Raising industrial energy productivity is central to strengthening competitiveness, supporting the green transition and improving resilience to energy price shocks. This policy brief highlights substantial differences in energy productivity across firms, including within narrowly defined industries. Firms at the productivity frontier generate significantly more value added per unit of energy than less efficient firms, pointing to considerable untapped potential for improvement. The analysis suggests that narrowing these gaps could yield sizeable reductions in industrial energy use and associated emissions while maintaining current levels of output. The brief also finds that higher energy productivity tends to go hand in hand with stronger economic performance, indicating that environmental and competitiveness objectives can be mutually reinforcing. Realising these gains requires policies that facilitate the diffusion of more efficient technologies and practices, address barriers to investment, strengthen competitive pressures and improve price signals so as to encourage more efficient energy use across firms.
