Raising awareness for energy efficiency in the service sector: learning from success stories to disseminate good practices

Energy efficiency in the service sector is a key issue because of the important growth of its energy consumption. The energy performance of buildings and equipment can be improved through technical investments, but this has to be linked with an efficient management and good practices in order to reach better energy efficiency levels in a cost-effective way. Experience feedback concerning awareness activities in the service sector highlights the interesting opportunities of energy efficiency improvements they represent. This paper first draws a synthesis of the available feedback in this area to detect factors of success for this kind of activities. More than twenty operations from Europe and North America were analyzed looking at items such as the stakeholders involved, the actions implemented, the communication means, and the evaluation performed. Then a case study describes an EDF pilot operation in South East of France. An awareness campaign was led in four particular EDF buildings to inform the employees of the best practices and to involve them to apply these advice. Different action packages were used to compare their efficiency. The evaluation emphasizes the success of the operation, with around 10% of energy savings (i.e. more than 270 MWh/a). More than 80% of the employees said they changed their energy behavior and other indicators show their commitment and satisfaction towards the campaign. Finally, suggestions are made to disseminate good practices at a broader scale, especially out of the "initiated" circle. Building up a know-how from the evaluation of past experiences makes easier the development of process such as networking, experience sharing, and including these activities in energy services offers and in white certificates systems.