IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v11y2019i7p2043-d220422.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Barriers to and Drivers for Improved Energy Efficiency in the Swedish Aluminium Industry and Aluminium Casting Foundries

Author

Listed:
  • Joakim Haraldsson

    (Division of Energy Systems, Department of Management and Engineering, Linköping University, SE58183 Linköping, Sweden)

  • Maria T. Johansson

    (Division of Energy Systems, Department of Management and Engineering, Linköping University, SE58183 Linköping, Sweden)

Abstract

Industrial energy efficiency is important for reducing CO 2 emissions and could be a competitive advantage for companies because it can reduce costs. However, cost-effective energy efficiency measures are not always implemented because there are barriers inhibiting their implementation. Drivers for energy efficiency could provide means for overcoming these barriers. The aim of this article was to study the importance of different barriers to and drivers for improved energy efficiency in the Swedish aluminium industry and foundries that cast aluminium. Additionally, the perceived usefulness of different information sources on energy efficiency measures was studied. The data were collected through a questionnaire covering 39 barriers and 48 drivers, divided into different categories. Both the aluminium and foundry industries considered technological and economic barriers as the most important categories. The most important category of drivers for the aluminium industry was organisational drivers, while the foundries rated economic drivers as the most important. Colleagues within the company, the company group and sector, and the trade organisation were considered the most useful information sources. Important factors for driving work with improved energy efficiency included access to knowledge within the company, having a culture within the company promoting energy efficiency, and networking within the sector. The policy implications identified included energy labelling of production equipment, the law on energy audit in large companies and subsidy for energy audits in small- and medium-sized companies, voluntary agreements that included long-term energy strategies, increased taxes to improve the cost-effectiveness of energy efficiency measures, and EUs Emission Trading System.

