Manufacturing is the highest energy intensive industry in many countries including the UK and Australia.  There has been a trend over the past decade of a slight decrease in consumption - although levels still remain high.  UK manufacturing has reduced its energy consumption by 15% since 1998 although at 40.6 million tonnes of oil equivilent remains at an unsustainable level.  This sector alone accounts for 18% of all direct energy usage in the UK.

Although rated the highest energy intensive industry,¹  against the trend of all other sectors Australian manufacturing and construction decreased their energy usage by 3% in 2007/08.  Accounting for 33% of total consumption, manufacturing was recently overtaken by transportation as the highest energy user. Components within this Four Leaf quadrant encompass both of these sources, which contribute towards two thirds of total energy consumption. Placing this in perspective, during 2007/08 the manufacturing industry used over three times the total energy of all households (excluding household transport).² That is three times more reason for industry to continue to reduce their usage of this natural resource.

The Energy Leaf primarily quantifies changes in energy consumption by source. The extent to which manufacturers utilise renewable energy is calculated together with the impact of the company car fleet as further indicators of the depth to which environmental strategies have been adopted.

The energy rating is principally based on current performance compared to the base year of 2005. Data is normalised to consumption per tonne of product. The three questions which can be viewed here provide a clear snapshot of energy efficiencies implemented within the organisation and the historical footprint left through upstream behaviour.

The data collected in the Energy Leaf is also utilised to determine changes in greenhouse gases over time for each company. Australia is one of the largest greenhouse gas producers per capita in the world. Of this, the energy sector is the main contributor due to heavy reliance on coal for production of electricity, smelting industry and high reliance on cars/trucks for transport. Megatonnes of Co2e emitted in the UK far outweigh that of Australia. However, the higher population base of the former results in a lower per capita value.³