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Die Steigerung der Energieeffizienz ist eine gesellschaftliche Notwendigkeit und bildet neben dem Umstieg auf erneuerbare Energien den entscheidenden Hebel zur Realisierung der Energiewende und Minderung der CO2-Emissionen in Deutschland. Kleine und mittlere Unternehmen (KMU) nehmen in diesem Zusammenhang eine besondere Stellung ein: Aktuelle Studien deuten auf geringere Steigerungsraten der Energieeffizienz gegenüber Großunternehmen hin, die zumeist mit unterschiedlichen materiellen und personalen Voraussetzungen erklärt werden.
Das Forschungsprojekt "Entscheidungen für Energieeffizienz" widmete sich vor diesem Hintergrund der Situation produzierender KMU in Baden-Württemberg. Mit dem Ziel, ein verbessertes Verständnis über die Energieeffizienz-Entscheidungen der KMU zu gewinnen, wurde der Frage nachgegangen, wie der Umgang mit Energie in der täglichen Praxis in KMU organisiert wird, wie über Energieeffizienz entschieden wird und welche Treiber und Hemmnisse sich dabei ergeben.
Zur Beantwortung der Fragen wurde ein Ansatz verfolgt, der kulturelle Einflüsse mitberücksichtigt. Forschungsstrategisch kam ein Mixed-Methods-Ansatz zur Anwendung, der durch die Kombination von qualitativen Daten (Einzelfallstudien) und quantitativen Daten (Fragebogenerhebung) methodisch umgesetzt wurde.
Despite strong political efforts in Europe, industrial small- and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) seem to neglect adopting practices for energy effciency. By taking a cultural perspective, this study investigated what drives the establishment of energy effciency and corresponding practices in SMEs. Based on 10 ethnographic case studies and a quantitative survey among 500 manufacturing SMEs, the results indicate the importance of everyday employee behavior in achieving energy savings. The studied enterprises value behavior related measures as similarly important as technical measures. Raising awareness for energy issues within the organization, therefore, constitutes an essential leadership task that is oftentimes perceived as challenging and frustrating. It was concluded that the embedding of energy efficiency in corporate strategy, the use of a broad spectrum of different practices, and the empowerment and involvement of employees serve as major drivers in establishing energy effciency within SMEs. Moreover, the findings reveal institutional influences on shaping the meanings of energy effciency for the SMEs by raising attention for energy effciency in the enterprises and making energy effciency decisions more likely. The main contribution of the paper is to offer an alternative perspective on energy effciency in SMEs beyond the mere adoption of energy-effcient technology.
Despite strong political efforts across Europe, small and medium- sized enterprises (SMEs) seem to neglect adopting effective measures for energy efficiency. Adopting a cultural perspective and based on a study among industrial SMEs in Southern Germany, we investigate what drives decisions for energy efficiency in SMEs and how energy management contributes to closing the energy efficiency gap. The study follows a mixed-methods approach and combines eleven ethnographic case studies and a quantitative survey among 500 manufacturing SMEs in Southern Germany.
The main contribution of the paper is to offer a perspective on energy efficiency in SMEs beyond the diffusion of energyefficient technology. By contrast, our results strongly suggest that the diffusion of energy efficiency in industrial companies should not be solely reduced to decisions for technical measures. We shed light on how energy efficiency is established and the importance of energy management in SMEs.
Our study shows that energy efficiency is well established in the investigated SMEs. At the same time, establishment cannot be explained by company size or energy demand. By contrast, the contextual environment of the company and the individual leadership of the company appear to have a more substantial influence. The embedding of energy efficiency in corporate strategy, a broad spectrum of different practices, the involvement of the employees, actions for raising awareness in everyday work life, and distributing attention by organizational measures constitute the driving forces in establishing energy efficiency, and these drivers can be subsumed under the label of energy management.
Urgent action is needed to keep the chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C or even 2.0°C. Current outlooks by IPCC, and many other organisations forecast that this will be impossible at current pace of emission 'reductions' – Germany has already hit 1.5° warming this year. Across 2019, particularly during the UN New York Climate summit, numerous organisations declared their ambition to become net carbon neutral. Amongst these were investors and companies, including quite a number of German ones.
We apply a mixed methods approach, utilising data gathered from approx. 900 companies after Climate Week in context of the Energy Efficiency Index of German Industry (EEI), along with media research focusing on decarbonisation plans announced and initiatives pledging climate action.
With this, we analyse how German companies in the manufacturing sectors react to rising societal pressure and emerging policies, particularly what measures they have taken or plan to implement to reduce the footprint of their company, their products and their supply chain. In this, we particularly analyse whether and in what way energy- and resource consumption, as well as carbon emissions are considered in the development and lifecycle of goods manufactured. This is of huge relevance as these goods determine the future footprint of buildings, vehicles and industry.
Regarding the supply chain, current articles indicate that small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) are particularly challenged by increasing demands from their large corporate clients and an alleged lack of preparedness to be able to take and afford prompt decarbonisation action themselves (Buchenau et. al. 2019). Notably the automotive industry recently announced new models that will be 100% carbon neutral all the way through (ibid). We thus analyse if and how factors such as company size, energy intensity and sector affiliation influence a company’s plan to fully decarbonize. Ownership structure and corporate culture, it appears, significantly impact on the degree of decarbonisation action underway.
