Mitigation Theme Report: Energy Efficiency : Contribution to the MCA4climate initiative

Striving for energy efficiency means trying to obtain a certain result with a minimum of input (Schipper and Meyers, 1992; Blok, 2007). As energy is used to fulfil human needs, one may define the energy efficiency of an activity as the degree to which given human needs can be fulfilled with a minimum amount of energy. So, energy efficiency improvement can be defined as reducing the energy use per unit of human activity. The energy use per unit of human activity is also called energy intensity. In most cases, energy efficiency measurement is done by measuring energy intensity, but it is important to recognize that it is actually the inverse energy efficiency.