C om m uni c at i ons on energy

unduly pessimistic in their assessment =C. Banister and D. Banister, 'Transport,
of the prospect for energy conservation travel and energy in the UK', Energy Policy,
by transfer to rail from car; and in error Vol 1 t, No 1, 1983, pp 39-51.
27%-9% is stated in Figure 11 of The Watt
in their calculation of the values of road Committee on Energy, Towards an Energy
transport efficiency through failure to Policy for Transport, Report No 7, London,
consider a full treatment of energy 1980; also P. Rice, Energy Costs Ass/gned
inputs in the petroleum refinery system. to Refinery Products, Working Paper,
Transport Section, Impedal College,
Otherwise, Banister and Banister have London, 1983, gives a review of British and
opened up an extremely profitable dis- some US refinery data; P.F. Chapman,
cussion of UK energy policy. Fuel's Paradise, Penguin Books, London,
1975, gives an efficiency of 88% for UK
refineries in 1968.
Phillip Rice 30p cit, Ref 1, Table 4.
Department of Civil Engineering 4UK Department of Energy, Digest of UK
Imperial College Energy Statistics, 1981, HMSO, London,
1981, Tables 6, 9 and 42 show refinery
London products at the secondary level in both heat
units and end use (tonnes).
SGB Department of Transport, Transport
An anonymous referee is thanked for Statistics GB 1969-79, HMSO, London,
pointing out the importance of recent 1980, Tables 1.30 and 1.31.
increased refinery losses from cracking 6E.M. Goodger, Alternative Fuel Tech-
crude oil rather than distilling; such losses nology Series, Comparative Properties of
ought to be further considered. The author Conventional and ARemative Fuels, Vol 2,
is an SERC supported Research Fellow at Cranfield Press, Cranfield, Bedford, UK,
Imperial College, working on transport 1982, Chapter 7.
energy issues. 70p cit, Ref 1, Table 4, 1979.
SBritish Standards Institution, Br/~sh
Standard 2869, ~ for Petrofeum
Fuels for Oil Engines and Burners, 1970,
with amendments No 3, 1977, and No 6,
1980.
9p. Rice, op cit, Ref 3.
1°CONCAWE, The Rational Utilization of
Fuels in Private Transport, (RUFIT Study),
CONCAWE, Report No 8/80, The Hague,
1980, extrapolation to unleaded gasoline
case.
HBanister, opcit, Ref 1, Table 4, foothoteto
table - efficiency losses allowed for in the
increase of consumption of 2.5%. As this
includes public lighting in the road transport
sector the actual oil products conversion
factor is effectively even less than 1.025.
120p cit, Ref 1, Table 5..
~aUK Department of Energy, Energy
Paper 10, HMSO, London, 1976.
14UK Department of Transport, Transport
Statistics GB 1971-81, HMSO, London,
1982, Table 1.1.
~sCentral Electrio'ty Generating Board,
'Summary of results: thermal efficiency of
generation (coal, gas and oil)' - SSEB not
included and nuclear power stations
excluded, in CEGB Annual Report and
Accounts 1979-80, CEGB, London, 1980.

Barriers to energy conservation- result, but where markets are not

effective we need a policy based on the

the case of the Netherlands social politically accepted goal of 'energy

conservation'. The problem here is

housing sector certainly not the goal, but the policy

itself.

