Energy-transition pressure and the asymmetric convergence of enterprise IoT adoption across Europe

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a key digital technology for monitoring coupled energy and material flows within circular economy frameworks, yet enterprise IoT adoption remains uneven across Europe even as individual digital readiness has converged. This cross-sectional study asks whether national energy-transition and resource-efficiency (ETRE) pressure is associated with enterprise IoT adoption independently of population-level digital maturity. Drawing on Eurostat data for 33 European countries, we apply sigma and beta convergence analysis, an original Asymmetric Convergence Index (ACI), and moderated regression. While individual internet use has converged strongly, enterprise IoT dispersion remains 3.55 times greater. The central finding is that ETRE pressure moderates the country-level relationship between individual digital maturity and enterprise IoT adoption: where ETRE pressure is low the two are positively associated, whereas where it is high the association is absent. An exploratory decomposition localizes this pattern to the energy-transition and resource-efficiency components rather than to circularity or environmental taxation, while innovation ecosystem capacity is a direct, context-independent correlate of adoption. Because the evidence is cross-sectional and ecological, we frame this ETRE-contingent decoupling as a suggestive pattern that requires firm-level and longitudinal validation, and we propose the ACI as a diagnostic tool for monitoring the gap between individual and enterprise digital development. A four-fold country typology reveals distinct sustainability profiles linked to digital pathways. Our findings suggest that ambitious energy-transition and resource-efficiency goals may be associated with a decoupling of enterprise IoT deployment from general digital literacy requirements. This ETRE-contingent mechanism offers a policy framework for linking CE strategies to digital capabilities, though further firm-level and longitudinal validation is required to confirm these operational patterns.Practitioner summary Across Europe, citizens’ internet use has become highly similar over the past decade, yet the share of businesses using Internet of Things (IoT) devices still varies more than three times as widely between countries. This study of 33 European nations asks why, and what policymakers and business leaders should do about it. A country’s commitment to energy transition and resource efficiency-measured through its renewable energy share and resource productivity-fundamentally changes how enterprise IoT adoption works. Without strong green-transition pressure, businesses adopt IoT in step with their population’s digital skills, following the conventional pathway. In countries pushing hard on clean energy and resource efficiency, this link disappears: enterprises adopt IoT in response to environmental regulations and innovation policy, regardless of whether the general public is digitally advanced. For policymakers, the twin green and digital transition need not proceed sequentially. Countries that lag in digital literacy but lead in environmental ambition may still be able to advance enterprise digitalization by investing in R&D, ICT specialist training, and clear environmental monitoring mandates. Population-wide digital literacy is not a prerequisite for enterprise IoT deployment when green-transition incentives are strong. For business leaders, green-transition requirements appear to be an increasingly important correlate of IoT investment, relatively independent of the broader national digital ecosystem. The proposed Asymmetric Convergence Index offers a simple diagnostic tool for tracking gaps between citizen-level and enterprise-level digital transformation, helping governments target support where it matters most. Findings rest on cross-sectional evidence and require firm-level validation.