Transferring the Dutch success of voluntary agreements with industry to other countries

Nicole van Beeck, SenterNovem, The Netherlands

Keywords

energy policy, industry, energy efficiency, voluntary agreements, long term agreements, knowledge transfer

Abstract

Many countries in Europe, in particular the New Member States, struggle with the effective implementation of EU directives on energy, leaving a large part of the potential for energy efficiency untouched. Voluntary agreements between government and industry appear to be an attractive alternative. The Dutch voluntary agreement scheme, called Long Term Agreements (LTAs), has proven to be a flexible cost-effective instrument that can complement the EU emission-trading scheme to better exploit the full energy efficiency potential in industry. Recently, several countries have expressed their interest in the Dutch approach.

This paper addresses the transfer of the Dutch LTA approach to other countries, based on experiences in Bulgaria and Romania. In particular, the paper describes the key factors which determine the success of the LTAs and discusses an approach (including indicators) for successful transfer of Dutch LTA knowledge to a different economic, legal, and socio-cultural context.

A first project on LTA knowledge transfer in Bulgaria shows that the LTA concept can be transferred successfully to other countries, if the transfer process is divided into phases, and cultural aspects and key factors for success are taken into account.