Policy instruments to improve energy efficiency in buildings

The newly adopted energy efficiency directive (2012/27/EU) highlights the importance of energy efficiency in reaching the Union’s 2020 targets. The directive commits member states to defining national energy efficiency targets (art. 3), achieving yearly energy savings of 1.5% of the annual energy sales through the energy efficiency obligation scheme (art. 7), and providing a long-term strategy for the building sector that aims at a 3% refurbishment rate for public buildings (art. 4+5). Buildings currently account for 40% of energy use in most countries, putting them among the largest end-use sectors. This report takes a closer look at the best practices for implementing increasing energy efficiency in different regions and countries in Europe. The final aim is to identify some policy tools to be suggested to the region of Dalarna (Dalarna having been chosen as the pilot county in Sweden) as a means of implementing energy efficiency in the building sector. The final objective is to give analysts and decision-makers a better analytical foundation to explore future policy development in the area of buildings to be proposed and tested at the regional level in Dalarna and later at the national level in Sweden.

Depicting the interplay between organisational tiers in the use of a national quality registry to develop quality of care in Sweden

BACKGROUND: With a pending need to identify potential means to improved quality of care, national quality registries (NQRs) are identified as a promising route. Yet, there is limited evidence with regards to what hinders and facilitates the NQR innovation, what signifies the contexts in which NQRs are applied and drive quality improvement. Supposedly, barriers and facilitators to NQR-driven quality improvement may be found in the healthcare context, in the politico-administrative context, as well as with an NQR itself. In this study, we investigated the potential variation with regards to if and how an NQR was applied by decision-makers and users in regions and clinical settings. The aim was to depict the interplay between the clinical and the politico-administrative tiers in the use of NQRs to develop quality of care, examining an established registry on stroke care as a case study. METHODS: We interviewed 44 individuals representing the clinical and the politico-administrative settings of 4 out of 21 regions strategically chosen for including stroke units representing a variety of outcomes in the NQR on stroke (Riksstroke) and a variety of settings. The transcribed interviews were analysed by applying The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR). RESULTS: In two regions, decision-makers and/or administrators had initiated healthcare process projects for stroke, engaging the health professionals in the local stroke units who contributed with, for example, local data from Riksstroke. The Riksstroke data was used for identifying improvement issues, for setting goals, and asserting that the stroke units achieved an equivalent standard of care and a certain level of quality of stroke care. Meanwhile, one region had more recently initiated such a project and the fourth region had no similar collaboration across tiers. Apart from these projects, there was limited joint communication across tiers and none that included all individuals and functions engaged in quality improvement with regards to stroke care. CONCLUSIONS: If NQRs are to provide for quality improvement and learning opportunities, advances must be made in the links between the structures and processes across all organisational tiers, including decision-makers, administrators and health professionals engaged in a particular healthcare process.

Making Energy Interventions more Effective : Situation, Interaction, and Precondition

A main purpose of this paper is to propose to policy makers, building professionals, and other non-social scientists a way to make energy interventions more culturally informed and, thereby, more effective. The case study on house purchasers gives an ample illustration of the richer results that can be achieved by paying attention to three aspects of energy efficiency initiatives: the contexts and situations of choice in each particular case, the interaction among relevant social actors, and the culture-specific preconditions for choice. Research on how purchasers of new pre-fabricated houses in Sweden choose their heating system show how such decisions tend to fall between two stools. Furthermore, the organizational structure of housing companies frames house purchasers' decision making. An important result is that energy saving or conversion measures must be promoted at an early stage amongst those who plan and construct buildings (rather than later amongst dwellers and energy end users).