Abstract Manufacturing firms’ ability to innovate and improve their energy efficiency (EE) is a key element in reducing emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) and attain international objectives of climate change mitigation. Despite an urgent need for more knowledge drivers for EE in manufacturing firms, there is still little research on the topic. Taking departure in the EE and environmental innovation literature we analyse the role of motivational factors and firm characteristics (education, R&D and cooperation strategies) as drivers for EE. Employing a logit model on a panel data from the Norwegian Community Innovation Survey (CIS) on manufacturing firms for the period 2010–2014, we examine how the drivers impact companies’ investments in EE. Our empirical results show that the level of education and cooperation with competitors as well as universities and research institutions have a positive effect on investments on EE. The size of the company is also positively related to EE. We did however not find support for the hypothesis that R&D are positively related to EE investments.