BEST POLICY PRACTICES FOR PROMOTING ENERGY EFFICIENCY

Today, any answers to the question ‘what should we do to improve energy efficiency?’ will have to advance beyond the notion of simply ‘saving energy’ to an enhanced paradigm of policy options prompted by:

• the United Nations Secretary General’s call to ‘double the global rate of energy efficiency improvement by 2030’ in order to advance economic and social development and address global climate challenges;
• a growing recognition that policies are most successful when they stimulate private sector investment in energy efficiency;
• recent analysis that shows that energy efficiency is available at a scale that over time can become the ‘first fuel’ for many countries;
• a desire in many nations for smart stimulatory alternatives to the austerity responses to the 2008 global financial crisis;
• more is expected from energy efficiency policies than in the past. Countries seek policies that deliver substantial economic outcomes from investments. Energy efficiency policies must deliver social and economic ‘Multiple Benefits’ as well as environmental outcomes, and act as a tool for development in emerging countries.

This report sets forth a suite of existing energy efficiency policies that stand out as best practices. The policies identified in this report include exemplars of best practices in energy efficiency policies from around the globe, drawn from respected and objective policy evaluations and databases.