Weathering the Energy Crisis: Can Tailored Information to Local Governments Spur Climate Action?

The United Kingdom ranks among the worst European countries in terms of residential energy efficiency and fuel poverty. Although local governments have the tools to influence building upgrades, lack of coordination across levels of government and a systemic under-funding have hindered council’s ability to foster energy efficiency investments. The paper presented in this ZEW Research Seminar implements a randomised controlled trial to test whether a bottom-up approach for disseminating academic and policy findings can influence adoption of local policies that deliver energy savings. Leveraging granular energy performance certificates (EPCs), local energy use, census, and property price data, the paper produced briefs containing rigorous, just-in-time analyses of the projected effects of the energy crisis on residents of districts in England and Wales and of the estimated local benefits of energy efficiency investments. The authors further distributed these briefs to council officers and members, as well as to local media outlets for 165 randomly selected districts. The authors estimate the effects of our targeted outreach on public discourse and on the policy-making process.