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Despite the success in achieving the objectives for the use of renewable energy sources, the EU’s competitiveness is not at the desired level. In particular, the largest decreases in fossil-type energy intensity were observed in last 13 members of EU, namely, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. The purpose of this paper is to trace how these countries protect the competitiveness of their dirty (energy-intensive) industries.

The study employs revealed comparative advantage (RCA) indices to measure the comparative advantage (CA) of EU-13 in dirty industries for the period 1995-2014 and assesses these indices in the framework of EU’s climate policy.

Some policies which make industries to adapt EU’s 20-20-20 targets are forcing industries. In order to compete, these industries are leaving Europe and looking elsewhere. In this study the authors found that, particularly chemicals and non-metallic mineral manufactures resulted in a weakening of their CA over the years in some of these members. Similarly it is found that the RCA indices of iron and steel and non-ferrous metals are decreasing.

The study addresses the EU-13’s position in terms of their competitiveness and find the connection with the EU’s climate policy through their RCAs of dirty industries.

To cope with climate change and achieve the dual carbon goal, China has actively promoted the implementation of carbon trading pilot policy, among which the power industry plays an important role in China’s carbon emission reduction work. The purpose of this paper is to study the influence of carbon trading policy on the energy efficiency of power industry and achieve the comprehensive goal of carbon emission reduction, carbon peak and carbon neutralization.

This paper constructs the difference-in-differences model based on 2012–2019 provincial data to study the impact of carbon trading policy on energy efficiency in the power industry and its effect path. Heterogeneity analysis was conducted to compare the effects of carbon trading policy in eastern, central and western regions as well as at different levels of power structures.

Carbon trading policy can significantly improve the energy efficiency of the power industry, and the policy effect is more significant in eastern and western regions and areas with high power structure. Mechanism analysis shows that carbon trading policy mainly influences the energy efficiency of power industry by environmental protection investment, power consumption demand and industrial structure.

This paper uses provincial panel data to deeply study the influence of carbon trading policy on energy efficiency of the power industry and its effect path. By constructing the difference-in-differences model, this paper empirically analyzes the governance effect of carbon trading policy. Meanwhile, it controls individual and time effects to solve the endogeneity problem prevalent in previous literature.

Although the tasks of managing carbon peaks and achieving carbon neutrality in China are arduous, they are also of great significance, which highlights China’s determination and courage in dealing with climate change. The power industry is not only a major source of carbon emissions but also an important area for carbon emission reduction. Thus, against the backdrop of carbon neutrality, understanding the development status of China’s power industry guided by the carbon neutrality background is important because it largely determines the completeness of China’s carbon reduction promises to the world. This study aims to review China’s achievements in carbon reduction in the electric industry, its causes and future policy highlights.

The methods used in this study include descriptive analyses based on official statistics, government documents and reports.

The research results show that, after years of development, the power industry has achieved positive results in low-carbon provisions and in the electrification of consumption, and carbon emission intensity has continued to decline. Policy initiatives play a key role in this process, including, but not limited to, technology innovations, low-carbon power replacement and supported policies for low-carbon transformation toward low-carbon economies.

This study provides a full picture of China’s power industry against the backdrop of low-carbon development, which could be used as a benchmark for other countries engaging in the same processes. Moreover, a careful review of China’s development status may offer profound implications for policymaking both for China and for other governments across the globe.

In this study, entrepreneurial internationalization in renewable energy industry as a high-tech and emerging industry was explored. The focus of this study is on firm level factors to understand how and why these companies entered the international markets and what are their challenges and difficulties in this process. To answer these questions, two main streams of literature were used: international entrepreneurship (IE) and sustainable entrepreneurship.

Case study methodology is selected for this research. Because this subject is new and empirical researches in renewable energy industry are scarce, a method to gather research and in-depth data was adopted. Following suggestions by Eisenhardt (1989), a multiple-case design method was used with nine cases of entrepreneurial companies in renewable energy industry from Spain.

Results show that in renewable energy industry firms, resources and capabilities such as need for funding and rapid commercialization are key factors that encourage companies to enter the international market. However, having access to the technological knowledge cannot be a compelling reason for internationalization of renewable energy companies from Spain. Moreover, the interaction between the large and small firms is an important factor that facilitates the process of internationalization.

In this study, the focus was only on firm level factors, whereas other levels of analysis such as entrepreneur, environment, policy scheme and industrial factors need further attention in future studies. Moreover, this study is only limited to Spanish companies, and future studies can be replicated in other context.

Findings of the study have significant theoretical and empirical implications. First of all, it explains the entrepreneurial internationalization by taking advantage of sustainable entrepreneurship literature. In addition, empirical results of this study are significantly important for entrepreneurs to implement effective internationalization strategy to survive. Findings of this study can help policy makers for designing a supportive scheme for further development of this industry in the international markets.

