Corporate Social Responsibility as One of the Factors of Increasing Energy Efficiency: The Case of Energy Consumption at Industrial Companies of Ukraine

One of the tasks of the concept of corporate social responsibility is to help solve social and environmental problems facing society. An important way of such a solution is the implementation of energy-saving projects at companies. In this regard, the purpose of this study was to assess the impact of corporate social responsibility on the energy efficiency of companies, and, accordingly, on the financial and economic results of these activities. In the research process, the following methods were used: economic and mathematical modeling (when developing a model of the influence of corporate social responsibility on the share of operating profit in the amount of operating income of companies), grouping and generalization (when grouping factors that have an impact on the energy efficiency of companies), statistical analysis (when determining the influence of factors on the change in the energy efficiency of companies), economic analysis. The place occupied by corporate social responsibility among the factors influencing the energy efficiency of companies is determined. A method of evaluating the specified impact has been developed. This method was tested on a sample of 150 industrial companies in Ukraine. To eliminate the influence of factors that determine the profitability of investing in energy-saving projects, 97 companies with a low basic level of efficiency in using natural gas were selected and analyzed among the studied companies. These companies included companies of three branches, namely, those that manufacture products from metal (29 companies), glass (36 companies), and clay (32 companies). The results of the empirical analysis showed that corporate social responsibility has a significant impact on the efficiency of natural gas use by companies and on the profitability of their products. At the same time, most of the studied companies have reservations regarding increasing the level of corporate social responsibility and, accordingly, increasing energy efficiency and profitability.