scholarly journals Energy Efficiency and Carbon Emission Impact on Competitiveness in the European Energy Intensive Industries

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (15) ◽  
pp. 4700
Author(s):  
Andrius Zuoza ◽  
Vaida Pilinkienė

Climate change and efforts to mitigate it have given rise to an interest in the relationship between industry competitiveness, energy efficiency, and carbon emissions. A better understanding of this relationship can be essential for economic and environmental decision-makers. This paper presents empirical research evaluating industry competitiveness through the factors of energy efficiency and carbon emission in Europe’s most energy-intensive industries. The designed industry competitiveness measure index consists of seven components, grouped into three equally weighted sub-indexes: export performance, energy, and environmental. The export performance of the industry is described by the industry export growth rate, the share of the industry’s export, and the effects on the industry’s competitiveness of changes in a country’s export. The energy intensity of the industry and energy prices are integrated into the energy sub-index. The environmental sub-index consists of the industry’s emissions intensity, and the ratio of freely allocated allowances and verified emissions indicators. The findings indicate that countries with the highest index value also have a positive energy intensity and carbon emission indicator value. The average index value of each industry gradually reduces to zero, and the standard deviation of the index value shows a diminishing trend throughout all sectors, which implies that competitiveness in all sectors is increasing and that all countries are nearing the industry average. The ANOVA results show that: (1) the competitiveness index value was statistically significantly different in the investigated countries; (2) the competitiveness index value was statistically non-significantly different in the investigated industries; (3) there was a significant effect of the interaction between country and industry on the competitiveness index value. These results suggest that the country itself and industry/country interaction significantly affect the competitiveness index. However, it should be mentioned that industry per se does not substantially affect the competitiveness index score.

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 40
Author(s):  
Shuangjie Li ◽  
Li Li ◽  
Liming Wang

Improving energy efficiency is an effective way to address the issues of economic development, energy saving and emissions reduction. For any important industries it is therefore necessary to measure energy efficiency and set a practical target for it. In this paper, we use CCR, SBM and energy intensity to measure the energy efficiency of the paper industries of 22 EU countries. Results indicate that the SBM and CCR efficiency value is more meaningful for policy makers than that of energy intensity, as measurement results of energy intensity deviate from reality and economic efficiency. The CCR and SBM have roughly the same fluctuation trends and the average SBM energy efficiency value is 0.71, always 10 percent lower than CCR model, as it takes simultaneous account of both the optimal input-output and has more discriminatory power in efficiency measurement. Furthermore, EU policy makers could improve energy efficiency by raising energy prices. As for the 2030 EU target of energy saving and emission reduction, the EU should pay more attention to five major paper producers: Finland, Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy.


CONVERTER ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 468-479
Author(s):  
Xiangdong Sun Et al.

Improving the world's aggregate energy efficiency is consequential for global sustainable development. This paper evaluated the world's aggregate energy intensity reduction along with economic growth and industrial transformationusing the panel data of all countries around the world from 1971 to 2016. The overall energy intensity of the world was decomposed into activity mix and national intensity based on LMDI approach, and we found that the latter was the main driving force for the reduction of the world's overall energy intensity. We further analyzed the relationship between energy prices, technological progress, and national intensity. The results showed that technological progress and energy prices significantly decreased national intensity, with significant regional differences, however, no significant impact appeared in a price-declining period. To reduce energy intensity, localized measures in different supra-national regions are needed.


2014 ◽  
Vol 53 (4II) ◽  
pp. 531-549 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akbar Ullah . ◽  
Karim Khan ◽  
Munazza Akhtar

Since the recent energy crises, the research in this strand has increased considerably. A variety of its dimensions have been examined in the literature. For instance, higher energy prices; instability in the supplies of its various components; its rapid depletion and global warming are some of its dimensions, which have been the focus of discourse among both researchers and policy-makers. Equally, energy intensity measuring the energy consumption to GDP ratio has been an important component of energy policies [Ang (2004); Liu and Ang (2007); Jimenez and Mercado (2013)]. In particular, there is a special focus on sorting out the contribution of energy efficiency— ratio of sectoral specific energy consumption to sectoral GDP—to alienate the impact of efficiency on energy intensity from other relevant factors. This is because energy efficiency is recognised as one of the most cost-effective strategies to address crosscutting issues of energy security, climate change and competitiveness [IDB (2012)]. Consequently, the information regarding energy intensity, its efficiency or activity aspects are useful tools for policy decisions and evaluation and are regularly in practice in most of the advanced countries


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1605
Author(s):  
Shuangjie Li ◽  
Hongyu Diao ◽  
Liming Wang ◽  
Chunqi Li

