Is there really an Energy Efficiency gap? Lecture with Paul Burger on 2019/01/17

As part of the interdisciplinary Sustainability Talks, Prof. Dr. Paul Burger, University of Basel, will give a lecture in Freiburg on the Topic "Is there really an Energy Efficiency gap? A Social Perspective on Efficiency and Sufficiency".

Efficiency oriented approaches for reducing household energy consumption are not as successful as they are expected to be. Engineers and economists often refer to a so-called energy efficiency gap to explain the slow progress. However, our speaker doubts whether that explanation is really helpful. Both, economists and engineers, rely on a quite narrow understanding of everyday-life behavior. He will give some arguments to broaden the scope to social practices, will then additionally invest quality of life as major component and will finally sketch how efficiency and sufficiency are linked together.

Time: Thursday, January 17, 2019, 5.30 p.m. 

Venue: Department of Engineering, Building 101, Room 01 009 / 013 (2nd floor), Georges-Köhler-Allee 101, 79110 Freiburg