The role of monetary information in energy performance certificates: a Slovenian experiment

• Published in: Energy efficiency 2021-10, Vol.14 (7), Article 79
• Main Authors: Lakić, Edin, Carroll, James, Gubina, Andrej F.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Carbon dioxide; Carbon dioxide emissions; Certificates; Construction; Economics and Management; Energy; Energy conservation; Energy consumption; Energy Efficiency; Energy Policy; Environment; Environmental Economics; Environmental labelling; Housing; Labels; Original Article; Renewable and Green Energy; Residential energy; Retrofitting; Sustainable Development
• ISSN: 1570-646X; 1570-6478
• DOI: 10.1007/s12053-021-09995-4

Buildings consume around 40% of energy and emit 36% of CO 2 emissions and, as the largest single energy consumer in Europe, offer the opportunity for significant savings. Building energy labels, also known as Energy Performance Certificates, are a method of providing home buyers with information about the estimated energy consumption of a particular home, enabling them to make more informed decisions in the property market and hopefully encouraging the construction of more energy-efficient homes because of the extra premiums they should charge. There is imperfect information available on the cost-saving effects of efficiency improvements, and the aim of this paper is to examine the role of current building energy labels and the effects of framing this information in terms of its monetary impact on energy bills by conducting a discrete choice experiment. The modelling results show that when monetary estimates are included as part of Energy Performance Certificates, the willingness to pay for higher levels of building energy performance increases by 47%. These results suggest that the inclusion of such monetary information has the potential to increase the value that consumers attach to more energy-efficient homes, thereby creating an incentive to either build better energy-efficient homes or retrofit current housing stock to increase its value.