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Energy efficiency in the food retail sector: barriers, drivers and acceptable policies

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Abstract

The objectives of this research are to examine empirically the drivers and barriers to energy efficiency measures in an important energy-using sector, namely, the food retail sector, and to gain an understanding of more effective energy efficiency policies in this sector. Although food retailers consume a significant amount of energy due to the specialised needs of stores, there has been little research on the barriers and drivers of energy efficiency measures in this sector. A survey of small food retailers was carried out to understand attitudes to energy efficiency measures and to examine the acceptability of different energy efficiency policy options. In addition, external stakeholders were consulted in order to validate and contextualise the results of the survey. We find that there is a complementary relationship between energy efficiency barriers and drivers for food retailers and that it is remarkably coherent. We identify policies, such as subsidies and support for ESCOs, that exploit both the complementarities between barriers and drivers and are acceptable to food retailers also. This methodology should help identify and design more effective policies to deliver energy efficiency improvements in the food retail and other services subsectors.

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Notes

  1. Mankiw (1998) defines market failures when the market fails to allocate resources efficiently. These include misplaced or split incentives, distortionary fiscal and regulatory policies, unpriced costs such as air pollution, unpriced goods such as education, training, technological advances, insufficient and incorrect information (Jaffe and Stavins 1994; Brown 2001). Market barriers are those barriers which are not only classified as market failures but also impact on the adoption of EE procedures and technologies. They may include transaction costs, access to capital and behavioural barriers (Sorrell et al. 2004).

  2. The type of energy efficiency measures was not specified, and this might explain some of the variation in acceptable payback times.

  3. The relationship between the factors (barriers, drivers and acceptability) is illustrative rather than quantitative and based on their relative importance. For example, the weighted score of the most acceptable policy (subsidies) is 300, while the weighted score of the most significant barrier (costs) is 55. What is notable is that subsidies are the most acceptable policy, and costs are the most significant barrier.

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Acknowledgements

This work has emanated from research supported in part by a research grant from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) under the SFI Strategic Partnership Programme Grant number SFI/15/SPP/E3125 and in part under the PRTLI ERC:GI programme.

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  1. University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Christopher Dixon-O’Mara

  2. School of Economics, Energy Institute, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland

    Lisa Ryan

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Correspondence to Lisa Ryan.

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Dixon-O’Mara, C., Ryan, L. Energy efficiency in the food retail sector: barriers, drivers and acceptable policies. Energy Efficiency 11, 445–464 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-017-9577-5

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