Sustainability Leveraged by Energy Service Projects (ESCO) in Spain: Analysis 2010–14

Abstract

Sustainability is currently a common term, although in many cases it has been used not in the proper way and sometimes even inappropriately. Currently, both academics and business executives broadly understand the sustainability as a challenge that involves not only environmental aspects, but as an integrative concept including economic, environmental and social aspects that should be the basement to build the pillars of the most competitive companies in the twenty first century. Authors of this study have done a detailed and deep study on a sample of two hundred "Energy Service" or ESCO projects in Spain in order to understand if they got visible sustainability improvements in a comprehensive point of view (from economic, environmental and social angles). Being these projects those in which two companies make collaborative arrangements to implement energy efficiency improvements, and both companies results are based on integral saving sharing.