Mission E – Energy Efficiency, Savings, Emissions, Commitment

In 2005, i.e. before the start of Mission E, the energy consumption of the military was 4.7 billion kWh of heat and 1.3 billion kWh of electric energy, which is roughly equivalent to the annual consumption of a medium-sized city with 300,000 inhabitants. Energy costs were at roughly EUR 380 million in 2006. The corresponding CO₂ emissions were about 2 million tonnes per year (BAWV NA).

Mission E aims at changing the energy-using behaviour of employees. Information and awareness-raising campaigns via leaflets, posters and the intranet reach out to a large number of employees. Seminars and workshops are also offered in order to create multiplier effects.

The policy is implemented at the national level.

The campaign was launched in the public sector, with the German military, in particular. However, it can be replicated in every governmental or non-governmental organisation, though, from the economic perspective, the development of some instruments such as seminars or workshops makes only sense in large organisations.

Relevant sectors

• Services

Due to the design of Mission E, changing the energy-consuming behaviour of employees has priority. Actions such as turning down the heater while opening windows or switching off screens when leaving the office are very important.

The actions targeted by the campaign all refer to a change in energy-using behaviour and purchasing decisions. For example, the brochure “Mission E – Energy Savings Manual” gives comprehensive advice in terms of:

• The energy-efficient use of PCs and laptops, lightning system, TVs and set-top boxes
• Energy-efficient purchases (e.g. screens, printers, dish washers and refrigerators) and the role of the EU energy label or the Energy Star in this context
• Energy-efficient behaviour with regard to heating and aerating rooms
• Avoiding stand-by losses

Relevant target groups

• Facility management company
• User

Direct beneficiaries

• Tenant

  The building owners or tenants, in this case the German armed forces, benefit directly due to reduced energy costs.

Indirect beneficiaries

Mission E was designed for the German military which is financed by taxpayer’s money. Thus, lower energy costs for governmental organisations can become beneficial for society as a whole, as financial resources saved can be used for other equipment or programmes of the respective organisation or for government services.

• Manufacturer

  As the issue of energy efficiency is highlighted, the measure can be considered to be indirectly beneficial for manufacturers (and importers) of building components or appliances.

Relevant barriers

• Knowledge and information barriers: Due to insufficient information, energy-efficient behaviour can often not be realised. Mission E informs building users and the facility management staff about behavioural as well as technical improvements.
• Organisational barriers: The organisational structure of the German military can be regarded as very decentralised. Thus, it makes sense to use an awareness raising campaign which aims at changing the behaviour of users and decentralised facility management staff voluntarily – without a strict monitoring/surveillance body.
• Lack of interest and motivation in energy efficiency-improvement: Users and facility management staff are not directly accountable for energy costs. Hence, the motivation for savings and for changing energy-inefficient behaviour, in particular, is quite low. With the help of awareness raising tools, this lack of motivation is partially overcome.

Relevant incentives

• Contribution to protection of the environment: While military equipment is unlikely to become highly energy-efficient in the near future (e.g. German Leopard tanks, used on the battlefield as well as for training purposes, need on average 400 litres of fuel per 100 km), the Ministry of Defence contributes to environmental protection via measures such as Mission E.
• Saved energy costs: Energy savings result in monetary savings which can be either used for other activities of the Ministry of Defence or for budgets of other ministries.

Mission E includes workshops in which employees discuss energy saving tips, energy quizzes and other informational material. A good practice and best practice competition is planned for whichever offices can apply.
Mission E has been part of the Germany National Energy Efficiency Action Plan (NEEAP) 2007 and 2011. The government is committed to reducing CO₂ emissions of its operations by 30% between 2008 and 2012 compared to 1990 levels. Energy performance and supply contracting is facilitated by the German government for federal properties. In addition to that, €120m was made available in order to finance energy saving measures in buildings under the Energy Savings Programmes for Federal Properties. It works complementarily to Mission E. Moreover, the Green IT Initiative aims at reducing the energy consumed due to ICT by 40%, making use of best practices, guidelines and information exchange between federal agencies (BMWi 2011).
More concretely, the various instruments of Mission E refer to the EU energy label or the energy star, both of which also provide reliable and comparable information for purchasers of electricity-using equipment.

Mission E fully relies on voluntary behavioural changes by building users and facility management staff. If this goal is achieved at work, it is likely that employees also make use of energy saving advice at home in order to reduce energy costs. The German military has more than 300,000 civil and military staff increasing the impact of multiplier effects. The Ministry of Defence co-operates with the Energy Agency NRW in order to benefit from its expertise and to use adequate information and training material.
Other actors, e.g. local governments, have taken up the Mission E approach. The Energy Agency NRW has successfully designed a concept making Mission E applicable to municipalities and businesses, as well.

Agencies or other actors responsible for implementation
While the Energy Agency NRW designed the measure and the respective tool kit, the armed forces have been an ideal test bed for the implementation of Mission E because they have more than 300,000 employees who can save energy at the work place as well as in their private lives.

Funding
The Ministry of Defence used €415,000 as a campaign budget (Cunniff & Küster 2010, p. 29).

