Buettner, S.M. Roadmap to Neutrality—What Foundational Questions Need Answering to Determine One’s Ideal Decarbonisation Strategy. Energies2022, 15, 3126.
Buettner, S.M. Roadmap to Neutrality—What Foundational Questions Need Answering to Determine One’s Ideal Decarbonisation Strategy. Energies 2022, 15, 3126.
Buettner, S.M. Roadmap to Neutrality—What Foundational Questions Need Answering to Determine One’s Ideal Decarbonisation Strategy. Energies2022, 15, 3126.
Buettner, S.M. Roadmap to Neutrality—What Foundational Questions Need Answering to Determine One’s Ideal Decarbonisation Strategy. Energies 2022, 15, 3126.
Abstract
Considering increasingly ambitious pledges by countries, pressure from society, investors, and clients further up the supply chain, the question for companies is not so much whether to take decarbonisation action, but what action and by when. However, determining an ideal mix of measures to apply ‘decarbonisation efficiency’ requires more than knowledge of technically feasible measures and how to combine them to achieve the most economic outcome: In this paper, the author describes seven aspects which heavily influence the composition of an ‘ideal mix’ that executive leadership needs to take a (strategic) position on. These aspects consider underlying motivations and span across (socio-)economic, technical, regulatory, strategic, corporate culture and environmental factors and further underline the necessity of clarity of definitions. How these decisions influence the determination of the decarbonisation-efficient ideal mix of measures, both in principle but also in terms of specific impact is further explored by providing examples. What choices are taken by German manufacturers in several of the aspects is disclosed by insights from about 850 responses to the ‘Energy Efficiency Index of German Industry’. Knowledge of the status quo, and clarity in definitions, objectives, time frames and scope are key.
Keywords
decarbonisation; climate neutrality; industrial energy saving; strategic decision making; net-zero; roadmapping; energy efficiency; ideal mix; energy efficiency index
Subject
Engineering, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.