Energy efficiency determinants: An empirical analysis of Spanish innovative firms

Abstract

This paper examines the extent to which innovative Spanish firms pursue improvements in energy efficiency (EE) as an objective of innovation. The increase in energy consumption and its impact on greenhouse gas emissions justifies the greater attention being paid to energy efficiency and especially to industrial EE. The ability of manufacturing companies to innovate and improve their EE has a substantial influence on attaining objectives regarding climate change mitigation. Despite the effort to design more efficient energy policies, the EE determinants in manufacturing firms have been little studied in the empirical literature. From an exhaustive sample of Spanish manufacturing firms and using a logit model, we examine the energy efficiency determinants for those firms that have innovated. To carry out the econometric analysis, we use panel data from the Community Innovation Survey for the period 2008-2011. Our empirical results underline the role of size among the characteristics of firms that facilitate energy efficiency innovation. Regarding company behaviour, firms that consider the reduction of environmental impacts to be an important objective of innovation and that have introduced organisational innovations are more likely to innovate with the objective of increasing energy efficiency.

Closing the Energy Efficiency Gap—A Systematic Review of Empirical Articles on Drivers to Energy Efficiency in Manufacturing Firms

“…A green image and environmental company profile, e.g., [22,75,76], has the same positive effect. Management practices also impact the energy efficiency of manufacturing firms [61,77,78].…”

“…Relevant competences can be acquired through the accumulation of experience. The propensity for innovative companies to adopt new energy efficiency technologies increases with both the introduction of organizational innovations [22] and previous experience with energy efficiency technologies [22,48,50]. These findings indicate the relevance of organizational competences as drivers for energy efficiency.…”

“…Among the included articles, 59% consider energy-intensive industries and 26% non-energy-intensive sectors, while 15% of the studies do not report an industrial focus. In accordance with definitions in previous studies, we consider the following sectors as energy-intensive: chemical and petrochemical, basic metals, non-metallic minerals, paper and print, and food and tobacco [22,[52][53][54][55]. A preliminary temporal analysis of the sectorial distribution of the empirical data (Table A2) indicated a relatively stable coverage of the sectors.…”

“…It is suggested that the positive effect of innovation is related to the organizational capability of innovation practices [83], and innovative firms' ability to share information and consider the competitive potential of energy efficiency interventions [57]. Innovative firms are also more likely to increase their energy efficiency if they consider the reduction of environmental impact to be an important objective for innovation [22]. Relevant competences can be acquired through the accumulation of experience.…”

“…Examples of such advantages are: replacement of outdated production facilities [28] and increased productivity [22,64] and safety considerations [63]. A study by Ren [25] further found that external limitations through a tight supply of energy (gas feedstock) served as an important driver for the implementation of energy-efficient technologies.…”