Facilitating sustainable industrial transitions in the energy intensive industries: The role of policies and corporate strategies to enable decarbonisation

The EU energy intensive industries (EIIs) are large emitters of greenhouse gases, and must change their activities in order to achieve deep emission reductions and enable full decarbonisation. Major sustainable industrial... [ view full abstract ]

The EU energy intensive industries (EIIs) are large emitters of greenhouse gases, and must change their activities in order to achieve deep emission reductions and enable full decarbonisation. Major sustainable industrial transitions will be needed for the EIIs to meet their climate targets until 2050. Previous studies suggest that business model innovation can play an important role in increasing the sustainability performance of these industries, but little research investigates the role of corporate incentives to undergo large-scale industrial transitions. This study is aspiring to fill that gap and to lay the groundwork for future studies on industrial transitions for decarbonisation of the EIIs. The purpose of the study is to identify if previous industrial transitions have arisen mainly due to a changing policy environment, or due to innovations in the corporate strategies of firms (or due to other factors, or a combination thereof). Industrial policies may facilitate deployment of business model innovations, as has been demonstrated for example through the photovoltaic system revolution in Germany. At the same time, industrial transitions may also occur when several companies identify a new business opportunity and decide to change their business model accordingly. This paper investigates such drivers behind industrial transitions in the past. The research focuses on the EU EIIs in general, through a case study on the EU steel industry in particular. The research will be conducted in three phases. Firstly, the scoping phase will include a literature review on industrial transitions in the EIIs in the past, for example the four industrial revolutions. Concepts with link to industrial transitions will be investigated, such as industrial symbiosis, disruptive innovation, ecosystem thinking and triple helix models. The scope will be limited to relevant transitions that have affected the EU steel industry from 1990 to today. The purpose of this research step is to identify which industrial transitions should be included in the scope of the study. Next, the data collection phase will ensure identification and categorization of drivers behind the identified industrial transitions in the EU steel industry during the study period. Secondary data will be collected, and relevant stakeholders will be interviewed. The aim is to identify if such transitions have been primarily bottom-up driven (arising from micro level), top-down driven (macro level) or a combination of the two (meso level). The purpose of this research step is to identify what role policy making versus business model innovation have played in driving these industrial transitions. The last research phase will discuss the importance of specific levers for sustainable industrial transitions, through analysis of the findings in the previous phases. The purpose of this research step is to gather evidence of levers that have proven to increase/decrease decarbonising activities, for example industrial symbiosis, in the EU steel industry in the past. To fully contribute to literature on industrial transitions, the paper will also briefly touch upon whether such levers could be expected to contribute to decarbonisation of the EIIs in the future.

#Decarbonisation #IndustrialTransitions #EnergyIntensiveIndustries #BusinessModelInnovation #Steel