Energy conservation policy, more than energy supply policy, poses severe
problems to both policy instruments and administrative organization. Baniers to Policy c o m p l e x i t y
effective policy derive from inadequate control structures and rationality types, A comparison can be made between
as well as from social psychok)gical factors. This case study on the Dutch energy supply policy and energy
housing sector considers policy organization, regulation and finance. Main conservation policy. On the supply side
barriers to effective conservation policy were found in three areas: the centraliz- most inertia has been caused by goal
ation and prevailing decomposition of control tasks, acting as a source of conflicts. The policy itself is relatively
ineffectivity; the predominantly substantial rationality underlying regulation; and simple because it deals with a con-
finally, the way people involved in the building industry make their interpretations strained number of well defined
of regulations and regulatory organizations. decisions to be made (building nuclear
plants, importing LNG, building gasifi-
Keywords: Energy conservation; Housing; Netherlands cation plants etc). But there is a lack of
As in most industrialized countries, knowledge or a lack of economic unanimity on the acceptability of these
prevailing institutional conditions in attractivity. Huge amounts of energy technologies. On the other hand, con-
the Netherlands are more in favour of can be conserved by application of servation policy has almost unanimous
supply side energy policies than current know-how. 1From an economi- political support, although the policy
demand side policies (energy conser- cal point of view large-scale energy itself is far more complicated. This
vation). Effective energy conservation conservation operations do not necess- complexity arises primarily from the
policies seem to develop slowly- more arily encounter difficulties. In many fact that energy demand is the aggre-
slowly than is desired. cases the discounted costs of energy gate result of large numbers of invest-
conservation are far below those of ment and consumption decisions made
Conservation policy energy use. From this we might con- everyday by a great variety of economic
clude that energy conservation need subjects. What makes the situation yet
The difficulty of energy conservation not be problematic. The market pro- more complex is that most decisions on
policy is by no means a lack of technical cess itself often leads to the desired energy are subordinate to other kinds

ENERGY P O L I C Y D e c e m b e r 1983 363

Communications on energy
of decisions in which goals other than
energy conservation play a role. There
is a great dependency between various
goals. As a result, energy conservation
never stands alone but has to compete
with many other issues. A t the policy
level this interdependency is reflected
in various coordination problems which
arise from the introduction of conser-
vation policy as a new item into the
existing administrative structure.2
"lilus, energy conservation policy
poses severe problems for both policy
instruments and the structure of
administrative organization.3 This
article presents a case study on energy
conservation in the social housing
sector in the Netherlands, but first it
will be shown how the 'effective control
concept' may be useful in studying
conservation policy.
Conceptual framework
Effective control
Despite its general acceptance as a
political goal, the introduction of
energy conservation measures is not
unproblematic. The combination of
market forces and policy measures
often fail to lead to the desired effects,
and appropriate control measures may
be missing. Conceptual systems theory
is useful for studying problems of
ineffective control. According to De
Leeuw 4 we define a system as consist-
ing of a controller and a controlled
system in an environment. Main
requirements for effective control are:
• The controller has a goal or an
evaluation procedure.
• The controller has a model of the
system to be controlled, which is
specified for the control task.
• The controller has information on
the environment and the state of the
controlled system.
• The controller has a sufficiently
broad range of control measures at
his disposal.
The highly abstract concepts of a
'controller' and a 'controlled system'