This paper explores the entrepreneurial internationalization of renewable energy companies as an emerging industry by taking advantage of two streams of literature: international entrepreneurship and sustainable entrepreneurship. The results show the phenomenon of early internationalization in pre-commercialization phase. These findings put emphasis on interaction between large and small firms in process of internationalization in this specific industry.

In recent years, continuous expansion of the scale of the new energy export industry in China caused a boycott of American and European countries. Export injury early warning research is an urgent task to develop the new energy industry in China. The purpose of this paper is to build an indicator system of exports injury early warning of the new energy industry in China and corresponding quantitative early warning models.

In consideration of the actual condition of the new energy industry in China, this paper establishes an indicator system according to four aspects: export price, export quantity, impact on domestic industry and impact on macro economy. Based on the actual data of new energy industry and its five sub-industries (solar, wind, nuclear power, smart grid and biomass) in China from 2003 to 2013, GM (1,1) model is used to predict early warning index values for 2014-2018. Then, the principal component analysis (PCA) is used to obtain the comprehensive early warning index values for 2003-2018. The 3-sigma principle is used to divide the early warning intervals according to the comprehensive early warning index values for 2003-2018 and their standard deviation. Finally, this paper determines alarm degrees for 2003-2018.

Overall export condition of the new energy industry in China is a process from cold to normal in 2003-2013, and the forecast result shows that it will be normal from 2014 to 2018. The export condition of the solar energy industry experienced a warming process, tended to be normal, and the forecast result shows that it will also be normal in 2014-2018. The biomass and other new energy industries and nuclear power industry show a similar development process. Export condition of the wind energy industry is relatively unstable, and it will be partially hot in 2014-2018, according to the forecast result. As for the smart grid industry, the overall export condition of it is normal, but it is also unstable, in few years it will be partially hot or partially cold. The forecast result shows that in 2014-2018, it will maintain the normal state. In general, there is a rapid progress in the export competitiveness of the new energy industry in China in the recent decade.

Export injury early warning research of the new energy industry can help new energy companies to take appropriate measures to reduce trade losses in advance. It can also help the relevant government departments to adjust industrial policies and optimize the new energy industry structure.

This paper constructs an index system that can measure the alarm degrees of the new energy industry. By combining the GM (1,1) model and the PCA method, the problem of warning condition detection under small sample data sets is solved.

This paper aims to extend the small body of literature on energy industry transitions on firm level. A growing number of articles shed light on paradigm shifts in the energy industry and the influence of renewable energies on industry structures. In the majority of cases, the authors analyze changes on a global or national level.

Energy companies’ forecasting capabilities are particularly important to enable them to react in time to upcoming changes in industry structures. In this context, we analyze annual reports of German energy companies to evaluate their economic and technological forecasting competencies.

Big energy providers offer high economic forecasting quality, but seem to be less able to derive valid forecasts in terms of renewable energies from the currently unstable political frameworks. On the contrary, renewable energy companies do not seem to suffer from these difficulties and provide good foresting accuracy in terms of renewable energy development, but show less accurate economic forecasting quality.

Big energy providers need to find the means of responding to the challenges and integrate changing political guidelines and support into their forecasting system. Renewable energy companies, in contrast, should focus on company-level profitability and the respective economic forecasting competencies.

This paper makes a significant contribution to the literature on the subject of energy industry transitions by providing insights from publicly available data on firm level. The findings are highly relevant for managers of the energy industry and policy makers in this field.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. The first is to examine in detail energy efficiency performance of German and Colombian food industries. The second is to explain the factors that have influenced energy efficiency.

Using data at the three‐digit level of aggregation, the paper compares energy efficiency across sectors of the food industry for the period 1998‐2005. Energy efficiency is analysed using the energy intensity (EI) indicator as well as a decomposition analysis. To determine the factors that have influenced energy efficiency performance, the concept of the production function is used.

The results show that both countries' food industries improved energy efficiency. During the period of study, energy consumption in the German food industry increased by an average of 1.3 per cent per year and the EI decreased 7 per cent, whereas the Colombian food industry decreased its energy consumption by an average of 1.9 per cent per the year and the EI decreased 11 per cent. However, the Colombian food industry needs 2.2 times more energy than the German food industry to produce a unit of gross production. A decomposition analysis indicated that economic and technical factors have played an important role in the energy efficiency performance because increases in economic growth and technology improvements increase the industrial sector's ability to improve energy efficiency. A second‐stage empirical analysis reveals that capital, material, investments and value‐added variables had a positive influence on energy efficiency performance in both countries. Energy prices are shown to have a positive influence on energy efficiency in the German food industry, whereas the sizes of enterprises and concentration processes played an important role on energy efficiency performance in the Colombian food industry.

