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The pulp and paper industry faces several challenges linked to climate and environmental impact, resource efficiency, rising energy prices, increased competition for biomass resources, and declining demand for traditional printed paper products. However, these challenges also offer strategic opportunities for the industry to develop into a competitive, resource-efficient, and low-carbon industry in line with a biobased economy. Against this background, this paper aims to analyse current energy strategies in the pulp and paper industry in Sweden. Specifically, the paper analyses how companies combine continuous process efficiency to reduce energy costs with activities that could be developed into new energy-related products to increase revenue. Most of the analysed companies work to various degrees with both these strategies, employing methods that include improving energy efficiency, energy security, and energy conversion, as well as developing a wide range of biobased energy products. However, our study indicates that there is an untapped potential associated with energy product development, and we conclude that energy efficiency measures can free up resources, enabling the development of new energy products. Finally, several potential managerial outcomes and implications are outlined. • The paper analyses the energy strategies in the pulp and paper industry in Sweden. • Energy strategies focus both to improve energy efficiency and develop new energy-products. • The companies' energy strategies combined exploitation and exploration. • A number of managerial implications are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines renovation strategies among owners of rental housing in Sweden in response to European energy policies that promote deep renovation as a means to reduce carbon emissions from residential buildings. Case studies of ten housing companies, seven public and three private, were designed with the aim to examine housing owners’ attitudes and renovation strategies, and how policies and objectives for energy efficiency become incorporated into these attitudes and strategies. Results are illustrated in typologies that distinguish between renovation strategies with either a more commercial or a more societal focus and spanning between deep and partial renovation. The typologies can be used to discuss how different aspects influence renovation, and illustrates how strategies change over time. The study identifies a trend in which housing owners are increasingly relying on partial or over-time renovation. Cost is one important driver, but social responsibility toward tenants and in some cases the protection of cultural heritage are also found to be important. A distrust of fixed models for renovation was observed. The paper questions the concept of deep renovation and suggests instead partial and over-time renovation as a way forward toward sustainable renovation. Partial renovation can bring together energy efficiency with environmental, financial, social, and cultural objectives of housing management. If managed properly, over-time renovation can reduce the risk of an investment, and has the advantage of allowing future technological advancements in energy efficiency to be included in current planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public acceptability appears an essential condition for the success of low-carbon transition policies. In this paper, we investigate the role of self-interest on citizens' preferences for the distribution of costs and environmental benefits of energy efficiency policies. Using a discrete choice experiment on nationally representative household samples of Sweden, Italy, and the United Kingdom, we first investigate preferences for national burden-sharing rules and for the distribution of environmental benefits accruing primarily in rural and/or urban areas. We examine the role of self-interest and self-serving bias in a correlational manner by looking at the effects of income and location of residency on preferences for these policy attributes. Moreover, we investigate the effect of self-serving bias on preferences for burden-sharing rules in a causal manner by experimentally priming randomly assigned groups of participants to feel either rich or poor. Our results suggest that the accountability rule is the most popular and the equal-amount rule the least popular burden-sharing rule. Further, policies with environmental benefits accruing primarily in rural areas are least preferred. We find some evidence for self-interest, especially through our correlational approach. Finally, across country samples, our results reveal heterogeneity in preferences for policy attributes and in the prevalence of self-interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Industrial energy programs such as energy audit programs and long-term agreements (LTAs) are one of the most common means of promoting energy efficiency in industry. As a result of the European Energy End-Use Efficiency and Energy Services Directive from 2006, the Swedish Government Bill proposed a national energy program towards industrial small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) using more than 500MWh energy annually. The aim of this paper is to present the structure and design of the program, adopted in 2010, the logics in brief behind the structure, as well as an ex-ante evaluation of the program’s cost-effectiveness. The paper is aimed towards the part of the program involving industry, i.e. not the part involving companies within service and sales etc. The proposed design primarily includes a subsidized energy audit with some minor LTA-elements, such as the need to report results from the energy audit, to present a plan over which measures to conduct, and after three years present which measures that were implemented. The ex-ante evaluation of the program shows a cost-effectiveness of 0.25–0.50Eurocents/kWh, yielding savings of about 700–1 400GWh annually. