Accelerating the transition to heat pumps: measuring real-world performance and enabling peer-to-peer learning - An Energy Futures Lab Briefing Paper

Major challenges exist for decarbonising heat in buildings through mass adoption of heat pumps. These include consumer uncertainty and gaps in evidence, data and installer skills. This Energy Futures Lab briefing paper explores in detail the potential impacts and feasibility of one approach to supporting the transition: leveraging early adopters by measuring in-situ heat pump installation outcomes and sharing these as case studies to enable peer-to-peer learning among consumers and installers. Topics discussed include: the role of advice and support in the heat pump adoption customer journey; methods of assessing heat pump and building performance; stakeholder benefits from sharing data; and the context for implementing these recommendations

Managing the transition toward self-sustaining alternative fuel vehicle markets : policy analysis using a dynamic behavioral spatial model

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2007.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references (p. 68-75).Designing public policy or industry strategy to bolster the transition to alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) is a formidable challenge as demonstrated by historical failed attempts. The transition to new fuels occurs within a dynamically complex system with many distributed actors, long time delays, several important feedback relationships, and multiple tipping points. A broad-boundary, behavioral, dynamic model with explicit spatial structure was previously developed to represent the most important AFV transition barriers. Using California as an illustrative testing region, the model simulates the spatial diffusion of entrant vehicle/fuel technology pairs individually or in competition with other entrants. In this work, the integrated model is carefully parameterized for various specific alternative vehicle technologies. Structural and parametric sensitivity analyses are used to build understanding of system behavior and to identify policy leverage points or the need for further model calibration.(cont.) The qualitative impacts of policies are tested individually and then in multi-policy combinations to find synergies. Under plausible assumptions and strong policies, AFVs can achieve successful diffusion but this process requires long time periods. Findings indicate some commonly suggested policies may provide little leverage and be very costly. The analysis reveals the importance of designing policy cognizant of the system structure underlying its dynamic behavior. Several examples demonstrate how policy leverage varies with context such as key attributes of the alternative vehicle technology. Broadly, coordinated portfolios of policy instruments should be designed to simultaneously develop consumer familiarity, well distributed fueling infrastructure, and manufacturer knowledge at similar rates and over long enough duration to surpass thresholds in these complementary assets before alternative fuel and vehicle markets become self-sustaining. Further, policy should dynamically adapt to observed conditions to lessen the transition constraints dominant at the time. Policy and strategy makers must recognize from the outset that incentives must be stable over long durations for AFV transitions to succeed.by Derek R. Supple.S.M

Innovation, growth and the transition to net-zero emissions

The climate crisis and the global economic impact of the Covid-19 crisis occur against a background of slowing growth and widening inequalities, which together imply an urgent need for a new environmentally sustainable and inclusive approach to growth. Investments in "clean" innovation and its diffusion are key to shaping this, accompanied by investments in complementary assets including sustainable infrastructure, and human, natural and social capital which will not only help achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, but will also improve productivity, living standards and the prospects of individuals. In this article, we draw on the theoretical and empirical evidence on the opportunities, drivers and policies for innovation-led sustainable growth. We highlight the importance of a coordinated set of long-term policies and institutions that can enable and foster private sector investments in clean innovation and assets quickly and at scale. In doing so, we draw inspiration from Chris Freeman's work on the system-wide drivers of innovation, and his early vision of achieving environmental sustainability by reorienting growth

Brand Strategies in the Era of Sustainability

Today, brands are powerful instruments of change. They are tightly connected with consumers all over the world and profoundly incorporated into their everyday life and choices they made. Consumers indicate with brands they love and strongly advocate the ideas that are embedded in their philosophy and image. Consequently, companies that own successful brands, which are followed by large group of loyal consumers, have the power to generate modification and even complete shift in consumers’ lifestyle, value system, attitudes and behavior. Accordingly, environmentally friendly brands are inevitable element of sustainable marketing strategy and sustainability concept, given that its implementation requires changes that will trigger mass rather than individuals. However, regardless of positive opinion about socially responsible practice on the market, attitude – behavior gap is widely present among consumers, making segment of green consumers just a market niche. Thus, the most challenging task for marketing and brand managers is to find interest for consumers in a sustainable way of life and to make it easy accessible and attractive for them. This article aims to highlight the leading role of sustainability in branding theory and practice and to point out strategies for successful implementation of green values into the brand management, with an accent on brand equity construct, relying on the results of research and analysis in the given field

Energy supply

The 2019 Exponential Roadmap focuses on moving from incremental to exponential climate action in the next decade. It presents 36 economically- viable solutions to cut global greenhouse gas emissions 50% by 2030 and the strategies to scale this transformation.The roadmap is consistent with the Paris Agreement’s goal to keep global average temperature “well below 2\ub0C” and aiming for 1.5\ub0C above pre- industrial levels.The 2019 roadmap is the second in the series. Each new roadmap updates solutions that have proven potential to scale and charts progress towards exponential scaling. The roadmap, based on the carbon law (see box) is a collaboration between academia, business and civil society.The roadmap is complemented with a high-ambition narrative, Meeting the 1.5\ub0C Ambition, that presents the case why holding global average temperature increase to just 1.5\ub0C above pre-industrial levels is important. Since the first roadmap, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its special report on 1.5\ub0C. The report concluded that the economic and humanitarian risks of a 2\ub0C world are significantly higher than 1.5\ub0C.The remaining emissions budget for 1.5\ub0C is small, and will be exceeded within ten to fifteen years at current emission rates. The window of feasibility is closing rapidly.The global economic benefit of a low-carbon future is estimated at US$26 trillion by 2030 compared with staying on the current high-carbon pathway.The scale of transformation – halving emissions by 2030 – is unprecedented but the speed is not. Some cities and companies can transform significantly faster.Developed nations with significant historic emissions have a responsibility to reduce emissions faster.Greenhouse gas emissions, and the solutions to reduce them, are grouped by six sectors: energy, industry, transport, buildings, food consumption, nature-based solutions (sources and sinks).Meeting the 1.5\ub0C goal means implementing solutions in parallel across all sectors.The solutions must scale exponentially. The roadmap identifies four levers required to scale the transformation as well as necessary actions for each: policy, climate leadership and movements, finance and exponential technology.Implementation must be fair and just or risk deep resistance