The literature indicates the relative lack of attention paid to the analysis of energy use across sectors of food industry as well as the lack of studies determining the factors that have affected energy consumption and energy efficiency performance using cross‐country and cross‐sectoral comparisons.

This paper summarizes the severity of global warming, collaboration and endeavor within international government and the trend of international development for “energy-saving and emission reduction.” The Chinese government is enduring high pressure under the environment of “global warming” and “energy-saving and emission reduction” and it has made a policy for “energy-saving and emission reduction.” Based on this, we analyzed the possibility and feasibility for our logistics to “energy-saving and emission reduction,” then propose some solutions for our logistics industry to development and “energy-saving and emission reduction.”

As a typical resource energy-intensive industry, the scale of construction industry has been expanding rapidly owing to the large-scale urbanization and the economic booming in China, which results in a sharp increase in the energy consumption of construction industry. However, it is infeasible to mitigate the energy consumption by reducing the production activities of construction industry. Therefore, improving the energy efficiency of construction industry is essential for energy saving. Construction industry has close relationships with other industries. The production activities have not only consumed a great deal of energy but they have also generated a massive energy consumption from other industries. Previous literature studied the efficiency of energy consumed directly by the construction industry. However, no research has been found focusing on the efficiency of energy consumed directly by the construction industry and indirectly by the related industries. The purpose of this paper is to put forward a total energy efficiency evaluation framework to measure the energy efficiency of construction industry in depth.

This paper employs the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method and the framework of embodied energy efficiency (EEE) to establish a total energy efficiency evaluation model. Next, the comprehensive analysis of direct energy efficiency (DEE) and EEE in different provinces with various levels of urbanization and various economic levels is conducted.

The results show that the embodied energy intensity and its regularities differ greatly between provinces. From the comparison of DEE and EEE, the provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu remain DEA-effective and Hainan is the only province in which the EEE is higher than DEE in 2002, 2007 and 2012. Besides, the DEE and EEE in the provinces with higher levels of urbanization and high economic levels are not more effective than those in the provinces with relatively lower levels of urbanization and low economic levels.

Previous literature studied the efficiency of energy consumed directly by the construction industry while ignoring the energy consumed indirectly by the related industries. Besides, no research has been found focusing on the regulation of energy efficiency in different provinces with different levels of urbanization and different economic levels. It can be concluded that the increasing levels of urbanization and higher economic levels have not brought development and benefits for improving DEE and EEE. Therefore, under the condition that the self-regulation of construction industry and market fail to facilitate the improvement of DEE and EEE in China, policymakers should develop policies and market incentive mechanism to encourage construction industry for employing new technologies to improve the energy efficiency. Since the EEE can reveal the energy efficiency in depth, the evaluation method of EEE should be paid more attention. Besides the fact that the EEE is lower than the DEE in almost all provinces, except Hainan province, the industrial structure is essential to develop the EEE. Hence, improving the energy structure, increasing the energy efficiency and developing new and renewable energy are the basic energy strategies in China.

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the dynamic interactions and co‐evolution of institutions with the technology and organization fields in emerging industry development. Insights and inspirations from comparison of the triangle relationship among government, market and local community in different institutional contexts could contribute to possible institutional innovation in the context of large‐scale institutional transition. In this way, this paper is expected to offer insights to the development of emerging industries in China.

The paper reviews the focal literature focusing on institutional change and the co‐evolution of institution, industry and technology. A multi‐level conceptual framework is put forward to explain the mechanism for the co‐evolution of technology, organization and institution. A multi‐case comparison method was applied to compare and disclose the process of co‐evolution of institutions, and the technology and organizational fields, as well as varied paths of industry development in different institutional contexts.

Emerging industry development in China is still presenting the character of path dependence to a great extent under traditional institutional arrangement, while the power and possible contribution from broader actors in the local community have been ignored. Driving force for a more innovative institutional transition towards emerging industry development should consider decentralized institutional arrangement and actions at local community instead of “command and control” from central planning.

First, the comparison of wind energy industry development in three countries creates possibilities for further analysis and reference for China's emerging industry. Second, the illustration of the triangle relationship among government, market and local community in different countries helps policy makers in China reconsider and redesign an effective institutional framework for balancing the powers among indigenous community, local government and market. Institutional alignment should be listed as an important consideration during the process of the policy design of such an effective institutional framework.

The paper presents a model to understand the dynamic co‐evolution of the institution, technology and organizational fields. It confirms the role of institution in promoting emerging industry development. Particularly, it offers inspirations for the development of emerging industries in nations facing large‐scale institutional transition.