The German armed forces have more than 300,000 employees and 1,600 sites with several thousand individual buildings. In 2005, i.e. before the start of Mission E, the energy consumption of the military was 4.7 billion kWh of heat and 1.3 billion kWh of electric energy, which is roughly equivalent to the annual consumption of a medium-sized city of 300,000 inhabitants. Energy costs were at roughly EUR 380 million in 2006. The corresponding CO₂ emissions were about 2 million tonnes per year (BAWV NA).
The Mission E in the armed forces was jointly implemented by the Federal Office for Defence Forces Administration (Bundesamt für Wehrverwaltung, BAWV) and the Energy Agency North Rhine Westphalia (EA NRW) and officially launched in October 2006. The declared goal was to reduce the heat and electricity consumption of the armed forces by at least 1 % per year, merely through energy-efficient user behaviour and without compromising comfort. In addition to the direct effects on the energy demand of the armed forces, the campaign was also expected to impact on the way its employees use energy at home and in private transport, thus leading to even higher savings for the economy as a whole.
The concrete activities of Mission E with a view to motivating employees to change their energy-using behaviour include information provision and awareness-raising via intranet, leaflets and posters, and organising competitions, energy quizzes, seminars or workshops.
Furthermore, so-called “action weeks” are organised at different sites, where the energy consumption is measured and employees are made aware of their power to influence it. Impressive results were achieved here, e.g. in a barracks in Bonn the consumption was decreased by 9% in an action week (BAWV NA).
Various public relations activities like press releases, public presentations at conferences and other events, etc. further complement the internal measures. These activities contribute to both internal and external image improvement and thus increase acceptance (Dena NA).

Quantified target
The target of Mission E was to annually reduce energy consumption by 1% (60 million KWh) between 2007 and 2010 compared to 2005, achieving a total of 300 million KWh/ year of energy savings. Such energy savings result in reductions of 100,000 tonnes of CO₂ and €19 million per year.

Actors responsible for design
Energy Agency NRW (regional energy agency)

Actors responsible for implementation
Bundeswehr – German Military (Federal Office for Defense Forces Administration (Bundesamt für Wehrverwaltung, BAWV) and facility management staff)

Monitoring
The energy consumption of individual properties is monitored.

Evaluaion
Information with regard to economic costs is available.

• Minimising rebound effects: Measures on user behaviour are the classical means to address rebound effects following technical energy efficiency improvement actions.
• Minimising snap-back effects: The measure avoids snap-back effects as it aims to sustainably change the behaviour of military employees. For example, the fact that achieved savings are highlighted and employees are explicitly thanked for their contributions, as well as the reappearing prompts and the abovementioned social control mechanisms, all help to make the behaviour changes stable. However, as with all measures on user behaviour, the risk of snap-back effects remains.
• Dynamic market transformation and/or innovation: Dynamic market transformation might be a (very) indirect result of the policy. In addition to energy-efficient user behaviour the tool kit (e.g. quizzes) of Mission E also refers to energy-efficient appliances. Individuals, who are employed with the military, purchasing such equipment for their private live might (and are expected to) make use of such information acquired through Mission E material. This multiplier effect has impacts on market transformation dynamics.
• Creating Spill-over effects: The core goal of this voluntary measure is to change the behaviour of the German military’s facility management staff, consisting of more than 300,000 employees, sustainably. Spill-over effects are maximised if employees use this knowledge (acquired at their work place) in their private lives, as well.

The programme might suffer from low participation by building users. In order to get a large number of employees involved in saving energy, Mission E makes use of various instruments. While information material (posters, leaflets, etc.) are distributed, employees can even win prizes through quizzes. The fact that military employees are used as “photo models” for information material, increases the identification with Mission E.

It was expected that Mission E could result in energy savings of 1% per year, or a total of 5% per year until 2010.

Reducing energy consumption by 1% annually, would have resulted in reduction of about 60 million kWh per year (BAWV NV).

Through behaviour changes alone, the German armed forces were able to realise energy savings of 65.3 million kWh in 2007 (EA NRW 2009).
Energy-efficient behaviour changes resulted in a total of 1.28 billion kWh of accumulated savings between 2007 and 2010.

In combination with other instruments, the annual energy consumption of the armed forces developed as follows:
2007: -0.6 billion kWh or -10.5% (comp. to base year)
2008: -0.9 billion kWh or -16% (comp. to base year)
2009: -1.0 billion kWh or -18% (comp. to base year)
2010: -1.2 billion kWh or -21.5% (comp. to base year)
Accumulated energy savings are 3.78 billion kWh
(based on EA NRW 2011)

There are several other examples from Germany. One example comes from the city of Dortmund. Between 2009 and 2013 the 9900 employees of the city reduced their energy consumption by 14 percent compared to the reference year 2008. At the same time, CO₂ emissions were reduced by 2,475 t and energy costs were reduced by €1.1 million.
The city of Herne focuses on schools and kindergartens. The 47 participating schools and kindergartens have reduced their energy costs by €900,000 and their CO₂ emissions by 2,267 tons.
The State Agency for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection started a pilot project in the city of Essen. In the first year, employees reduced the buildings’ energy consumption by 10.2 percent and in the second year by 13.1 percent compared to the reference year. CO₂ emissions were reduced by 365 tons and energy costs were reduced by €136,000 (Energie Impluse 2017).

€415,000 for 2007 to 2009 (Cunniff & Küster 2010, p. 29)

Including various measures to reduce the energy consumption of the armed forces, 5% in annual energy consumption reductions were to translate into € 19 million in annual monetary savings.

Through behaviour measures alone, €5.3 million in cost savings were achieved for 2007 (EA NRW 2009).
Accumulated energy savings, including Mission E and other energy efficiency measures, translated into €247 million by 2010 (EA NRW 2012).

As €415,000 were used for 2007 to 2009 (Cunniff/ Küster 2010, 29) and €5.3 million were already achieved in 2007 (EA NRW 2009), Mission E can be regarded as highly cost-effective.