refer to a great variety of actual situ-
ations. In many cases the controller is a
subsystem separated from the con-
trolled system, such as the many kinds
364
of administrative bodies specially
designed for a certain control task. This
situation may be labelled as extrinsic
control. In the case of intrinsic control,
however, there is no such identifiable
part of the system to which the control
task has been assigned. Control, then,
is an aspect of the system structure, and
the controller can only be spoken of in
an abstract sense, not to indicate a part
of the system, but only to indicate a
property of that system. The 'invisible
hand' of A d a m Smith is a good example
of an intrinsic control mechanism.
Depending on the situation, intrinsic
mechanisms may be more effective
than extrinsic control. Opting for the
wrong type of control may therefore be
a source of ineffectivity.
Coordination
If a controller deals with many different
control tasks it is wise to split up the
controller into relatively autonomous
units, in such a way that each unit
handles an aspect of the controlled
system which is relatively independent
from other aspects. Therefore, in order
to minimize coordination requirements
decomposition must take place along
lines of weak interaction. The
decomposition of governmental tasks
into departments and smaller units is
principally based on such weak inter-
actions. Ineffective control may arise
from inappropriate decomposition or
from bad coordination practice. An
important source of policy ineffectivity
is adding a new goal without changing
decomposition lines. The addition of a
new goal, such as energy conservation,
creates dependencies which did not
exist before. For example, the energy
conservation goal creates interactions
between the policy areas of the Depart-
ment of Economic Affairs (energy) and
the Housing Department (housing).
Lines of weak interaction may turn into
lines of strong interaction, thus creating
tremendous coordination problems
which will lead to policy ineffectivity.
A n obvious mistake, often seen in
public policy, is to handle the problem
exclusively by aiming at better coordi-
nation, instead of structural change. If,
however, coordination problems are
tackled solely by extrinsic control (ie
adding new units to the administrative
system), the dangers of ineffective
policy are even greater.S
Rationality types
Control measures may be based on sub-
stantial, procedural or structural
rationality, 6 giving three control types:
• Substantial control - the controller
defines what must happen.
• Procedural control - the controller
defines the procedure of decision-
making, but leaves the outcome to
the participants.
• Structural control - the controller
defines the decisionmaking struc-
ture, but leaves the decisionmaking
procedure and its outcomes to the
parties involved.
Often procedural or structural control
may prove more effective than substan-
tial control, because too much substan-
tial control leads to an overloaded
control task, in which case the control-
ler has too much to do to deal with
specific control measures for specific
situations. In order to avoid the threat
of overload, the controller may
simplify his control measures, although
this may lead to ineffectivity through
the loss of variety.
Social psychological aspects
In order to understand the way control
measures do or do not work in practice,
social psychological aspects have to be
incorporated in the analysis. Here the
focus is on the way people construct
images of rules, and images of other
parties. There are many rules being
used as a control instrument and such
rules may be unequivocal in their
meaning, making their application
straightforward. However, rules often
leave room for different interpret-
ations. In such a case, there will be a
historically evolved practice 7 which
attributes unequivocal meanings to
vaguely defined rules. This attribution
process is described by social
psychology a as the creation of untested
pseudocertainties of social actors. An
actor may say: 'Because of rule X it will
by no means be possible to do Y, you'd
waste your time if you'd try'. Clear
examination might however reveal that
Y is not necessarily hindered by X but
the belief of the actor is the real barrier.
ENERGY POLICY December 1983
 C o m m u n i c a t i o n s o n energy

