Citation
Walter Leal Filho, P. (2010), "Editorial", Management of Environmental Quality, Vol. 21 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/meq.2010.08321caa.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2010, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Editorial
Article Type: Editorial From: Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal, Volume 21, Issue 3
Welcome to a further issue of MEQ. This issue contains a set of papers on matters related to environmental quality management from across the world, especially in India, where two interesting papers demonstrate some of the good works taking place on the ground.
In this Editorial I would like to discuss the matter of energy efficiency. One of the ways for energy suppliers to incentivise lower energy use among their customers – and thereby to meet their statutory obligations to reduce carbon emissions – is by changing the way they price their gas or electricity.
A study by the UK-based Centre for Sustainable Energy aimed to explore whether this could be done in a way that would be both fair to low-income consumers and financially viable for the companies involved. The report[1] identified three possible options by which tariffs and non-tariff policies could improve energy sustainability: a further development of existing policy, by which suppliers are encouraged to offer more meaningful incentives to their better-off customers to reduce consumption and more extensive social tariffs for low-income customers; rising block tariffs, by which the first block of a household’s energy consumption is offered at a low rate, with subsequent blocks costing progressively more; and variable VAT rates, through which energy consumption is taxed at for example 5 per cent up to a certain threshold and 17.5 per cent above this, and possibly even at a greater rate for higher levels of consumption.
Along with these three recommendations, the report suggests the introduction of a feed-in tariff for small-scale renewable electricity and heat generation – conditional upon investment in energy efficiency measures in the property. This journal will continue to disseminate research on renewable energy and energy efficiency issues and report on future technological developments in the field.
Enjoy your reading!
1.Available at http://www.cse.org.uk/cgi-bin/news.cgi?full&live&&1341
Professor Walter Leal Filho