Abstract
The European Union has set goals to tackle climate change by increasing energy efficiency and renewable energy use. A survey in eight regional groups of small and medium-sized enterprises in different member states was conducted and analysed to show how these goals are achieved by the end users. The attitude towards energy efficiency improvements seems to be more positive than that towards increasing renewable energy use. Based on the survey, the enterprise size measured by the average number of staff members and annual turnover correlates with the attitude towards renewable energy and the staff size with the attitude to energy efficiency. Enterprises in member states that joined the EU in 2004 or later view energy efficiency more positively than those in older member states. The number of investment appraisal methods applied correlates with attitudes towards both energy efficiency and renewable energy. The ability to allocate energy costs to projects or products is linked with the experienced significance of energy and the attitude to renewable energy. Clearly, one of the most important factors in attitudes towards renewable energy and energy efficiency is the nationality of the answerer. National and regional energy policies, markets and culture seem to have more influence on attitudes than the common goals of the European Union. In future, SMEs and their distinctive qualities need to be addressed when initiating future energy-related programmes with them.
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Acknowledgments
The analysed data were collected for the Intelligent Energy Europe project entitled Regional Clusters for Energy Planning, 75% of which has been funded by the European Union. We would like to thank our colleagues behind this project for making this chapter possible. See http://www.regcep.eu for more details on the project. A more thorough report on the survey material can be found from the project website.
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Kortelainen, J.T., Ratinen, M., Linnanen, L. (2012). Attitudes Towards Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy in European Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises. In: Vazquez-Brust, D., Sarkis, J. (eds) Green Growth: Managing the Transition to a Sustainable Economy. Greening of Industry Networks Studies, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4417-2_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4417-2_12
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