State-Business Relations and Investment in Egypt

This study shows that informal relationships between key policymakers and investors have played an important role in raising levels of investment and fostering economic growth. Comparative observations show that common social roots and common professional background facilitate the emergence of an effective public-private growth alliance but the only necessary conditions are common interest and common understanding of the problems to be solved. The comparative research on two old and two new sectors shows in detail how informal relationships have emerged and how they have made an impact but it warns against overstating their investment-enhancing role. Effective relationships between policymakers and investors – abbreviated to CIPI – are not the direct cause of increases in investment but can play a critical role in unleashing the profit potential of specific sectors. Research on the food industry shows how CIPI helped to overcome supply constraints and political obstacles in decision-making. Research on the communications industry shows how CIPI helped Egypt to overcome initial barriers to entry and establish a new industry virtually from scratch. While the gains were sometimes appropriated by a few actors, the research shows that exclusive relationships can have inclusive effects, depending on how the private sector is organised. Quantitative examination of whether CIPI had an enduring investment-enhancing effect was inconclusive. There is no doubt however that the CIPI was an effective transitional arrangement. It helped investors to overcome barriers to economic growth, it helped policymakers to overcome deficiencies in their own government agencies and it helped both sides to work together in establishing new sectorspecific rules and improving the general regulatory framework. The general lesson from this research is that such transitional arrangements deserve more attention, both to gain a better understanding of the political economy of investment and growth and to make research more relevant for policy

Co-ordination and Lock-in: Competition with Switching Costs and Network Effects

Switching costs and network effects bind customers to vendors if products are incompatible, locking customers or even markets in to early choices. Lock-in hinders customers from changing suppliers in response to (predictable or unpredictable) changes in effciency, and gives vendors lucrative ex post market power-over the same buyer in the case of switching costs (or brand loyalty), or over others with network effects. Firms compete ex ante for this ex post power, using penetration pricing, introductory offers, and price wars. Such "competition for the market" or "life-cycle competition" can adequately replace ordinary compatible competition, and can even be fiercer than compatible competition by weakening differentiation. More often, however, incompatible competition not only involves direct effciency losses but also softens competition and magnifies incumbency advantages. With network effects, established firms have little incentive to offer better deals when buyers’ and complementors’ expectations hinge on non-effciency factors (especially history such as past market shares), and although competition between incompatible networks is initially unstable and sensitive to competitive offers and random events, it later "tips" to monopoly, after which entry is hard, often even too hard given incompatibility. And while switching costs can encourage small-scale entry, they discourage sellers from raiding one another’s existing customers, and s also discourage more aggressive entry. Because of these competitive effects, even ineffcient incompatible competition is often more profitable than compatible competition, especially for dominant rms with installed-base or expectational advantages. Thus firms probably seek incompatibility too often. We therefore favor thoughtfully pro-compatibility public policy.

The electric city newspaper: urban age electric city conference (Shoreditch Electric Light Station, London 6-7 December 2012)

In 1879 Thomas Edison invented the light bulb and built the first power station in Pearl Street in Manhattan in 1882, while the German inventor Werner von Siemens installed the first electric elevator in Mannheim in 1880. Since then, electricity has powered – directly or indirectly – the shape and dynamics of urban life. In cities of the developed world, we take for granted that electricity feeds the complex systems which sustain and sometimes spectacularly fail us. In emerging cities of the developing world, a light bulb is still embraced as a symbol of civilisation by some, while others celebrate their urbanity in a visual cacophony of neon. The Electric City is, in many ways, the crucible of patterns of production, consumption and pollution of the 21st century ‘urban age’ as cities struggle with their impact on the social and environmental well-being of the planet. After having tackled the urban economy, health and well-being, violence, security, social inclusion and design at conferences held in – amongst others – Hong Kong, Chicago, New York, São Paulo and Johannesburg, the Urban Age returns to London for its eleventh conference since 2005. We turn our attention to the challenges and responsibilities faced by cities in the digital age as Climate Change and economic pressures continue to define our everyday urban realities. Since its inception, the Urban Age has studied the spatial and social dynamics of over 30 cities in the developed and developing world, collaborated with over 40 academic institutions and municipal authorities and been attended by over 5,000 speakers and participants from urban design, policymaking, research and practice. In London we welcome over 60 speakers from 30 cities in 15 countries across four continents who take part in the two-day Urban Age Electric City conference in the aptly named Shoreditch Electric Light Station in central London – a building that in its own history reflects the connections between power and the city. It opened as an electricity generating station in 1896 to burn rubbish, giving steam for generating electricity with the waste used to heat public baths next door. The motto above the door is ‘E Pulvere Lux Et Vis, or ‘Out Of The Dust, Light And Power’, reflecting a trajectory of sustainable resilience that parallels the themes and issues debated by the protagonists of the Urban Age