Business model for energy efficiency for manufacturing companies

Traditional manufacturing companies used to focus their business models in selling tangible products at a low price, offering good quality and efficiency in order to be better than the competitors and to acquire more market. However, the competition rules in the different industries are changing, pure low cost strategies are not as effective as before, the world is starting to think in a more sustainable way and so do the industries. Nowadays, as stated before, companies are looking forward to improve not only quality and reduce costs, but they are more interested in being sustainable so as to avoid that future generations experience bigger environmental troubles and resource scarcities than the existent in the present. Sustainability, on the other hand, is becoming a strategy that not only returns benefits to the environment and the society but also provide parallel benefits to the companies such as the increase competitive advantage, attract eco-friendly customers and in a long term tends to reduce costs. One way to start the journey to reach sustainability is by the achievement of energy efficiency. Improving energy efficiency, especially in energy-intensive manufacturing industries, returns higher productivity, more competitiveness and lowed costs, apart from the benefits that this application produces to the environment. Nevertheless this concept is being approached more in a technical and operational level rather than managerial. This thesis intends to bring the notion of energy efficiency to a strategic level by proposing a business model for energy efficiency for manufacturing companies. With this, we aim to provide a tool that describes the logic of how the manufacturing companies create, deliver and capture value, and at the same time evidencing the energy inefficiencies, the wastes and the manufacturing performances that are critical to the business model. To this end, this thesis starts from a critical analysis of the literature of Energy Efficiency, Manufacturing Performances, and Business Model, identifying in this way the main gaps that will lead this research, then in the design phase there are analyzed the cause-effect relationships between manufacturing performances and business model performances, and patterns of the business models that can be adapted to develop a new structure focused in energy efficiency. Then the model is designed based in theoretical and empirical data and finally it is implemented in a case study. This research might benefit manufacturing companies that want to improve their business models by adopting an energy efficiency philosophy. The business model for energy efficiency for manufacturing companies enables them to have a complete view of the business logic and the environmental impact inherent to the model, allowing top managers to take green decisions that are aligned with the environment and their business scope.