Employer-led increase of households' energy efficiency

The share of household energy consumption and CO₂ emissions: Households account for about 30% of the final energy consumption and about 40% of the CO₂ emissions in the EU and Switzerland. Hence, significant improvements in Europe's greenhouse gas balance could be obtained by investing in currently available and new energy efficiency measures at the household level. Since on an aggregate level we find similar figures worldwide, scaling up to a global level would be equally important.

The reduction potential: The energy consumption and emission reduction potential is immense. According to a scenario analysis commissioned by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE), the total energy consumption of the Swiss residential sector can be reduced by up to 5 GJ per capita (14%) until 2020, currently amounting to about 35 GJ per capita, with similar values for the EU member states. A recent analysis of the EU Commission indicates that emission levels of the EU residential and services sector need to decrease by 37-53% by 2030 and by 88-91% by 2050 compared to 1990 levels in order to meet the EU climate target as laid out in their 2050 Roadmap.

The approach and its leverage: Top-down/governmental approaches, such as granted feed-in tariffs for decentralised, small-scale renewable energy, seem to not fully reach their potential in tackling carbon emissions and energy consumption at the household level and inducing the corresponding behavioural change. However, in the recent past, national and international firms voluntarily started offering incentives to their employees in order to improve their households' CO₂ balances. These incentives included for example the subsidisation of the purchase of energy efficient household appliances, alternatives to individual motorised mobility or fossil fuel free energy generation for employee homes. Off4Firms facilitates such incentive schemes, offering adequate research and analysis for a company to introduce attractive mitigation measures to its employees.

Off4Firms provides a broad and ample portfolio of possible CO₂ and energy reduction measures along with a tool kit for selecting from this portfolio the "optimal" measures with respect to the characteristics of the corresponding company and their particular employee base.

A systematic performance evaluation of CO₂ and energy saving measures provides the customer with qualitative and quantitative information on the achieved environmental performance. The results of this evaluation and monitoring are provided in a user-friendly way, so that it can easily be included in the company's reporting streams (CSR performance, CSR report, integrated report, public / stakeholder relations).

We aim at long-term partnerships with our customers, continuingly offering them new and innovative technologies and measures suitable for employee engagement. Our close affiliation with the pan‑European Knowledge and Innovation Community Climate‑KIC, which supports entrepreneurs and start‑ups in field of climate innovation, guarantees access to the most recent and attractive solution.

The Off4Firms service is structured into three stages: Analysis, Implementation and Reporting Support. In the analysis stage, we will gather information directly from management and staff, in order to identify the most suitable measures and the means of their implementation as well as the monitoring and reporting targets for a specific firm. The implementation stage entails the setting up of the monitoring platform and the realisation of the chosen measures. Finally the reporting support stage brings together all the results and achievements of the implemented measures. These results consist of quantitative and qualitative data representing the achieved emission reductions and behavioural impacts the company has realised. In addition to the data, the support provides facilitation on how to best report the achievements, in respect to various reporting standards and communication channels. Reviewing the performance of the realised activities, new measures can be selected for the next period, or existing ones can be continued. The growing portfolio of integrated measures guarantees to offer adequate and attractive means of engaging employees in climate friendly actions.

Contacts: Professor R. Schubert, ETH Zurich (Schubert@econ.gess.ethz.ch); Thomas Camerata, South Pole Carbon (t.camerata@southpolecarbon.com)