The same holds for expectations actors down. At the same time housing for Table 2. The rent calculation table (edition 1/1/
have on the behaviour of other parties. these low income groups was heavily 1981).
subsidized. Today the houses in this
Total l~lldlng Number of living units
Classification of barriers sector are still assigned to people with co=ms(on) 2 3 4
From the conceptual framework which low and moderate incomes. These 95000 4.7% 4.5% -
has been indicated briefly above a people have been seriously affected by 100000 5.1% 4.8% -
classification of barriers to effective the rapid energy price increases and 105000 5.2% 5.0% -
110000 5.5% 5.3% 5.1%
control can be made. Such a classifi- thus the incorporation of energy 115000 - - 5.3%
cation is given below.9 conservation measures into the design
of new houses is of vital importance to
• The controller does not have an their household budgets. Source: Data from P.H.C. Voorter, 'Energie-arme
adequate evaluation procedure. woningen op traditionele wijze te bouwen',
• The controller has no adequate Conservation investments Energiebesparing, 82-1, 1982, pp 14-17.
model of the controlled system or
From an economical point of view,
has no information on the environ-
current insulation standards in the by low interest state loans. In addition
ment and the state of the controlled
Netherlands are far below the optimal to these subsidies to the lessor (so-
system.
value. At present gas prices, an called object subsidies), there are
• The controller does not have a suf-
additional investment of Df13000--6(0)0 subsidies to the tenant (so-called sub-
ficiently broad range of control
in insulation and efficiency improve- ject subsidies). As already indicated
measures at his disposal.
ments can be justified. Table 1 gives a above, the tenant does not usually pay
• Control problems have been solved
number of calculations for a standard the full amount required for economi-
too much by extrinsic control where
dwelling with different insulation and cal exploitation of the dwelling. This
intrinsic control would be more
heating options. It can be argued that rent is calculated from a table
effective.
there need not be any problem in (Vraaghuurtabel) published every six
• Decomposition of the system has
adapting insulation standards, express- months by government. In this table,
not been made along lines of relative
ing additional investments in a rent the yearly rent is expressed as a per-
autonomy, or new goals have been
increase. After all, the tenant will be centage of total building costs, and is
added to the control task, without
better off than without this investment, dependent on the size of the home,
adapting existing decomposition to
for his energy bill will be reduced more expressed in "living units' (see
added interdependencies.
than his rent increase. 11 However, the Table 2).
• Control is too much on the basis of
actual situation is far less simple due to The objective of the rent calculation
substantial rationality where pro-
the complicated system of finance, sub- table may be obvious in that the higher
cedural or structural rationality
sidy and regulations in the social the building costs for the same size
would be more effective.
housing sector. building, the higher the rent percent-
• Effective control may be blocked by
distorted reality definitions of age, and, as government subsidizes the
actors, eg images of rules or other
Rent calculation difference between economical rent
parties. Government is subsidizing the social and the rent calculated by this table,
housing sector in two ways: directly, by the lower the government subsidy. The
subsidizing the difference between application of this table may thus
economically required rent (so-called prevent unnecessary expensive houses,
Conservation investments in the dynamic cost rent) and the rent paid by although it may also have a drawback
Dutch social housing sector the tenant, and indirectly by financing concerning quality, acting as a barrier
Social housing
We now turn to the main findings of a
study of barriers to energy conservation Table 1. The c o l t s i x l Ilflilctl of Inlulatlon and Intprovld heiWng Imlllllllion I f f l d l n c y .
investment in the Dutch housing
sector. More detailed results have been High Enmgy Adclitlo~i
Insulation Heat efflcimtcy ¢onlm'vation invlltmlmt per Invllll¢l DII
published elsewhere. 1° The study is class recovery installation (m 3 per annum) (Dfl) (m 3 per Dfl)
confined to investments in the building 1 No No 0 0 0
of new rented houses in the 'social 2 No No 500 1900 0.26
housing' sector. This sector is financed 3 No No 800 2840 0.26
2 Yes No 1100 3390 0.32
and subsidized by central government 3 Yes No 1350 4300 0.31
and subject to an impressive number of 1 No Yes 560 760 0.74
regulations. It is a product of the low 2 No Yes 950 2660 0.36
wages policies directly after the war 3 No Yes 1180 3600 0.33
2 Yes Yes 1230 3800 0.32
when, in order to faciliate economic 3 Yes Yes 1460 4710 0.31
growth and the industrial build-up of
the Netherlands, wages were kept Note: 'Insulation class' is a standardized measure. Here insulation class I is the reference case.

