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Abstract Energy efficiency, which is one of the pillars of the EU's Energy Union strategy, has been proposed as a solution, namely as a highly effective pathway to improve economic competitiveness and sustainability of the European economy, lower emissions, reduce energy dependency and increase security of supply, and job creation. The paper reviews the EU strategies and policies on energy efficiency and argues that further focus should be placed on industrial energy efficiency. Despite a decline in energy consumption in recent years in industry, this sector is one of the largest users of energy in the EU. Therefore, the paper reviews the extent to which the European and national policies in the selected jurisdictions, such as Italy and the UK address energy efficiency in industry and whether there are any measures in place to promote it. Highlights • Legal certainty is required in industrial energy efficiency policies. • White Certificates play a major role in industrial energy efficiency in Italy. • Yet, constant changes in the WC regulations can act as an investment barrier. • The UK's Energy Efficiency policy is underpinned with decarbonisation of the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The paper identifies and evaluates barriers to industrial energy efficiency through the investigation of 48 manufacturing Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Northern Italy. The research provides interesting suggestions both for enterprises and energy policy-makers. Firstly, economic and information barriers are perceived as the major obstacles to the adoption of energy-efficient technologies, whilst behavioural barriers do not seem to affect enterprises very much. Nonetheless, despite what declared, the most relevant barriers are the lack of interest in energy efficiency and the existence of other priorities, thus showing that decision-makers tend to downgrade energy efficiency to a marginal issue. Furthermore, perceived barriers do not take place exclusively in implementing energy-efficient technologies, but, with comparable importance, also in generating the interest and knowledge of the opportunities. Moreover, the study highlights that relevant differences can be appreciated for both perceived and real barriers even among SMEs, that thus should not be bundled together. In addition to that, other factors affect barriers, stimulating future research: indeed, lower real barriers can be observed with higher complexity of the production, high variability of the demand and strong competitors. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]