the physical structure of organizations, and the issues and themes in organization theory: organizational decision-making, power and politics conflict and contradiction in organizations control and ideology in organizations organizational change and learning.
Abstract: Part 1 What is organization theory?: why study organization theory? histories, metaphors and perspectives in organization theory. Part 2 Core concepts of organization theory: the environment of organization strategy and goals technology organizational social structure organizational culture the physical structure of organizations. Part 3 Key issues and themes in organization theory: organizational decision-making, power and politics conflict and contradiction in organizations control and ideology in organizations organizational change and learning.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify five distinct notions of optimality: the economists' economic potential, the technologists' technical potential, hypothetical potential, narrow social optimum and true social optimum.
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