Suggested Citation

  • Joakim Haraldsson & Maria T. Johansson, 2019. "Barriers to and Drivers for Improved Energy Efficiency in the Swedish Aluminium Industry and Aluminium Casting Foundries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-27, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:7:p:2043-:d:220422
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/7/2043/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/7/2043/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Manrique, Raiza & Vásquez, Daniela & Vallejo, Gabriel & Chejne, Farid & Amell, Andrés A. & Herrera, Bernardo, 2018. "Analysis of barriers to the implementation of energy efficiency actions in the production of ceramics in Colombia," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 575-584.
    2. Thollander, Patrik & Backlund, Sandra & Trianni, Andrea & Cagno, Enrico, 2013. "Beyond barriers – A case study on driving forces for improved energy efficiency in the foundry industries in Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and Sweden," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 636-643.
    3. Rohdin, P. & Thollander, P., 2006. "Barriers to and driving forces for energy efficiency in the non-energy intensive manufacturing industry in Sweden," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 31(12), pages 1836-1844.
    4. Backlund, Sandra & Thollander, Patrik & Palm, Jenny & Ottosson, Mikael, 2012. "Extending the energy efficiency gap," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 392-396.
    5. Nagesha, N. & Balachandra, P., 2006. "Barriers to energy efficiency in small industry clusters: Multi-criteria-based prioritization using the analytic hierarchy process," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 31(12), pages 1969-1983.
    6. Reddy, Amulya K. N., 1991. "Barriers to improvements in energy efficiency," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 19(10), pages 953-961, December.
    7. Thollander, Patrik & Danestig, Maria & Rohdin, Patrik, 2007. "Energy policies for increased industrial energy efficiency: Evaluation of a local energy programme for manufacturing SMEs," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(11), pages 5774-5783, November.
    8. Valentina Kashintseva & Wadim Strielkowski & Justas Streimikis & Tatiana Veynbender, 2018. "Consumer Attitudes towards Industrial CO 2 Capture and Storage Products and Technologies," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-14, October.
    9. B. Sudhakara Reddy & Gaudenz Assenza, 2007. "Barriers and Drivers to Energy Efficiency - A new Taxonomical Approach," Development Economics Working Papers 22348, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    10. Haraldsson, Joakim & Johansson, Maria T., 2018. "Review of measures for improved energy efficiency in production-related processes in the aluminium industry – From electrolysis to recycling," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 525-548.
    11. Trianni, Andrea & Cagno, Enrico & Farné, Stefano, 2016. "Barriers, drivers and decision-making process for industrial energy efficiency: A broad study among manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 1537-1551.
    12. Timilsina, Govinda R. & Hochman, Gal & Fedets, Iryna, 2016. "Understanding energy efficiency barriers in Ukraine: Insights from a survey of commercial and industrial firms," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 203-211.
    13. Rohdin, Patrik & Thollander, Patrik & Solding, Petter, 2007. "Barriers to and drivers for energy efficiency in the Swedish foundry industry," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 672-677, January.
    14. Trianni, A. & Cagno, E., 2012. "Dealing with barriers to energy efficiency and SMEs: Some empirical evidences," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 494-504.
    15. Apriani Soepardi & Patrik Thollander, 2018. "Analysis of Relationships among Organizational Barriers to Energy Efficiency Improvement: A Case Study in Indonesia’s Steel Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-13, January.
    16. Trianni, Andrea & Cagno, Enrico & Worrell, Ernst & Pugliese, Giacomo, 2013. "Empirical investigation of energy efficiency barriers in Italian manufacturing SMEs," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 444-458.
    17. Apriani Soepardi & Pratikto Pratikto & Purnomo Budi Santoso & Ishardita Pambudi Tama & Patrik Thollander, 2018. "Linking of Barriers to Energy Efficiency Improvement in Indonesia’s Steel Industry," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-22, January.
    18. Jaffe, Adam B. & Stavins, Robert N., 1994. "The energy-efficiency gap What does it mean?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(10), pages 804-810, October.
    19. Mingshan Su & Jing Deng & Jiankun He, 2004. "Energy efficiency and CO 2 abatement in China township and village foundries," International Journal of Global Energy Issues, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 21(1/2), pages 69-78.
    20. Ian Bailey & Christopher Ditty, 2009. "Energy markets, capital inertia and economic instrument impacts," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(1), pages 22-39, January.
    21. Joakim Haraldsson & Maria T. Johansson, 2019. "Energy Efficiency in the Supply Chains of the Aluminium Industry: The Cases of Five Products Made in Sweden," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-25, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Arkadiusz Dobrzycki & Dariusz Kurz & Stanisław Mikulski & Grzegorz Wodnicki, 2020. "Analysis of the Impact of Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) on Reducing the Demand for Electricity and Heat in Buildings Located in Poland," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-19, May.
    2. Antonella Biscione & Dorothée Boccanfuso & Annunziata de Felice & Francesco Porcelli, 2023. "Barriers to firms’ energy efficiency in transition countries," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(36), pages 4258-4272, August.
    3. Kelly M. Smith & Stephen Wilson & Paul Lant & Maureen E. Hassall, 2022. "How Do We Learn about Drivers for Industrial Energy Efficiency—Current State of Knowledge," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-26, April.
