IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/kthrec/2015_001.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Who will close the energy efficiency gap? A quantitative study of what characterizes ambitious housing firms in Sweden

Author

Listed:
  • Högberg, Lovisa

    (Department of Real Estate and Construction Management, Royal Institute of Technology)

Abstract

This paper reports the results from a study that attempts to identify factors that characterize housing firms with particularly ambitious approaches to energy efficiency in connection to renovation. The aim of the study was to identify factors that correlate with ambitious firms and the market they operate in. The study builds on previous results that identified four ideal types among Swedish housing firms, ranging from not ambitious to very ambitious with regards to energy efficiency. Based on the ideal types, this paper uses three levels of ambition and focuses on the more ambitious levels to see if there are factors that co-vary with an ambitious approach. Six hypotheses were formulated; ambitious firms were believed to be municipal, to be operating in markets with high and/or volatile energy prices, to be operating in strong markets, to have building portfolios in need of renovation, to be large and to have an expert employee who champions energy efficiency issues. Using web survey results from housing firms, an ordered probit model was used to test if level of ambition as the independent variable and a number of firm and market specific factors as dependent variables The results indicate support for some of the hypotheses; the probability of being ambitious increases if firms are municipally owned, have a building portfolio in need of renovation and have an employee who champions the energy efficiency issues. There were no indications that high/volatile energy prices, strong markets or firm size influence the probability of being more ambitious.

Suggested Citation

  • Högberg, Lovisa, 2015. "Who will close the energy efficiency gap? A quantitative study of what characterizes ambitious housing firms in Sweden," Working Paper Series 15/1, Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Real Estate and Construction Management & Banking and Finance.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:kthrec:2015_001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://kth.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:783673/FULLTEXT01.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kenneth Gillingham & Karen Palmer, 2014. "Bridging the Energy Efficiency Gap: Policy Insights from Economic Theory and Empirical Evidence," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 8(1), pages 18-38, January.
    2. Nakamura, Masao & Takahashi, Takuya & Vertinsky, Ilan, 2001. "Why Japanese Firms Choose to Certify: A Study of Managerial Responses to Environmental Issues," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 23-52, July.
    3. Hunt Allcott & Michael Greenstone, 2012. "Is There an Energy Efficiency Gap?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(1), pages 3-28, Winter.
    4. Grant D. Jacobsen & Matthew J. Kotchen, 2013. "Are Building Codes Effective at Saving Energy? Evidence from Residential Billing Data in Florida," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(1), pages 34-49, March.
    5. Anin Aroonruengsawat, Maximilian Auffhammer, and Alan H. Sanstad, 2012. "The Impact of State Level Building Codes on Residential Electricity Consumption," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    6. Allcott, Hunt, 2011. "Social norms and energy conservation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9-10), pages 1082-1095, October.
    7. Jakob, Martin, 2006. "Marginal costs and co-benefits of energy efficiency investments: The case of the Swiss residential sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 172-187, January.
    8. Lovisa Högberg & Hans Lind & Kristina Grange, 2009. "Incentives for Improving Energy Efficiency When Renovating Large-Scale Housing Estates: A Case Study of the Swedish Million Homes Programme," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 1(4), pages 1-17, December.
    9. Fleiter, Tobias & Schleich, Joachim & Ravivanpong, Ployplearn, 2012. "Adoption of energy-efficiency measures in SMEs—An empirical analysis based on energy audit data from Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 863-875.
    10. Allcott, Hunt, 2011. "Social norms and energy conservation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9), pages 1082-1095.
    11. Jaffe, Adam B. & Stavins, Robert N., 1994. "The energy-efficiency gap What does it mean?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(10), pages 804-810, October.
    12. Lucas W. Davis, 2008. "Durable goods and residential demand for energy and water: evidence from a field trial," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(2), pages 530-546, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dalia Streimikiene & Tomas Balezentis & Irena Alebaite, 2020. "Climate Change Mitigation in Households between Market Failures and Psychological Barriers," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-21, June.
    2. Kenneth Gillingham & Karen Palmer, 2014. "Bridging the Energy Efficiency Gap: Policy Insights from Economic Theory and Empirical Evidence," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 8(1), pages 18-38, January.
    3. Ramos, A. & Gago, A. & Labandeira, X. & Linares, P., 2015. "The role of information for energy efficiency in the residential sector," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(S1), pages 17-29.
    4. Anna Alberini, Will Gans, and Charles Towe, 2016. "Free Riding, Upsizing, and Energy Efficiency Incentives in Maryland Homes," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    5. Suter, Jordan F. & Shammin, Md Rumi, 2013. "Returns to residential energy efficiency and conservation measures: A field experiment," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 551-561.
    6. Todd D. Gerarden & Richard G. Newell & Robert N. Stavins, 2017. "Assessing the Energy-Efficiency Gap," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1486-1525, December.
    7. Fischbacher, Urs & Schudy, Simeon & Teyssier, Sabrina, 2021. "Heterogeneous preferences and investments in energy saving measures," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    8. Laura Abrardi, 2019. "Behavioral barriers and the energy efficiency gap: a survey of the literature," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 46(1), pages 25-43, March.
    9. Louis-Gaëtan Giraudet & S. Houde, 2013. "Double moral hazard and the energy efficiency gap," Post-Print hal-00799725, HAL.
    10. Trotta, Gianluca, 2018. "Factors affecting energy-saving behaviours and energy efficiency investments in British households," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 529-539.
    11. Chersoni, Giulia & DellaValle, Nives & Fontana, Magda, 2022. "Modelling thermal insulation investment choice in the EU via a behaviourally informed agent-based model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    12. Mark A. Andor & David H. Bernstein & Stephan Sommer, 2021. "Determining the efficiency of residential electricity consumption," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 60(6), pages 2897-2923, June.
    13. Giraudet, Louis-Gaëtan, 2020. "Energy efficiency as a credence good: A review of informational barriers to energy savings in the building sector," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    14. d'Adda, Giovanna & Galliera, Arianna & Tavoni, Massimo, 2020. "Urgency and engagement: Empirical evidence from a large-scale intervention on energy use awareness," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    15. Louis-Gaëtan Giraudet, 2018. "Energy efficiency as a credence good: A review of informational barriers to building energy savings," Working Papers 2018.07, FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
    16. Kube, Roland & von Graevenitz, Kathrine & Löschel, Andreas & Massier, Philipp, 2019. "Do voluntary environmental programs reduce emissions? EMAS in the German manufacturing sector," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(S1).
    17. Stefano Ceolotto & Eleanor Denny, 2021. "Putting a new 'spin' on energy labels: measuring the impact of reframing energy efficiency on tumble dryer choices in a multi-country experiment," Trinity Economics Papers tep1521, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics.
    18. Schleich, Joachim & Gassmann, Xavier & Faure, Corinne & Meissner, Thomas, 2016. "Making the implicit explicit: A look inside the implicit discount rate," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 321-331.
    19. Häckel, Björn & Pfosser, Stefan & Tränkler, Timm, 2017. "Explaining the energy efficiency gap - Expected Utility Theory versus Cumulative Prospect Theory," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 414-426.
    20. Matilde Giaccherini & David H. Herberich & David Jimenez-Gomez & John A. List & Giovanni Ponti & Michael K. Price, 2019. "The Behavioralist Goes Door-To-Door: Understanding Household Technological Diffusion Using a Theory-Driven Natural Field Experiment," NBER Working Papers 26173, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    energy efficiciency; housing; sustainable renovation; incentives; drivers;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • Q55 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Technological Innovation
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:kthrec:2015_001. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Cecilia Hermansson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifkthse.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.