Energy saving by firms: decision making, barriers and policies

Promoting investments in energy-saving technologies is an important means for achieving environmental goals. Empirical evidence on success conditions of associated policies, however, is scarce. Based on a survey among Dutch firms, this paper sets out to identify the factors that determine the investment behaviour of firms, their attitude towards various types of energy policy, and their responsiveness to changes in environmental policy in the Netherlands. On the basis of discrete choice models, this paper aims to investigate empirically, whether (and how) these strategic features vary over firm characteristics and over sectors. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.