The role of staff assignment in implementing energy-conserving practices in small- and medium-sized firms: an empirical
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
The role of staff assignment in implementing energy-conserving practices in small- and medium-sized firms: an empirical analysis based on data from a Japanese survey Masayo Wakabayashi
&
Toshi H. Arimura
Received: 30 October 2019 / Accepted: 16 September 2020 / Published online: 9 October 2020 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract The previous literature has studied barriers to energy efficiency in firms. While there are several studies with some focus on the manufacturing sector in Europe, the corresponding literature in Asia is still nascent. Using a unique dataset that contains a large number of firms belonging to the service and manufacturing sectors in Japan, this study contributes to filling this gap in the literature. The uniqueness of the data set allows us to distinguish small firms from both medium-sized and large firms. We evaluated the implementation of environmental practices, focusing on barriers to energy efficiency, and found that in the implementation of energyconserving practices, small firms lag far behind large firms. We also found positive impacts from staff assignment on this goal. By contrast, firms were less likely to implement these practices if senior executives were in charge of energy efficiency issues. The data analysis further revealed that a limited number of SMEs and of service sector firms assign dedicated staff to achieve
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-020-09904-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. M. Wakabayashi (*) Socio-Economic Research Center, Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, 1-6-1 Ohtemachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-8126, Japan e-mail: [email protected] T. H. Arimura Faculty of Political Science and Economics, Waseda University, 1-6-1 Nishiwaseda Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-8050, Japan e-mail: [email protected]
energy efficiency. The estimation results suggest that a policy measure may stimulate the development of economically feasible energy-conserving practices within SMEs if it encourages them to develop their organisational capacity to assign staff dedicated to promoting energy efficiency. Keywords Energy conservation . Small- and mediumsized enterprises . Commercial sector . Barriers to energy efficiency . Organisational capacities
Introduction Improving energy efficiency is a highly prioritised policy measure for mitigating climate change because it is one of the least costly measures that can be deployed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The International Energy Agency (IEA) (2017) reports that improvements in energy efficiency offset three-quarters of the increase in global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions attributed to GDP growth. Apart from its role in climate change mitigation, energy efficiency has multiple cobenefits, such as reducing energy expenditure, hedging risks relating to rising energy prices and reducing dependency on energy imports. Nevertheless, both producers and consumers often fail to make
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