Technological innovation, energy efficient design and the rebound effect

By H. Herring, Rob Roy. 2007

473 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Does technological innovation to improve the efficiency of energy-using products and systems lead to lower energy consumption and hence reduced environmental impacts? The answer given by economists since the mid-19th century is ‘no’. This is because there are direct ‘rebound’ or ‘take-back’ effects caused by energy efficiency improvements that lower the implicit price of energy, often leading to greater consumption. Also there are secondary or indirect effects of reducing energy costs through efficiency in that consumers may buy more products and/or choose, larger, more powerful, more feature laden models. Thus just promoting technical innovation to increase energy efficiency is unlikely to lead to reduced energy consumption and emissions. Other policies such as taxation or regulation are required. As well as setting the theoretical arguments concerning innovation and energy efficiency the paper outlines results from an empirical research project, ‘People-centred eco-design’, which seeks to identify the key influencing factors on consumer adoption and effective use of energy efficient products and systems. In particular it aims to identify how consumers may avoid (or mitigate) rebound effects and how manufacturers, service providers and government might design and promote such products to achieve their optimal environmental benefits.

Subfields: Environmental Engineering, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7f4fc289198f23d7b1eee5748c168ca5600ebf38

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In Environmental Engineering

In Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

Citations in the corpus

Governance of the Bioeconomy: A Global Comparative Study of National Bioeconomy Strategies (2018, unknown): “In the long term, however, the impact depends on supply dynamics, consumer behavior and the regulatory environment [16,17].”
Smart Cities and Green Growth: Outsourcing Democratic and Environmental Resilience to the Global Technology Sector (2014, background): “If equipped with energy-saving technology, consumers typically respond with an increase in overall energy demand (eg, Herring and Roy 2007).”
A socio‐metabolic transition towards sustainability? Challenges for another Great Transformation (2011, background): “Many factors play a part in determining just how great a proportion of the efficiency benefit is equalized by this effect (e.g., Dimitropoulos, 2007; Herring and Roy, 2007; Schipper, 2000; Sorrell, 2007).”
A spatially explicit life cycle inventory of the global textile chain (2009, background): “The rebound effect occurs when energy savings following efficiency measures are not as large as expected or even negative (Hertwich 2005; Herring and Roy 2007).”