E N E R G Y P O L I C Y December 1983 365

C o m m u n i c a t i o n s on energy
to energy conservation. If, for example,
an additional investment of Dfl 5000 is
required for energy conservation, and
assuming building costs increase
thereby from Dfl 100000 to Dfl 105000
(3 living units), we calculate rent
increasing from 4.8% of Dfl 100000 to
5.0% of Dfl 105000, ie from Df1400.00
to Dfl 437.50 monthly. The subsidy
decreases by the rent percentage increase
acting as a negative incentive to energy
conservation. Energy investment
may, however, still be in the tenant's
interest t2 and in this case, according to
Table 2, 1460 m 3 gas can be conserved
in a year, or 122 m a in a month. The
rent increase of Dfl 37.50 is favourable
at a gas price of Dfl 0.31/m 3. Present
gas prices are much higher.
Role of central government
Due to central government's worsening
financial situation, there is a downward
pressure on building costs, with the
possible effect of jeopardizing energy
conservation investments. People in
the building industry strongly confirm
the occurrence of such an effect, t3 One
instrument for reducing building costs
is the already mentioned method of
rent and subsidy calculation. This is,
however, only one instrument in a
repertoire of measures by which
government tries to scale down its
expenses. Central government's
housing policy is executed by a number
of decentralized agencies, the PDVs
(provincial housing boards). Building
plans in the subsidized sector have to
be approved by government, first by
a P D V and then final approval is given
by the CDV (central housing board), a
section of the department of Housing
and Town Planning. This approval
procedure can be conceived as a
bargaining process between the local
level and the decentralized central
government level on the contents of
building plans and allowed building
costs. In this process many rules are
operated by the PDVs. Some of these
are explicitly given in regulations
applying to the subsidized housing
sector, but others are only part of a
historically evolved practice and are
often subject to continuous change.
The parties involved in this bargaining
process are generally well informed on
366
informal or secret evaluation rules,
often by means of consultants who have
good information links between many
parties.
Financial barriers
During this bargaining process existing
plans are often altered in order to meet
the wishes of the PDV. These alter-
ations may involve a cancellation of
energy conservation measures for the
sake of cost reduction. Besides this
financial barrier to energy conser-
vation, existing regulations may
prevent the application of energy
conservation measures, such as
standards for room heights or venti-
lation prescriptions. First, focusing on
the financial barrier, the study shows
that there are considerable differences
between the various PDVs with respect
to their attitude towards energy
conservation in building plans. Much
more support for energy conservation
could be obtained from some PDVs
than from others. On this evidence we
might base the conclusion that the only
thing needed to break down energy
conservation barriers is a change of
attitude amongst people at PDVs.
However, this might well be too simple
a conclusion as the PDVs work within
CouncilorL
Ministers I
interdepartmental
c°"n'tt7
J Department I Department. °'.
01~ Finance ] Economic ATTalrs
\ I Oeneral Oirectorate
I Energy
Figure 1. The interorganizational network.
the boundary conditions set by central
goverment (see Figure 1).
As total finance for housing is a fixed
sum, the capability of one PDV to get
additional finance, eg for energy
conservation, would be at the expense
of the others, thus only creating a
regional profit, but no national effect.
Substantial energy conservation
measures in this sector are only possible
when additional finance is made avail-
able. Another possibility, building
fewer better quality buildings, is
unrealistic. Politically, the size of
housing programmes and the extent to
which programmes are realized are the
most important goals for the Minister
of Housing and Town Planning. As a
result, the only possibility for increas-
ing energy conservation measures is to
acquire additional financial resources.
But there too severe barriers are found.
Such resources could be acquired at the
free capital market, but only at a high
price. There is also opposition to this,
because such practice might finally
erode the whole system of social
housing, by creating a precedent for
other cases where additional invest-
ment has to be financed. Alternatively,
an attempt could be made to enlarge
the required state loans. However,
although a great part of the consumer's
L \
\
I Dep¢ rtment of Housing
I ana lawn Planning
I l Cen.ra, .ous,ng
I I boar
rovinlcial housing boards J --- etc.
I Centra,
organization (VNG)
ENERGY POLICY December 1983

