Insights on the impact of energy management systems on carbon and corporate performance. An empirical analysis with data from German automotive suppliers.

With increasing scarcity of fossil fuels and climate change caused by man-made carbon emissions, energy and carbon efficiency are of increasing importance for manufacturing firms. Regarding their energy use manufacturing firms can improve their carbon performance either by reducing energy use or by switching to energy sources that cause less carbon emissions. Energy management systems are said to support improvements in carbon performance, however their effect has hardly been addressed to date by academia. Based on data from 108 German automotive suppliers, this paper investigates the impact of an energy management system on manufacturing firms' operations practice as well as carbon and economic performance. The research model developed for this is evaluated using partial least squares. The results indicate that energy management has a positive effect on the adoption of low carbon production and logistics practices and through this indirectly on carbon and economic performance. The effect is found to be stronger for certified energy management systems. Surprisingly no proof is found for a direct effect of an energy management system on carbon performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]