# How Do German Manufacturers React to the Increasing Societal Pressure for Decarbonisation?
## 3 Results
### What Measures Do Companies Take to Tackle Their Carbon Footprint?
For self-generation of renewables, shares fluctuate from 12% for that very sector (noting the 11% of the 5 responding \"coal mining sector\" companies that represent 71% of the sector [25] (p. 524))--confirming the assumption regarding the source of energy--and the \"manufacture of furniture\" to 33% (\"beverage production\"). For the latter, as well as the \"production of textiles\" sector (30%), the share of companies deciding to generate their own renewable energy is about a third higher than in the other ones that, with one exception (\"printed products\"), do not exceed 23% (cf. Figure 1c). _How do companies differ when it comes to external forms of intervention to reduce their carbon footprint?_  
Looking at the external forms of intervention to reduce the carbon footprint, the purchase of renewable energy (18%) outranks the CO2 optimisation of the supply chain (13%) and compensation measures (10%). No measures are undertaken by just 3% of the companies in that sample. Figure 1a illustrates just marginal deviations, when looking at the purchase of green energy and compensation measures from a **company size** viewpoint. This said, for compensation measures, micro companies lead the board (12%), leaving medium sized companies (8%) behind. The data indicates that the measured CO2 optimisation of the supply chain does not depend so much on company size; deviating only marginally, it is chosen more often by small and medium-sized (14%) than by large (12%) and micro companies (11%). The degree of inaction is largest with micro companies (6%) but hardly visible for small companies (2%), indicating that, amongst smaller companies, the micro ones may need the most support regarding the reduction of their footprint (cf. Figure 1a). The self-generation of renewables is fairly similar when looking at **energy intensity** that only the energy intensive companies generate to a slightly lesser degree than the others. Only small differences occur looking at the degree to which compensation measures are chosen; for non-energy intensive and moderately energy intensive companies (11%) it is slightly greater than for less energy intensive and energy intensive companies (9%). For non- and less energy intensive companies, comparatively low costs and corporate social responsibility considerations may be motivators; for energy intensive companies it may be difficult to reduce their carbon footprint by optimising their supply chains, as it is in the nature of energy intensive companies that the majority of emissions occur on site. Therefore, it is not surprising that this share increases by 50%, with decreasing energy intensity from 10% to 15% (cf. Figure 1b). Again, the variability is higher when looking at the **sectors**. However, the purchase of renewable energy only fluctuates between 15% and 22%, with two outliers, \"manufacture of glass and ceramics\" (10%) and \"manufacture of other goods\" (26%). Compensation measures, however, significantly vary from 5% (\"food products\" and \"other goods\") to 19% (\"other vehicle construction\", followed by \"other mining and quarrying\", i.e., extraction of stone and earth, and the \"non-metallic mineral products\" sector, i.e., glassware and certainics)--\"coal mining\" would rank first at 22%, again pointing to more energy intensive sectors with difficulties to decarbonise through other means. Externalisation of decarbonisation efforts to the supply chain also deviates significantly: from 5% (\"printing and media reproduction\" and \"other goods\", followed by again \"glassware and ceramics\", \"beverage production\", as well as \"extraction of stone and earth\") to 19% (\"pharmaceutical products\", followed by \"food products\"). Here, however, there is a broad \"midfield\" ranging from 8% to 15%. It is striking that there are a few sectors with nearly twice the average percentage of inaction, all between 6% (\"rubber and plastics\"), and 11% (\"furniture\"), with \"pharmaceutical products\" in-between.