Articles
Beyond Energy Savings: How European SMEs Are Leading the Way with the Multiple Benefits Approach
The DEESME project, supported by the EU's Horizon 2020 program, has worked with SMEs across Europe, demonstrating that an integrated approach to energy management can lead to holistic business improvements beyond just energy savings. These improvements include innovation, increased resilience, employee well-being, and brand reputation enhancement. The project has established best practices through energy audits, which are the starting point for comprehensive upgrades, company-wide engagement, data-driven decisions, and building a culture of sustainability. Documented success stories from Italy, Bulgaria, Germany, and Poland illustrate the varied benefits, including reduced costs, improved product quality, safer workplaces, and the creation of new business opportunities. Key factors for the success of the multiple benefits approach include accurate data collection, commitment from top management, communication of successes, expanding the scope of benefits consideration beyond direct energy savings, employee training and engagement, and treating energy efficiency as an ongoing journey. The project emphasizes the role of young professionals in championing energy management initiatives within organizations and highlights the EnerWhizz app as a tool for learning more about energy management. The overall message is that the strategic energy management approach can benefit all types of SMEs and is essential for building a sustainable and resilient European economy.
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Redefining Energy Audits: The DEESME Multiple Benefits Approach for European SMEs
The DEESME Multiple Benefits Approach transforms energy audits for SMEs into a strategic business improvement tool, emphasizing productivity, sustainability, and employee wellbeing, beyond mere compliance. This innovative method fosters holistic benefits and equips future leaders to drive the energy transition.
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Energy Management Reinvented: How the Multiple Benefit Approach Is Transforming European SMEs
The DEESME project promotes a Multiple Benefit approach, integrating energy efficiency with broader business goals in SMEs, aligning with EU sustainability policy and enhancing various non-energy aspects, such as safety and product quality.
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Unlocking Energy Efficiency in SMEs: Lessons from Seven European Projects
Despite representing a significant portion of Europe's energy demand, most SMEs face challenges in adopting energy efficiency measures due to financial constraints, lack of knowledge, time pressures, and cultural inertia. However, research from seven European projects suggests that targeted training, energy audits, and collaboration can overcome these barriers, with the potential for substantial savings and competitiveness enhancements.
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Rethinking Energy Audits: How a Multiple Benefits Approach Empowers Sustainable Business
The DEESME project promotes a Multiple Benefits Approach to energy auditing, integrating energy efficiency with broader business strategies for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), aiming to generate value across various organizational aspects, thus transforming compliance into strategic opportunity.
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Beyond Energy Savings: Unlocking the True Value of Energy Efficiency for Future Leaders
The M-Benefits research across 23 pilots identified 251 non-energy benefits (NEBs) of energy efficiency, quantifiable in 58% of cases, markedly increasing average internal rate of return and shortening payback periods, thereby underscoring their strategic business significance.
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Unlocking Competitive Advantage: The Overlooked Multiple Benefits of Energy Efficiency in Business
Energy efficiency offers more than cost savings, including improved product quality, employee well-being, and corporate reputation. Its strategic value is underestimated due to non-energy benefits being often invisible and unquantified in decision-making processes.
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Energizing Change Together: The Power of Energy Efficiency Networks
Energy Efficiency Networks (EENs) promote cooperation between companies to improve energy usage and reduce carbon emissions. Over 1,300 networks exist globally, with Germany and China leading the way. EENs encourage sharing best practices, setting targets, and implementing energy-saving measures, with proven results in energy and CO2 reductions. This collaborative model supports achieving national and international climate goals and drives innovation across industries.
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Unlocking the Power of Industrial Symbiosis: How Data Exchange Fuels Collaboration and Innovation
The CORALIS project examines data exchange in industrial symbiosis networks, identifying lack of standardization and proposing a structured communication framework to improve trust, efficiency, and innovation for sustainable industrial practices.
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Transforming Europe's Energy Grids for a Sustainable Future
The paper discusses Europe's transition to an interconnected, renewable-focused energy grid, emphasizing the need for smart grids, AI, flexibility markets, advanced data exchange, and interoperability. These elements are crucial for balancing supply and demand, enhancing grid efficiency, and achieving sustainability and decarbonization goals, all while facing challenges in technology, investment, and stakeholder collaboration.
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