It is clear that city must be part of the solution if an urbanizing world is to grapple successfully with ecological challenges such as energy depletion and climate change. A system dynamics model was developed in this study using STELLA platform to model the energy consumption and CO2 emission trends for the City of Beijing over 2005–2030. Results show that the total energy demand in Beijing is predicted to reach 114.30 million tonnes coal equivalent (Mtce) by 2030, while that value in 2005 is 55.99 Mtce, which is 1.04 times higher than the level in 2005.

This paper reviews the empirical literature that provides a correlation between the different barriers to energy efficiency and consumer behavior related to two domains. It evaluates behavior related to energy curtailment, which represents routine, repetitive effort to decrease consumption on a day-to-day basis. It also considers behavior related to investments, which are one time actions such as purchasing new energy efficiency technologies. The paper also reviews the existing literature that assesses the effect of policies on energy use and investment in energy efficiency technologies.

Energy efficiency policies have the unique capacity to contribute to a more sustainable energy future at an economic net benefit even when co-benefits are not included in the evaluations. The purpose of this paper is to present quantitative and comparative information on the societal cost-effectiveness and the lifetime energy savings of all light eight building energy efficiency policy instruments.

The Dutch Government stimulates the application of energy efficiency measures to reduce the energy requirements of buildings, which are responsible for about 20% of the Dutch CO2 emissions. For our assessment, we followed a qualitative approach, due to a lack of data. We reviewed the mix of policy instruments and used stakeholder surveys and interviews. We found that energy use is not very likely to decline fast enough to achieve the Dutch policy targets for 2020. For new buildings, the policy mix works well, but its contribution to the policy targets is limited.

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.

The Energy Efficiency Financial Institutions Group (“EFFIG”) identifies the need to engage multiple stakeholder groups, scale-up the use of several financial instruments within a clear and enforced “carrot and stick” legislative framework. This report identifies a number of approaches and instruments that have proven to encourage investments and multiple market barriers that stand in the way of an energy efficient Europe.

The EU and Australia have instituted significant new public policies to promote energy efficiency in the “built environment.” Many of these public policies were motivated by the same concerns that led to the pioneering voluntary initiatives of Green Building Councils (especially the LEED design certification program) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s ENERGY STAR system for buildings. However, policy initiatives on both continents are relatively new, have been recently modified, and are yet to be finalized.

In 2009, the European Union adopted high-level goals for renewable energy, energy efficiency, and greenhouse gas reductions with targets set toward the year 2020. This was followed in 2012 by adoption of the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) (2012/27/EU), which included as a major component a requirement for Member States to create Energy Efficiency Obligations Schemes (EEOSs) on energy companies or equivalent alternative measures, and those provisions have now been in effect for three years.

Global warming and environment problems caused by the excessive emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs), along with rapid economic development has attracted the attention of many countries and regions of the world. Reducing GHG emissions is essential to mitigate the threat of global warming. Household carbon (dioxide) emissions have been recognized as one of the most important contributors to climate change, with a significant impact on both the local and global environment, and various policy instruments have been implemented by governments to bring about the reduction.

Owing to the rapid urban growth of past decades, the refurbishment of buildings has become a central topic of city development. A key aspect of building renovations deals with energy saving, both for economic and environmental concerns. The present literature mainly focuses on technological solutions for buildings, and the related data are studied with descriptive statistics. Instead, this paper aims to evaluate the energy effectiveness of refurbishment interventions from a global sector viewpoint.

The German government has developed a variety of policy instruments intended to reduce national CO2 emissions. These instruments include a programme administered by KfW bank, which aims at improving the energy efficiency of buildings. It provides attractive credit conditions or subsidies to finance refurbishment measures which improve the energy efficiency of buildings significantly. The refurbishment programme leads to a reduction in energy use, which benefits private investors by reducing their energy bills.

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.

Low-income housing associations provide a unique opportunity for renewable energy installations, through potential scale of implementation sites, and in reducing social and financial costs to tenants. As an emerging field, a systematic review format was chosen as a method of providing a ‘state-of-the-art’ analysis for practitioners and researchers in the field of renewable energy and social housing applications. While literature reviews are common in analysis of energy applications across many fields, systematic reviews are much rarer.

Energy efficiency is a complex concept which is represented in diverse fields including engineering, economics, energy, computer sciences, environmental sciences, mathematics and physics. The social sciences literature on energy efficiency, however, remains significantly underrepresented, comprising just 2.6% of the total energy efficiency literature found in this study. Energy efficiency is an important energy policy strategy globally to reduce energy consumption, secure energy supply, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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.

While energy efficiency can contribute significantly towards improving access to modern energy services, energy sector investments in many developing countries have largely focused on increasing energy access by increasing supply. This is because the links between energy efficiency and energy access, is often overlooked. This oversight of energy efficiency is frequently a missed opportunity, as efficiency is often a very cost-effective energy resource.