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Energy efficiency: Building labels lead to savings

Nature Energy volume 2, Article number: 17055 (2017) Cite this article

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Various programmes have been introduced to increase energy efficiency in buildings. A study of commercial buildings in Los Angeles, USA, now finds that voluntary certification programmes have been effective at lowering energy use, bringing savings of up to 30%.

The energy efficiency gap — sometimes referred to as the energy paradox — is a long-standing puzzle to researchers and energy policymakers. The phenomenon refers to the fact that people appear to underinvest in energy improvements that could more than pay for themselves in terms of the energy savings they yield. A recent study suggested that energy efficiency measures could reduce CO2 equivalent emissions by 11 Gt in 2030 at zero net cost1. Many options identified in the study are available at a negative cost. Why then do consumers fail to pick up these proverbial twenty-dollar bills on the sidewalk? Economists have offered several possible explanations, which can be grouped into three categories: market failures, behavioural explanations, and missing or poorly measured costs2. One of the market failures that has received most attention is that of missing, incomplete, or asymmetric information. These information failures are the focus of a new study in Nature Energy by Omar Asensio and Magali Delmas3 that analyses how voluntary energy performance certifications, which bring information about building energy performance to the marketplace, have affected energy use in commercial buildings.

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  1. Margaret Walls is at Resources for the Future, 1616 P Street NW, Washington DC 20036, USA.,

    Margaret Walls

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  1. Margaret Walls
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Correspondence to Margaret Walls.

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Walls, M. Energy efficiency: Building labels lead to savings. Nat Energy 2, 17055 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nenergy.2017.55

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nenergy.2017.55

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