*Corr. Author’s Address: University of Maribor, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Smetanova 17, SI-2000 Maribor, Slovenia, iztok.palcic@uni-mb.si 409 Strojniški vestnik - Journal of Mechanical Engineering 59(2013)6, 409-417 Received for review: 2012-10-11 © 2013 Journal of Mechanical Engineering. All rights reserved. Received revised form: 2013-02-11 DOI:10.5545/sv-jme.2012.830 Original Scientific Paper Accepted for publication: 2013-03-14 0 INTRODUCTION Manufacturing is defined as the transformation of materials and information into goods for the satisfaction of human needs. Turning raw materials into consumer products is also a major source of environmental pollution. Waste coming from manufacturing activities is an environmental threat originating in several regions around the world [1]. Therefore, in recent years, mostly in response to increasing pressure from environmental regulations, many manufacturing firms have made significant efforts to use cleaner production methods [2] to [4]. Industrial energy efficiency plays a central role as the manufacturing industry accounts for about 75% of the world’s yearly coal consumption, 44% of the world’s natural gas consumption, and 20% of global oil consumption. In addition, these manufacturing firms also use 42% of all the electricity generated [5]. Although renewable energy technologies, such as photovoltaic technology, might be a long-term solution, more efficient energy use can make the greatest and most economic contribution towards solving these problems in the short run. Using the available energy more efficiently is an effective countermeasure to rising energy needs and insecure energy supplies [6] and[7]. Bunse et al. [8] argue that examples in the literature and in real world practice show that although the manufacturing sector has made continuous improvements in energy efficiency, the economically beneficial energy efficiency potential has not yet been fully exploited [8] to [10]. This paper is based on an empirical study in the field of energy and material efficiency technologies. The objective of this paper is firstly to map the adoption of technologies for the reduction of energy and resource consumption in production and, second, to contribute to the identification and understanding of the characteristics of the manufacturing firms that use these kinds of innovative technologies. The paper is organized as follows. The introduction comprises a background and literature review of energy efficiency in production. Next, the research methodology and methods used to analyse the characteristics of energy and material saving technologies’ adoption and their adopters are presented. The results and findings are presented for the manufacturing firms with the use of descriptive statistics and simple correlation tests. Finally, we discuss our results and present some implications. 1 LITERATURE REVIEW The energy efficiency of manufacturing processes is becoming increasingly important due to rising energy costs and climate altering greenhouse gas emissions [11]. Improving energy efficiency is regarded as one of the most important options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and for reducing the dependency of countries on energy imports [12]. Measuring energy efficiency is the basis for controlling energy consumption in the production processes and for deciding on improvement measures, as well as for tracking changes and improvements in energy efficiency [8]. Studies on the energy consumption of manufacturing processes have provided fundamental information for improving energy efficiency and building a comprehensive foundation aimed at Analysing Energy and Material Saving Technologies’ Adoption and Adopters Palčič, I. – Pons, M. – Bikfalvi, A. – Llach, J. – Buchmeister, B. Iztok Palčič 1,* – Marc Pons 2 – Andrea Bikfalvi 2 – Josep Llach 2 – Borut Buchmeister 1 1 University of Maribor, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Slovenia 2 Universitat de Girona, Spain The main objective of this paper is to map the adoption of technologies for energy reduction and resources consumption in production. The aim is also to contribute to the identification and understanding of the characteristics of the manufacturing firms that use these kinds of energy and material saving technologies. Our research is based on data from the largest European manufacturing survey to date and it includes data from Spain and Slovenia. The results show that the use of specific energy saving technologies and material saving technologies in manufacturing firms is still modest. Dividing manufacturing firms based on technology intensity sectors and based on their relative energy efficiency we have concluded that firms in high technology industries focus less on energy efficiency than low technology firms. Some other specific relationships between the use of energy efficient technologies and adopters’ characteristics (e. g. use of environmental management systems) are presented in this paper. Keywords: energy efficiency, manufacturing firm, energy saving technology, material saving technology, European manufacturing survey