present gas bills contribute to govern-
ment finance, it is not so easy to get this
money back for energy conservation
purposes, not even when it can be
repaid in a short period of time.
Administrative structure as a barrier
The inertia of present Dutch energy
conservation policy, its low capability
to adapt itself to changing circum-
stances, is inherent to the task division
between the different government
departments and the resulting conflict
is dynamic. 14 Energy policy is primarily
the responsibility of the Department of
Economic Affairs although most policy
instruments are in the hands of the
Department of Housing and Town
Planning. This latter department does
have the legal and regulatory instru-
ments, but does not dispose of the
necessary financial resources. As a
result, energy conservation policy in
this field implies complicated bargain-
ing processes between at least three
departments (Housing and Town
Planning, Economic Affairs and
Finance). In addition, central govern-
ment tries to effectuate conservation
policy by means of its direct and
indirect influence on municipalities.
These municipalities have their own
building regulations, which are a
condition for getting building permits.
Most municipalities take over the regu-
lations designed by their central
organization (Vereniging van
Nederlandse gemeenten, VNG) and
the organization often acts as a rep-
resentative of municipality interests
in dealings with central government.
Conversely, central government tries
to influence municipalities through the
central organization and the Depart-
ment of Economic Affairs tries to
persuade the VNG to incorporate
higher conservation standards in its
(concept) building regulations.
The Department of Economic
Affairs may succeed in adapting con-
servation standards to current energy
prices, either by influencing
municipality regulations, or by
incorporating these standards in
subsidy conditions, but the financial
problem remains unsolved. Such
policies might have negative side
effects: they could offset the quality
ENERGY POLICY December 1983
gain (energy conservation)by quality
losses in other aspects of the dwelling
(ugly houses with windows which are
too small to conform with prescribed
insulation values at minimum cost), or
they could negatively affect the annual
quantity of houses built. The last case
will no doubt result in interdepart-
mental conflicts.
Regulation as a barrier?
Dutch social housing is regulated by
both central and local administration
by means of a large number of regu-
lations. Certainly, there are elements
in these regulations which are barriers
to energy conservation, such as ceiling
height prescriptions which do not
account for present ventilation
technology. An interesting fact which
this field study has revealed, however,
is the complete lack of consensus on the
topic of energy conservation. The
barriers which were indicated by one
interviewee were said to be unimport-
ant by another, although these
differences were partly due to differing
definitions of 'barriers'. Those people
who see the greatest number of barriers
define any situation in which energy
conservation has not explicitly been
prescribed as a barrier. Other people
define barriers only for those situations
where energy conservation is strictly
excluded by a regulation. A third group
only sees barriers where rules cannot
be changed or where there is no room
for negotiation in their application.
Differences in consensus also derive
from differences in the way people
think regulatory bodies act. Some
people have machine-like images of
government agencies which carry out
exactly the prescriptions of central
government policy, whilst others see
much more room for negotiation with
these agencies on interpretation of
building regulations. These two visions
lead to different strategies for removing
barriers: the first vision implies a
strategy through central government
policy aided by parliamentary action,
the second vision implies much more a
strategy of negotiation at the local
level. We will not discuss here what
type of strategy is most adequate -
probably a combination of some sort -
as we only want to illustrate by these
Communications on energy
interview findings that many actors
have definite, but mainly untested,
images of the regulation system. The
barriers these actors encounter partly
derive, not from the objective system,
but from the images they construct.
Main barriers for energy
conservation
Our short and rather incomplete
excursion into the 'building regulation
jungle' may illustrate how the histori-
cally evolved system of finance and
regulation in the Dutch subsidized
housing sector is limited in its capacity
to adapt properly to changing energy
costs. There are severe barriers to
energy conservation investments in this
sector. One of the problems is that
there are still many regulations which
were designed at a time when energy
conservation was no urgent issue, and
when technological possibilities to
solve certain problems had yet to be
invented. One could argue that the best
way to remove these barriers is to
update the rules so that they are suited
to the current situation. Although con-
clusions of many technical reports and
government papers point in this direc-
tion, it is certainly not the most
effective policy. Here a policy is pro-
posed on a more thorough analysis of
the problems based on field study work
and the conceptual framework given in
the second section of this article.
Distinctions are made between three
main classes of barriers.
Structural barriers
The first class contains barriers which
are the result of the structure of the
control system. An important barrier is
the high degree of centralization in the
decision structure, the effect of this
being that many problems which could
be treated far better and more
efficiently at community level, or even
at the level of one building project, are
treated by central government.
Centralized decisionmaking makes it
impossible to weigh the importance of
different goals (size of the home,
energy conservation, etc) against each
other at the level where they are best
known - the local level. Other barriers
are the result of inadequate decompo-
367
Communications on energy
sition of tasks and responsibilities
between departments and between
levels of administration, as has been
shown in the preceding section. This
inadequate decomposition has the
effect that the energy cost problem and
the resulting problem of increasing
living costs are not satisfactorily
handled by the control system. In fact,
they are not even recognized as
