The Effect of Business Characteristics on Barriers to Industrial Energy Efficiency: A Field Investigation from Italian Manufacturing SMEs

Recent analyses conducted by the European Commission revealed that the increase by 20% of energy efficiency will not be achieved with the current trend. To reverse it, a relevant contribution could come from industry, responsible of a major portion of the energy consumption, and in particular from Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) covering a significant share of it. In this regard, recent studies reveal that only 4% of European SMEs have a comprehensive system in place for energy efficiency, compared with a share of about 19% in large enterprises. Several studies investigated the barriers to industrial energy efficiency, even within SMEs, but the research has devoted little attention on the possible connections between energy efficiency and, on the one side, innovation, on the other side, other business characteristics (e.g. complexity of the production, demand variability, strength of competitors). The study has been carried out through 20 semi-structured interviews and questionnaires within primary metal manufacturing SMEs in Northern Italy, exploring those possible connections. The analysis has shown that higher values of those factors seem to affect positively the barriers, thus lowering their effect on the enterprise’s perception. Moreover, several differences could be appreciated according to the level of innovation performed by the enterprise. At the moment policies are mainly shaped on the basis of firm’s sectors and technological characteristics. This study points out that policy-makers should also include both the firm’s size (as revealed by recent studies) and should account for differences in terms of levels of innovation and complexity of the production.