Energy efficiency is crucial to the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but its widely measured indicator, energy intensity, is still insufficient. For this reason, in 2006, total factor energy efficiency (TFEE) was proposed with capital, labor, and energy as inputs and GDP as the desirable output. The later TFEE approach further incorporated pollution as the undesirable output. However, it is problematic to regard GDP (the total value of final products) as the desirable output, because GDP does not include the intermediate consumption, which accounts for a large part of the production activities and may even be larger than the value of GDP. GDP is more suitable for measuring distribution, while VO (value of output) is more appropriate for sustainable production analysis. Therefore, we propose a VO TFEE approach that takes VO as the desirable output instead and correspondingly incorporates the other intermediate materials and services except energy into inputs. Finally, the empirical analysis of the textile industry of EU member states during 2011–2017 indicates that the VO TFEE approach is more stable and convergent in measuring energy efficiency, and is more suitable for helping policymakers achieve the SDGs of energy saving, emissions reduction, and sustainable economic development.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salman Haider ◽  
Javed Ahmad Bhat

Purpose Because of growing energy consumption and increasing absolute CO2 emissions, the recent calibrations about the environmental sustainability across the globe have mandated to achieve the minimal energy consumption through employing energy-efficient technology. This study aims to estimate linkage between simple measure of energy efficiency indicator that is reciprocal of energy intensity and total factor productivity (TFP) in case of Indian paper industry for 21 major states. In addition, the study incorporates the other control variables like labour productivity, capital utilization and structure of paper industry to scrutinize their likely impact on energy efficiency performance of the industry. Design/methodology/approach To derive the plausible estimates of TFP, the study applies the much celebrated Levinsohn and Petrin (2003) methodology. Using the regional level data for the period 2001-2013, the study employs instrumental variable-generalized method of moments (GMM-IV) technique to examine the nature of relationship among the variables involved in the analysis. Findings An elementary examination of energy intensity shows that not all states are equally energy intensive. States like Goa, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu are less energy intensive, whereas Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Assam and Punjab are most energy-intensive states on the basis of their state averages over the whole study period. The results estimated through GMM-IV show that increasing level of TFP is associated with lower level of energy per unit of output. Along this better skills and capacity utilization are also found to have positive impact on energy efficiency performance of industry. However, the potential heterogeneity within the structure of industry itself is found responsible for its higher energy intensity. Practical implications States should ensure and undertake substantial investment projects in the research and development of energy-efficient technology and that targeted allocations could be reinforced for more fruitful results. Factors aiming at improving the labour productivity should be given extra emphasis together with capital deepening and widening, needed for energy conservation and environmental sustainability. Given the dependence of structure of paper industry on the multitude of factors like regional inequality, economic growth, industrial structure and the resource endowment together with the issues of fragmented sizes, poor infrastructure and availability and affordability of raw materials etc., states should actively promote the coordination and cooperation among themselves to reap the benefits of technological advancements through technological spill overs. In addition, owing to their respective state autonomies, state governments should set their own energy saving targets by taking into account the respective potentials and opportunities for the different industries. Despite the requirement of energy-efficient innovations, however, the cons of technological advancements and the legal frameworks on the employment structure and distributional status should be taken care of before their adoption and execution. Originality/value To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that empirically examines the linkage between energy efficiency and TFP in case of Indian paper industry. The application of improved methods like Levinsohn and Petrin (2003) to derive the TFP measure and the use of GMM-IV to account for potential econometric problems like that of endogeneity will again add to the novelty of study.


Author(s):  
Nundang Busaeri ◽  
Nurul Hiron ◽  
Ida Ayu Dwi Giriantari ◽  
Wayan Gede Ariastina ◽  
Ida Bagus Alit Swamardika

Author(s):  
Adefarati Oloruntoba ◽  
Japhet Tomiwa Oladipo

Aims: To correlate the energy and carbon emission efficiency relative to research income, gross internal area, and population for all the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the UK and to assess the comparative carbon emission efficiency of HEIs relative to economic metrics. Study Design:  Analytical panel data study. Place and Duration of Study: This paper evaluates the energy efficiency of 131 HEIs in the UK subdivided into Russell and non-Russell groups from 2008 to 2015. Methodology: Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Malmquist productivity indexes (MPI) are used for the efficiency calculations. Results: The empirical results indicate that UK HEIs have relatively high energy efficiency scores of 96.9% and 77.6% (CRS) and 98.5%, 86.3% (VRS) for Russell and non-Russell groups respectively. Conclusion: The evidence from this study reveals that HEIs are not significantly suffering from scale effects, hence, an increase in energy efficiency of these institutions is feasible with the present operating scale but would need to work on their technical improvements in energy use. Malmquist index analysis confirms the lack of substantial technological innovation, which impedes their energy efficiency and productivity gain. Findings show that pure technical efficiency accounts for the annual efficiency obtained in the DEA model, the technological progress in contrast is the source of their energy inefficiency.


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