Who will close the energy efficiency gap? A quantitative study of what characterizes ambitious housing firms in Sweden

Lovisa Högberg ()
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Lovisa Högberg: Department of Real Estate and Construction Management, Royal Institute of Technology, Postal: Department of Real Estate and Construction Management , Royal Institute of Technology, Brinellvägen 1, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

No 15/1, Working Paper Series from Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Real Estate and Construction Management & Banking and Finance

Abstract: This paper reports the results from a study that attempts to identify factors that characterize housing firms with particularly ambitious approaches to energy efficiency in connection to renovation. The aim of the study was to identify factors that correlate with ambitious firms and the market they operate in. The study builds on previous results that identified four ideal types among Swedish housing firms, ranging from not ambitious to very ambitious with regards to energy efficiency. Based on the ideal types, this paper uses three levels of ambition and focuses on the more ambitious levels to see if there are factors that co-vary with an ambitious approach. Six hypotheses were formulated; ambitious firms were believed to be municipal, to be operating in markets with high and/or volatile energy prices, to be operating in strong markets, to have building portfolios in need of renovation, to be large and to have an expert employee who champions energy efficiency issues. Using web survey results from housing firms, an ordered probit model was used to test if level of ambition as the independent variable and a number of firm and market specific factors as dependent variables The results indicate support for some of the hypotheses; the probability of being ambitious increases if firms are municipally owned, have a building portfolio in need of renovation and have an employee who champions the energy efficiency issues. There were no indications that high/volatile energy prices, strong markets or firm size influence the probability of being more ambitious.

Keywords: energy efficiciency; housing; sustainable renovation; incentives; drivers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H23 Q55 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2015-01-26
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm and nep-ene
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