Overcoming the efficiency gap: energy management as a means for overcoming barriers to energy efficiency, empirical support in the case of Austrian large firms

Abstract The energy efficiency gap has been presented as a prevalent paradox in the literature as individuals and firms fail to invest money or effort in seemingly highly profitable efficiency improvements. This article contributes to answering which management tools promote the realization of economic energy savings. This article first provides a comparison of the barriers to energy efficiency in firms from the literature with the prescriptions of ISO standards for energy management. Second, we provide empirical evidence that such ISO-certified large Austrian firms increased implementation of energy efficiency measures by 165% compared to those firms with business-as-usual decision-making methods. These higher conservation efforts observed support the hypothesis that ISO standards are an effective instrument to overcome efficiency barriers in an economic way. The main contributing factors for this achievement are the internalization of the identification process of savings potentials and setting up a stringent decision-making and governance process, thereby increasing implementation rates of measures.