problems. The present structure tends
to treat the connected problems of
building costs and living costs as two
separate worlds, solving the problem of
building cost reduction, but neglecting
the latter problem of living costs. Due
to the current system of finance,
decisionmaking relating to costs does
not look at benefits. An effective
energy conservation policy necessarily
implies structural change of the control
system. The first thing one could do is
to improve coordination between
different policy aspects and reform the
finance system. However, there is a
danger that such an operation would
have only very limited effects, because
it would not solve the fundamental
problems inherent to centralization.
Regulatory barriers
The second type of barrier has to do
with the form of the regulations. Many
are in the form of substantial rules, ie
rules which prescribe exactly what has
to be done. In our field study we saw
rules prescribing allowed ceiling
heights, ventilation capacities, the
amount of insulation material to be
used, detailed technical specification
for windows, etc. This type of regu-
lation may be ineffective for several
reasons: such a system of detailed pre-
scription may lead to policy inflexi-
bility, it may jeopardize decision
freedom at the local level, the sanction-
ing of rules may be practically
impossible, TM and it may destroy the
required variety of control instruments.
These barriers can be overcome by
replacing the old rules, not with
improved rules of the same kind as is
generally suggested, but with rules
which have a procedural and structural
character. These rules would by no
means define insulation standards or
ventilation norms, but would indicate
what parties would be involved in the
368
decisionmaking process, and what pro-
cedures would have to be used. If such
rules were to be used as a condition for
subsidies and government finance the
energy conservation problem would be
solved according to local needs, with-
out setting substantial standards. This,
however, implies an almost revolution-
ary change of current regulation
practice.
Interpretations
The third type of barrier is related to
the way people involved in the building
industry make their interpretations of
regulations and regulatory organiz-
ations. As has been pointed out earlier,
we found that subjective images people
construct of the regulation system may
be a barrier to energy conservation.
This barrier can be overcome, not by
changing the regulation system, but by
training the people in the building
industry how to use the regulatory
system most effectively, thereby
adjusting their subjective images
through practical experience.
Reinier de Man
Working Group on Energy
and Environment
Leiden State Univerity
Leiden, Netherlands
This article is based on a recent project
supported by Project Bureau Energie-
onderzoek (No 90751.310) in the frame-
work of the National Energy Research
Program.
~For the Netherlands we may refer to the
low energy scenario of Potma, H.Y. Becht
and T.G. Potma, Het CE-scenario, een
realistisch altematief, Centrum voor
energiebesparing, Delft, December 1981.
Also see A.F Beijdorff, Energy Efficiency,
Group Planning, Shell Intemational
Petroleum Company, Shell Centre,
London, April 1979, A.B. Lovins, Soft
Energy Paths - toward a durable peace,
Harper, New York, 1979.
2On the problems of administrative energy
decisionmaking see M. Amestad and T.R.
Burns, 'Facing the energy challenge: the
limitations and possibilities of adminsitra-
tive decision making', in R.A. Fazzolare
and C.B. Smith, eds, Beyond the Energy
Crisis, proceedings of 3rd IntematJonal
Conference on Energy Use Management,
West Berlin, 26-30 October 1981,
Pergamon Press, Oxford, UK, 1981.
3The problem of interdependency in energy
issues is treated by C.A. Davos, 'Energy
use management, the critical issues of
inter-dependency and indeterminateness',
in Fazzolare and Smith, op cit, Ref 2.
4A.C.J. de Leeuw, Systeemleer en
organisatieontwerp', in A.F.G. Hanken and
J.H.L. Oud, Ondememing en Overheid
in Systeemdynamisch Perspectief,
Academic Service, The Hague, 1982.
A.C.J. de Leeuw, 'Organizations, systems,
wholes and pads, variations on a theme in
organizational science', Methodology and
Science, Vo113, No 4, 1980.
SArnestad and Bums, op cit, Ref 2.
6W. Kicked, Organization of Decision
Making, a Systemstheoretical Approach,
North Holland Publishing Company,
Amsterdam and New York, 1979; A.C.J. de
Leeuw, op cit, Ref 4.
7H.R. van Gunsteren, The Quest for
Control, Wiley, Chichester, UK, 1976.
aK.E. Weick, The Social Psychology of
Organizing, 2 ed, Addison-Wesley, Read-
ing, MA, 1979.
9Barriers are here described as character-
istics of the controller and the controlled
system. It should be noted that these
barriers can only be defined in terms of
relationships in the system and not in terms
of elements. Common sense terminology,
however, is often lacking the requisite
precision in this respect. For example, it is
said: 'The provincial building authority is a
barrier for energy conservation'. This state-
ment does not make the problem clear
because of the attribution of a barrier to an
element of the system (the authority),
instead of to the relationships which make
up the control system which fails to control
in the desired direction. It is also said
'Building regulation X is a barrier for energy
conservation'. An assertion of this kind
need not be adequate because, in many
cases, the practice in which rules are
applied is heavily dependent on the social
context.
t°R. de Man, Energie-efficiency en
effektiviteit van besluitvorming, Werkgroep
energie- en milieuonderzoek, Leiden,
Netherlands, March 1982.
11Here we assume a positive relation
between conservation investment and
conservation. This implies certain assump-
tions about the behaviour of inhabitants
which are open to further research.
12Here we see a coincidence between the
public interest of energy conservation and
the private interest of reducing living costs.
Obviously public and private interests do
not always coincide but here we have the
opportunity to solve both the public energy
and the private living cost problem.
~3N. de Vreeze, 'Woonlestenproblematiek
vraagt om meer dan sobere beuwplannen',
Lokaal Bestuur, 1981.
Z4An analysis of problems from interdepart-
mental conflicts in Dutch energy policy was
given earlier in R. de Man, 'Energy models
and the policy process-the Dutch scenario
game', paper presented at Politicologenet-
maal, Helvoirt, 7 May 1982.
1SM.N. Zald, 'On the social control of indus-
tries', Social Forces, September 1978.
E N E R G Y P O L I C Y D e c e m b e r 1983