Innovating for energy efficiency: Digital gamification in the European steel industry

The European steel industry, as an energy intensive industry, has significant concerns over energy efficiency and compliance with EU environmental regulations. Hence, across the industry, energy efficiency is a key area of innovation activity. However, responding to climate change measures and finding efficiency gains by technological means is becoming increasingly difficult and so managements are turning attention to modifying, that is, ‘greening’ worker behaviours. Here, we focus on an innovation that combines a digital technology application with a management strategy, that is, gamification for energy efficiency behaviour modification. Drawing on data from a project involving steel plants in Germany, Norway and the UK, we adopt an international comparative approach to examine the implications of differing industrial relations contexts for shaping steel firm engagement with ‘green’ innovations.