Abstract This special issue of Applied Energy contains articles developed from initial ideas related to the 17th Conference Process Integration, Modelling and Optimisation for Energy Saving and Pollution Reduction (PRES 2014) held in Prague, Czech Republic, during 23–27 August 2014. The conference has been organised jointly with CHISA 2014. Both events have benefitted from the shared pool of participants as well as the expanded opportunities for exchanging ideas. From all contributions presented at the conference, high-quality ones suitable for Applied Energy, have been invited. Overall, 37 extended manuscripts have been invited as candidate articles. Of those, after a thorough review procedure, 11 articles have been selected to be published. The topics attained in the focus of this Special Issue include Process Integration and Energy Management, CO2 capture, and Green Energy Applications.