Organizational Energy Conservation Matters in the Anthropocene

Dimosthenis Kotsopoulos ()
Additional contact information
Dimosthenis Kotsopoulos: Department of Management Science and Technology, Athens University of Economics and Business, 10434 Athens, Greece

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 21, 1-30

Abstract: Almost a century after its onset, the present era—when human endeavor significantly affects the environment and the future of the Earth’s ecosystem—is now regularly being referred to as the “Anthropocene”. Electric energy is recognized as one of the main forces of change that have contributed to the rise of the human reign. Moreover, its consumption, especially in organizations, is considered responsible for a large part of the greenhouse gas emissions whose curtailment is necessary for the preservation of our climate. This work focuses on turning the spotlight onto the importance of a far-from-exhausted resource in the fight for environmental protection: organizational energy conservation—as exhibited by both the organization and its members individually. Reviewing existing literature, we find that organizational energy conservation is concurrently a matter of environmental sustainability, ethics, and social justice and a matter entwined with crises. Aiming to further guide future research and practice in this field, we discriminate between and provide guidelines for conducting both “hard” (which include facility retrofitting and automation and pose the highest cost in their execution) and “soft” (which include the utilization of IS and/or behavioral interventions and pose a significantly lower cost in their execution) organizational energy-saving interventions.

Keywords: organizational; energy conservation; Anthropocene; crisis; behavior; IS; soft; hard; intervention (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/21/8214/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/21/8214/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:21:p:8214-:d:962459

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().