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Green recovery needs positive narratives on energy transition; study

(eceee news, 5 Oct 2021) The proposed revision of the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) by the European Commission under its “Fit for 55” package, targets a more ambitious binding annual target for reducing energy use at the EU level. However, Member States’ progress in energy efficiency remains too slow, according to a study by the EU-funded project the Energy Efficiency Watch 4 (EEW4) where eceee is a project partner.

One main conclusion of its forerunner, EEW3, is that the ups and downs in countries’ policies will remain as long as the benefits of energy efficiency is not sufficiently understood by policy makers.

A key aspect of the EEW4 project is to create a better understanding of which topics are most likely to create strong and effective narratives that are supportive of the energy transition. The aim is to find the narratives that apply to people that are not within the society of climate change acceptance. When arguing for policy changes, the “why” is often missing.

We need narratives that supports the energy transition and that are applicable to all parts of society, the project concludes.

A survey, presented in May 2021, looks for a deeper understanding on what consitutes a succesful narrative.

Progess of energy

In terms of energy progress, the EU27 average remains quite unchanged, compared to the 2015 survey. Countries where experts reported the highest recent progress in additional policies are Luxembourg, Finland and Estonia. The least progress in new policies over the past 3 years was found in Hungary and Malta, followed by Romania and Poland.

The most significant positive changes since 2015 took place in Spain, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, and the most negative changes are reported for Romania, Germany, Slovenia and Croatia, according to the survey.

Key findings

The survey poses the question: Are we talking about the right things to the right people? Some of the key findings are:

• New messages and new stakeholder interactions are needed to speed up the acceptance of energy
• More attention is needed for the positive economic impacts of energy efficiency on jobs, industry and competitiveness
• Lack of Member State ambition is often due to opposition of key stakeholder groups
  

• There is a need for better data on benefits beyond climate protection and cost savings, e. g., indicators and quantification of job and competitiveness impacts of energy efficiency and the energy transition

There is a unique opportunitiy to reposition energy efficiency as a key recovery strategy in the green recovery, but this requires much better narratives, the project concludes.

View the study here

Energy Efficiency Watch web site