Already more than 75 countries pledged to become climate neutral by 2050 and the share of global emissions falling into an emission pricing scheme has steeply increased over the past two years. Even where there are no direct implications for industry (yet), there is a series of subtle pressure points driving an increasing number of companies across the globe to work towards climate neutrality and pledging ambitious carbon reduction goals.
This article sheds light on what the pressure points are, what the subtle triggers and what the underlying considerations, as well as hoped-for benefits of industrial companies to achieve decarbonisation. The observations and ideas presented in this paper are derived from quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative data was collected within the framework of Energy Efficiency Index of German Industry (EEI). The qualitative data has been collected from interviews in industrial organisations and media documents as well as from professional practice.
Not only societal, work force, supply chain and investor expectations play a large role, but also many strategic considerations which have the potential to make the business more resilient and profitable. Those companies that do not move towards decarbonisation on the other hand may face a costly late mover disadvantage.
This piece uncovers subtle interconnections helping stakeholders from industry and beyond to grasp opportunities and challenges ahead. Taking account of these calls for rethinking economic viability calculations and investment decision making. Doing so may subsequently lead to on-site carbon reduction measures being prioritised to decarbonise effectively.
From the perspective of manufacturing companies, the political, media and economic discourse on decarbonisation in the recent years manifests itself as an increasing social expectation of action. In Germany, in particular, this discourse is also being driven forward by powerful companies, respectively sectors, most notably the automotive industry. Against this background, the present paper examines how German manufacturing companies react to rising societal pressure and emerging policies. It examines which measures the companies have taken or plan to take to reduce their carbon footprint, which aspirations are associated with this and the structural characteristics (company size, energy intensity, and sector) by which these are influenced. A mix methods approach is applied, utilising data gathered from approx. 900 companies in context of the Energy Efficiency Index of German Industry (EEI), along with media research focusing on the announced decarbonisation plans and initiatives. We demonstrate that one-size-serves-all approaches are not suitable to decarbonise industry, as the situation and ambitions differ considerably depending on size, energy intensity and sector. Even though the levels of ambition and urgency are high, micro and energy intensive companies, in particular, are challenged. The present research uncovers a series of questions that call for attention to materialise the ambitions and address the challenges outlined.
Systemic efficiency necessitates clarity about the aspired goal, available and feasible input factors for the desired outcomes and knowledge of the current state. This principle applies regardless of the sector or the level of flight. The common thread is that collaboration between the various stakeholders is of the essence. Beyond technological solutions, business model, education, training, and behavioural aspects must also be considered.
Increasing energy resilience, saving costs, and reducing emissions are thus inextricably linked to how effectively we integrate and optimise the interaction of the individual factors of any system technical, economic, organisational, and human, as well as the resources and specifics that exist or are available on site.
Electrification of industrial processes is an important step towards reducing dependence on fossil fuels, but challenges such as process changes and financial feasibility need to be addressed. Process heating and cooling, which account for a significant proportion of industrial energy consumption and are often fuelled by fossil fuels, are a key focus. However, the exploitation of unused waste heat potential is hampered by a lack of knowledge, so that large potentials remain unrecognised or neglected.
Overcoming this fateful barrier constitutes the biggest lever to reduce energy-related emissions from the industrial sector, eases the energy crisis and is the issue that is most important for achieving systemic efficiency: electrification or easier fuel switching both have an impact on one-off and ongoing costs, raise questions about ongoing security of supply, but also have a strong impact on systemic efficiency. This is due to the conversion efficiency in conjunction with the energy efficiency of the process. Due to the associated costs and availability, the identification of unnecessary consumption and utilisation of waste heat to reduce energy demand represents a huge – often untapped or underestimated – opportunity for many.
Drawing from meetings, reports and documents around the Group of Experts on Energy Efficiency of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, as well as exchange with practitioners, researchers and conferences, the heuristic approach applied in this paper aims at shedding light on the concept of systemic efficiency, providing examples across numerous application areas and levels of flight to underline the broad relevance and applicability and thus enabling stakeholders to replicate the approach to various contexts.
Was kann ein produzierender Mittelständler tun, damit die Möglichkeiten für einen effizienteren Umgang mit Energie in seinem Betrieb auch ausgeschöpft werden? Die Ergebnisse eines zweijährigen Forschungsprojektes in Baden-Württemberg: Energieeffizienz ist für die kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen (KMU) ein grundsätzlich bedeutsames Thema, größtenteils gleichbedeutend mit anderen strategischen oder operativen Fragen. Je größer die Unternehmen, umso mehr trifft das zu ; die Unterschiede nach Energiebedarf sind hingegen gering. Erfolgsversprechende Maßnahmen sind: die Unternehmen müssen Energieeffizienz strategisch verankern und ihre Führung darauf ausrichten, sollten möglichst viele verschiedene Maßnahmen umsetzen und die Belegschaft sensibilisieren. Aber auch die gesellschaftliche Meinung "treibt" die Unternehmen zu mehr Energieeffizienz.