    4. Wen, Xuanhao & Cao, Huajun & Hon, Bernard & Chen, Erheng & Li, Hongcheng, 2021. "Energy value mapping: A novel lean method to integrate energy efficiency into production management," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    5. Xiaohua Song & Caiping Zhao & Jingjing Han & Qi Zhang & Jinpeng Liu & Yuanying Chi, 2020. "Measurement and Influencing Factors Research of the Energy and Power Efficiency in China: Based on the Supply-Side Structural Reform Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-23, May.
    6. Josefine Rasmussen, 2020. "The Role of Structural Context in Making Business Sense of Investments for Sustainability–A Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-25, August.
    7. Mehdi Bensouda & Mimoun Benali, 2022. "Behavioral Barriers to Energy Efficiency and Policy Interventions: A Survey of the Literature," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 12(6), pages 305-310, November.
    8. Antonella Biscione & Annunziata de Felice & Teodoro Gallucci, 2022. "Energy Saving in Transition Economies: Environmental Activities in Manufacturing Firms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-17, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mette Talseth Solnørdal & Lene Foss, 2018. "Closing the Energy Efficiency Gap—A Systematic Review of Empirical Articles on Drivers to Energy Efficiency in Manufacturing Firms," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-30, February.
    2. Herrera, Bernardo & Amell, Andrés & Chejne, Farid & Cacua, Karen & Manrique, Raiza & Henao, Wilson & Vallejo, Gabriel, 2017. "Use of thermal energy and analysis of barriers to the implementation of thermal efficiency measures in cement production: Exploratory study in Colombia," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 140(P1), pages 1047-1058.
    3. Trianni, Andrea & Cagno, Enrico & Worrell, Ernst, 2013. "Innovation and adoption of energy efficient technologies: An exploratory analysis of Italian primary metal manufacturing SMEs," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 430-440.
    4. Cagno, E. & Worrell, E. & Trianni, A. & Pugliese, G., 2013. "A novel approach for barriers to industrial energy efficiency," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 290-308.
    5. Thollander, Patrik & Backlund, Sandra & Trianni, Andrea & Cagno, Enrico, 2013. "Beyond barriers – A case study on driving forces for improved energy efficiency in the foundry industries in Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and Sweden," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 636-643.
    6. Apriani Soepardi & Pratikto Pratikto & Purnomo Budi Santoso & Ishardita Pambudi Tama & Patrik Thollander, 2018. "Linking of Barriers to Energy Efficiency Improvement in Indonesia’s Steel Industry," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-22, January.
    7. Trianni, Andrea & Cagno, Enrico & Farné, Stefano, 2016. "Barriers, drivers and decision-making process for industrial energy efficiency: A broad study among manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 1537-1551.
    8. Marlene Preiß, 2021. "Treiber und Hemmnisse betrieblicher Effizienzmaßnahmen – Vernetzung als Erfolgsfaktor [Drivers and barriers of operational efficiency measures—networking as a success factor]," Sustainability Nexus Forum, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 93-106, June.
    9. Jafarzadeh, Sepideh & Utne, Ingrid Bouwer, 2014. "A framework to bridge the energy efficiency gap in shipping," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 603-612.
    10. Jalo, Noor & Johansson, Ida & Kanchiralla, Fayas Malik & Thollander, Patrik, 2021. "Do energy efficiency networks help reduce barriers to energy efficiency? -A case study of a regional Swedish policy program for industrial SMEs," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    11. Noor Jalo & Ida Johansson & Mariana Andrei & Therese Nehler & Patrik Thollander, 2021. "Barriers to and Drivers of Energy Management in Swedish SMEs," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-21, October.
    12. Hasan, A S M Monjurul & Tuhin, Rashedul Amin & Ullah, Mahfuz & Sakib, Taiyeb Hasan & Thollander, Patrik & Trianni, Andrea, 2021. "A comprehensive investigation of energy management practices within energy intensive industries in Bangladesh," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 232(C).
    13. Ida Johansson & Nawzad Mardan & Erwin Cornelis & Osamu Kimura & Patrik Thollander, 2019. "Designing Policies and Programmes for Improved Energy Efficiency in Industrial SMEs," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-17, April.
    14. Olsthoorn, Mark & Schleich, Joachim & Hirzel, Simon, 2017. "Adoption of Energy Efficiency Measures for Non-residential Buildings: Technological and Organizational Heterogeneity in the Trade, Commerce and Services Sector," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 240-254.
    15. Fleiter, Tobias & Schleich, Joachim & Ravivanpong, Ployplearn, 2012. "Adoption of energy-efficiency measures in SMEs—An empirical analysis based on energy audit data from Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 863-875.
    16. Olsthoorn, Mark & Schleich, Joachim & Klobasa, Marian, 2015. "Barriers to electricity load shift in companies: A survey-based exploration of the end-user perspective," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 32-42.
    17. Solnørdal, Mette Talseth & Thyholdt, Sverre Braathen, 2019. "Absorptive capacity and energy efficiency in manufacturing firms – An empirical analysis in Norway," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 978-990.
    18. May, Gökan & Stahl, Bojan & Taisch, Marco, 2016. "Energy management in manufacturing: Toward eco-factories of the future – A focus group study," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 628-638.
    19. Costa-Campi, María Teresa & García-Quevedo, José & Segarra, Agustí, 2015. "Energy efficiency determinants: An empirical analysis of Spanish innovative firms," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 229-239.
    20. Fredrik Backman, 2017. "Barriers to Energy Efficiency in Swedish Non-Energy-Intensive Micro- and Small-Sized Enterprises—A Case Study of a Local Energy Program," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-13, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:7:p:2043-:d:220422. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.