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    Incentivizing Energy Efficiency In Public Buildings Through Information Disclosure: North Carolina Community Colleges As Case Study

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    Date
    2010-05-06
    Author
    Jackson, Charles
    Advisor
    Wiener, Jonathan
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    Abstract
    The energy efficiency gap, which describes the difference between current and socially optimal levels of energy efficiency, has persisted for decades, even as our nation’s energy intensity has improved. Economics literature tends to focus on informational, behavioral, and large-scale market failures when positing the causes of the gap. However, state and local policy failures may greatly contribute to the gap as well. Information disclosure policies are particularly well suited to narrow the energy efficiency gap, because they cost-effectively address behavioral and informational failures and can be easily implemented on the local level. The Federal Government has utilized such policies to vastly improve the energy efficiency of its buildings’ stock, but state and local governments have been slow to follow suit. This Master’s project investigates the potential of utilizing information disclosure policies to narrow the energy efficiency gap in public buildings at the local level by analyzing the North Carolina Community College System as a case study. First, analysis of the Toxics Release Inventory, the archetypal environmental information disclosure policy in the United States, yields recommendations for incentivizing energy efficiency in public buildings. Next, a comparative analysis of energy consumption in South Carolina Technical Colleges reveals that the potential for cost-effective, near-term energy efficiency investments in North Carolina Community Colleges could yield annual savings of ~$5 Million. Finally, lessons are drawn from South Carolina’s early adoption of information disclosure policies to yield concluding recommendations for bolstering information disclosure policies in North Carolina. Stronger information disclosure policies coupled with polices that rectify local policy failures could better incentivize energy efficiency in North Carolina’s Community College buildings.
    Type
    Master's project
    Department
    Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences
    Subject
    information disclosure
    building energy labeling
    energy efficiency
    community colleges
    Toxics Release Inventory
    incentives
    Permalink
    https://hdl.handle.net/10161/2252
    Citation
    Jackson, Charles (2010). Incentivizing Energy Efficiency In Public Buildings Through Information Disclosure: North Carolina Community Colleges As Case Study. Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/2252.
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    Creative Commons License
    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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