Facilitating joint action towards energy efficiency in business and industry

Panel: 1. The dynamics of limiting (energy) consumption

Authors:
Hannes Mac Nulty, MacNulty Consulting, France
Stefan M. Büttner, Institute for Energy Efficiency in Production (EEP) - University of Stuttgart, Germany

Abstract

A lot is already done in energy efficiency - so what is the issue? The potential is clear, the barriers are identified, good approaches exist, but widespread implementation still remains slow! Pursuing energy efficiency projects, particularly in business and industry, involves many internal and external stakeholders and often leads to many communication gaps: financial institutions, ESG ratings/reporting, research, NGOs, IOs, policy makers but also corporate management on the one side and engineering on the other side. However, Energy Efficiency is not difficult. It is just complicated. Making energy efficiency part of the core business strategy can help making efficiency happen - particularly as energy efficiency easily fits into the digitalized industry model.

So what needs to be addressed to make it really happen: Understanding energy efficiency, making sense of what's already available, have industry as a leader rather than a follower and establish collaboration for better policy?The answer is connecting the dots and providing both a clear forum and an overview for stakeholders.

With the newly established UNECE Task Force on Industrial Energy Efficiency and the UNIDO Industry working groups, business and industry leaders find a platform for open exchange, enabling industry leadership on Industrial Energy Efficiency (IEE) and access the entire value chain, getting a unified and clear summary of IEE, as well as an independent review of IEE initiatives and policies to enable better matching of initiatives to companies and identify areas of for future focus of policy action.