We report on an original systematic review of 165 empirical, ex post studies examining policies that promote the development and use of low-carbon technologies. Policy is defined broadly to include diverse instruments (e.g., eco-labels, voluntary agreements, emission credits, and taxes), developed, administered, and promoted by state and non-state actors (e.g., cities, states, corporations, business associations, and non-governmental organizations) that are relevant to climate change.

The European construction industry, like many others, is confronted by an economy that isundergoing a highly significant change, shaped by megatrends such as greater urbanisation,disruptive new technologies and digitalisation, globalised value chains and sustainability.At the same time, the European economy faces the profound challenge of meeting theambitious climate mitigation goal set out in the Paris Agreement of keeping average globalwarming to well below 2˚C.

Nowadays, energy efficiency (EE) is presented as a reliable strategy towards sustainable development, but its application has not been developed equitably worldwide, since most EE policies have been implemented in industrialised nations, and developing countries are still in the process of improving their EE levels.

This paper aims to review the state of the art technologies for the energy efficiency within the hospitals sector. Hospitals are liable for an unstable amount of energy demand and joint emissions, because of their 24/7 nature of operation and hence resulting larger energy consumption than a typical commercial building. Additionally, they need high quality and warranted supplies of electricity. Due to increased energy demand and therefore the depletion of existing fossil fuel based sources, it is required to use the energy more efficient.

Decarbonisation Futures provides a guide for Australian government and business decision makers on priority technologies, deployment pathways and benchmarks for achieving net zero emissions. Decarbonisation Futures shows Australia can still play its part in meeting the Paris Climate Agreement goal of limiting global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius and as close as possible to 1.5 degrees. This report identifies the priority technologies and actions for achieving net zero emissions across all sectors of the Australian economy.

Due to the growing concerns about global climate change and energy dependence, many countries have introduced regulations targeting the energy efficiency of the residential sector. However, whether these policies have been effective in reducing the total residential consumption of energy is still unclear. In this paper, we analyze the impact of residential energy efficiency policies on household energy consumption across Europe for the period 1980–2016.

This article provides useful information that could help you address some barriers to sustainable initiatives: Every executive that you speak to is aware that data can be manipulated and may be skeptical of studies conducted by organizations that could benefit from a particular set of results. So I've included information on independent third-party studies. In challenging economic times, people are particularly concerned about short-term cash flow.

This report is the first report of the ‘Energy Savings 2030’-project which seeks to help the Coalition for Energy Savings to produce a robust and timely input to the 2030 policy discussion. It brings together and summarises recent empirical evidence on costs and benefits of energy efficiency measures. The evidence gap in terms of reliable ex-post data is well known. In the majority of cases results from ex-ante modelling studies inform the debate. The research carried out for this report confirms the persistent gap in publicly available ex-post evaluations of energy efficiency programmes.

Climate change and global warming as the main human societies’ threats are fundamentally associated with energy consumption and GHG emissions. The residential sector, representing 27% and 17% of global energy consumption and CO2 emissions, respectively, has a considerable role to mitigate global climate change. Ten countries, including China, the US, India, Russia, Japan, Germany, South Korea, Canada, Iran, and the UK, account for two-thirds of global CO2 emissions.

The main aim of this report is to contribute to the exchange of good practices and to support EU MS by providing potential ideas for the elaboration of long-term renovation plans. The report compiles renovation requirements as well as financial instruments, support programmes and market mechanisms for building renovation in a number of countries and regions. While the main focus of the report is on selected EU MS, a few global examples are also presented.

Tackling fuel poverty requires significant capital investment, but it is also important to ensure that measures are directed at those who most need them in order to optimise the outcomes with regard to policy objectives. Understanding whether current delivery mechanisms are adequately funded and are effectively targeting fuel poor households is essential, not least because legal commitments exist to eliminate fuel poverty.

This paper reviews empirical data from evaluations of the influence of residential energy efficiency retrofits on indoor environmental quality conditions and self-reported thermal comfort and health. Data were extracted from 36 studies described in 44 papers plus two reports. Nearly all reviewed studies were performed in Europe or United States. Most studies evaluated retrofits of homes with low-income occupants. Indoor radon and formaldehyde concentrations tended to increase after retrofits that did not add whole-house mechanical ventilation.

The building energy efficiency labeling (BEEL) scheme has been adopted in China since 2008. However, until now, its effect on the actual building energy efficiency has not been accurately established. The objective of this study was to investigate this effect through a case study in Shanghai, China. Additionally, by performing a thorough review, potential barriers for implementing the BEEL scheme in major areas of China were analyzed.

Pricing carbon and moving toward mandatory disclosure of climate-related financial risks, as part of a broader policy package. Accelerating investment in sustainable infrastructure, supported by clear national and sub-national strategies and programmes. Harnessing the power of the private sector, including to unleash innovation and advance supply chain transparency. Ensuring a people-centred approach, such that the gains are shared equitably and the transition is just.

In this work, the literature about the relationship between thermal comfort and productivity in workplaces is reviewed and explored by means of a co-citation analysis—i.e., a factor analysis applied to the mutual citations of the most relevant contributions. A structure of three main clusters of papers describing the relationships between workers’ thermal comfort and productivity were identified according to the factor analysis and then confirmed with a multidimensional scaling.

The United Nations General Assembly declared 2014-2024 as the International Decade of Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All), following the UN Secretary General’s initiative and emphasizing the importance of energy issues for sustainable development. One of the three objectives of the SE4All initiative is to double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency by 2030.Improving energy efficiency is supposed to be easy to do and contributes to energy security, a better environment, quality of life, and economic well-being for all.

A practical decision support pack to aid policy makers and experts in developing countries. The objective of the Sustainable Building Policies in Developing Countries (SPoD) project is to enable authorities at national and local levels to analyse existing policies affecting the building sector, and to identify packages of policy instruments for sustainable buildings, which can be adapted to fit local conditions.

This project, “International Review of Residential Building Energy Efficiency Rating Schemes”, is the fifth project in a series of work conducted through the Building Energy Efficiency Task Group (BEET), under the International Partnership for Energy Efficiency Cooperation (IPEEC). This project report presents key governance and administrative considerations in the design of energy efficiency rating schemes, available information on the cost-effectiveness and market impact of rating schemes, barriers to uptake of schemes and lessons learned from the implementation of schemes.

A new analysis framework is developed and applied to assess the benefits of building energy efficiency policies and programs. One of the main advantages of the new energy productivity analysis is that it accounts for both economic and energy performances of energy efficiency actions using only one metric. Specifically, the approach applies the concept of energy productivity to the building sector and accounts for both value added and energy savings of energy efficiency measures.