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The paper focuses on Swedish homeowners’ need for and perceptions about adopting building envelop energy efficiency measures. The paper is based on a questionnaire survey of 3059 homeowners (response rate of 36%) selected by stratified random sampling during the summer of 2008. The results showed that 70–90% of the respondents had no intention of adopting such a measure over the next 10years. The main reasons for non-adoption were that homeowners were satisfied with the physical condition, thermal performance, and aesthetics of their existing building envelope components. A greater proportion of respondents perceived that improved attic insulation has more advantages than energy efficient windows and improved wall insulation, but windows were more likely to be installed than improved attic insulation. Respondents gave high priority to economic factors in deciding on an energy efficiency measure. Interpersonal sources, construction companies, installers, and energy advisers were important sources of information for homeowners as they planned to adopt building envelope energy efficiency measures. Policy measures to facilitate the rate of adoption of energy efficient building envelope measures are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In order to tap the energy saving and climate mitigation potential of buildings, transaction costs of implementing energy efficient technologies need to be better understood and ultimately reduced. The objective of this paper is to identify and analyze the nature and scale of transaction costs resulting from the application of the passive house concept in energy efficient renovations. Related conceptual choices are also discussed. This study explores learning strategies as a potential to reduce transaction costs. It focuses on transaction costs borne by building owners and building developers in the planning and implementation phases of a passive house-oriented renovation in Sweden. Results reveal three main sources of transaction costs: due diligence, negotiations and monitoring. The analysis shows that transaction costs are non-negligible and for individual cost sources the scale can be three times higher than for conventional renovations. To reduce transaction costs, various learning strategies such as study visits, demonstration projects, new forms of meetings and new channels of (written) information were found. These strategies have the potential to half transaction costs of future renovation projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapidly growing energy use in the building sector is considered a serious problem by both the European Union (EU) and Sweden. Reducing energy demand in the building sector is important for Sweden in order to reach national energy goals for reduced energy use and CO 2 emissions in the future. This project aims to find energy efficiency potential in multifamily buildings in the Gävleborg region, which is a cold climate region in Sweden. Measurements and simulations have been made on eleven multifamily buildings from the whole region. The results include different energy efficiency measure packages, profitability analysis of individual measures and packages, and primary energy use analysis. The paper also includes CO 2 emissions reduction analysis based on different methods. The project shows that the multifamily buildings in the Gävleborg region have good potential to reduce their energy use by more than 50%, which in turn will contribute to 43% primary energy reduction and 48% CO 2 emissions reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) are being renewed across Europe. • Old and renewed EPCs for Swedish multifamily buildings are matched and compared. • A three-step method is developed to ensure that matched EPCs are comparable. • Novel quantitative, building-specific analyses of change in energy use are enabled. • Future applications of matched EPCs include evaluation of renovations and policies. Energy Performance Certificates are currently one of the most extensive data sources about the energy performance of the EUs building stock and consequently provide support for researchers and policy makers in energy regulation. As Energy Performance Certificates are being renewed, there are new possibilities to study energy performance development over time and to evaluate the building-specific effect of energy policies and measures. This paper aims to explore this possibility. In Sweden, owners of multifamily buildings had to obtain their first Energy Performance Certificate no later than the end of 2008, and with a period of validity of 10 years many owners have now obtained a second Energy Performance Certificate for their building(s). This enables unprecedented quantitative, building-specific evaluations of the change in energy performance over time. However, comparability between old and new Energy Performance Certificates must be assured. This study develops a novel three-step method to attain comparability between old and renewed Energy Performance Certificates. Results show that while many pairs of Energy Performance Certificates were considered comparable, procedural changes in methods for determining heated floor area in Swedish Energy Performance Certificates caused an overestimation of energy performance improvement of approximately 7 kWh/m2 per building which had to be corrected for. The results of this paper indicate that old and renewed Energy Performance Certificates can be utilised to successfully map development of energy performance and enable evaluation of the impact on energy performance from policies and measures that have been carried out between the two points of audit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper presents the Energy, Carbon and Cost Assessment for Building Stocks (ECCABS) model, which is a bottom-up model to assess energy-saving measures (ESM) and carbon dioxide (CO2) mitigation strategies in building stocks. The model is based on a one-zone hourly heat balance that calculates the net energy demand for a number of buildings representative of the building stock and an additional code for the input and output data. The model generates results in terms of net and delivered energy, associated CO2 emissions, and the costs of implementing different ESM. The results are extended to the entire building stock by means of weighting factors. Empirical and comparative validations of the heat-balance modelling of single buildings are presented. The building stock modelling is validated against the current Swedish residential stock, for which the results of the modelling are in agreement with the statistical data. Using the model to assess a number of ESM reveals that the energy usage of the Swedish residential sector can be reduced by 55% and the associated CO2 emissions can be reduced by 63%, with most of the ESM being cost–effective. The applicability of the model to countries other than Sweden is under investigation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]