Reducing the ecological and the energy footprint in a company through redesigning the energy resource (renewable energy sources), eco-design (green buildings for energy saving) and improvement of production/commercial processes to reduce energy consumption and waste.

Abstract

Over the last decades, in both global and pan-European levels, there has been an unprecedented increase in the interest regarding the unwanted greenhouse gas emissions due to their harmful nature. Energy has always been an indispensable commodity for humanity, but the face of the energy field is changing drastically through the decades. The modern lifestyle leads to increased energy consumption, which is tending growing up year after year. This has been translated into innovative changes in the field of energy demand management, building eco-design, renewable energy sources best integration and improvement of production/commercial processes with ulterior motive a better environmental and energy footprint. The following Master Thesis was conducted with the purpose to investigate the ecological and the energy profile as a natural follow-up of a company operating in North Germany. For a better and in-depth research process, the qualitative approach has been selected, and related data were collected from this type of company. More specifically, this research was based on policies, practices and common accepted strategies to ensure the enhancement of business profile. The survey findings revealed that the initial expectations of discovering energy leakages and improvement opportunities in the company were true and as a result, have sparked off new ideas and possible actions. For that reason, three distinct scenarios were analysed, each offering at a different level an upgrade of environmental (less CO2 pollution), financial (corporate income increase) and energy (lower electrical and thermal needs) profile of the enterprise. The value of this study lies in the fact that our research results contribute to the knowledge of the people associated with energy consumption management and, in addition, is optative to be useful either to small or large scale users or other researchers. Keywords: Carbon dioxide, Sustainable Consumption & Production, Greenhouse Gas, Renewable Energy Sources, Energy Management System, Cost Benefits Analysis, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Energy Performance, Eco-design, Carbon footprint, Energy consumption, Energy Policies, Waste treatment, Raw material.