Energy audits in firms: experimental evidence on drivers and barriers

2025-04-01

2026-12-31

The primary outcome variables include:
the willingness to take up an energy audit.
the actual take-up of an energy audit
participation in the bidding process to secure the co-financing of investments in energy efficiency from the Municipality.

The willingness to take up an energy audit is measured within the survey, as the answer to a question concerning the desire to be contacted for a free audit (treatment groups); or when information or new services about audits will be available (control group). In both cases, firms showing interest in knowing more about audits are asked to leave their contact information. We consider a firm showing interest in audits when it leaves its contact information.

The actual take-up of an energy audit is monitored directly by the research team for treated firms. Treated firms who wish to be contacted for the free audit go through the following process: they receive an email with a link to a form, where they have to provide information on the firm’s energy bills, inventory, output and other details necessary for the audit; once they submit the form, they set an appointment in person with the auditors, who visit the firm to verify the information provided and collect missing data; finally, the auditors send the firm an audit report, highlighting areas for improvements. We measure audit take-up for treated firms with the receipt of the audit report and compare the effect of the two treatments. For all firms, we will collect information on whether they performed an energy audit through the follow-up questionnaire.

Participation in the bidding process to secure the co-financing of investments in energy efficiency from the Municipality records whether managers who took part in the survey also applied to the grant program launched by the Municipality to co-finance energy efficiency investments. Participating in the bidding process requires firms to submit a list of investments to undertake with a justification of their impact on the firm’s energy efficiency. The results of an energy audit can thus inform firms’ grant applications.

We will explore heterogeneity in treatment effects by firm size, energy intensity (measured as energy expenditure—electricity plus gas—as a share of total turnover), environmental values/identity of the manager, and prior experience with energy audits.

We develop a survey experiment that includes treatments to stimulate the willingness to undertake a simplified energy audit, the actual uptake of the audit, the participation in public tenders to co-finance interventions aimed at improving the company’s energy efficiency, and ultimately the actual investment in energy efficiency.

Our treatments aim to ease monetary and non-monetary barriers that firms may face in the uptake of the audit and the implementation of energy-efficient investments.

The experimental design includes firm-level randomization. We randomly assign firms to three groups, which receive different information on energy audits within the survey. The control group only receives information on the benefits provided by an energy audit in terms of competitiveness, energy savings and reputation. This information is conveyed through a brief video and a summary text.

The survey respondents assigned to the ‘audit’ treatment see a longer video that provides the same information as the control video, and in addition informs them that we will offer free support to conduct a simplified energy audit. The video informs that an expert trained with the support of the Italian National Agency for Energy Efficiency (ENEA) will provide a free energy assessment of the firm's level of energy efficiency, along with guidance on how to save energy. We inform that the assessment will be produced using a tool developed by ENEA and Arup (a private sector provider of energy audits) and will ultimately help understand whether investing in energy efficiency could be beneficial for the firm. After the video, we provide respondents a written message summarising the main points of the video.

This treatment aims to reduce behavioural and information barriers that prevent the initiation of the process towards energy efficiency. Managers may think that the audit is not worth the money it costs, or they may not know where to look for support, they find it hard to identify the right company for the service, or find it psychologically costly to contact them to schedule the meeting and pay for the service.

The survey respondents assigned to the ‘audit plus grant’ treatment see the same video as firms in the audit treatment and they are also informed that the municipality will launch a call in 2025 for co-financing investments in energy efficiency by local businesses and commercial establishments. We inform that the co-financing can be up to 5,000 or 10,000 Euro - depending on the firms’ revenue that managers indicate in a pre-treatment question - and that the call will require businesses to submit a plan outlining the proposed investments. While the call will be open to all eligible firms and generally advertised, firms in this treatment arm know about this opportunity in advance. Moreover, the energy audit can support them in the preparation of the documentation to be presented.

Not available

Randomization is done by Qualtrics. We stratify randomization by the level of firm revenues, creating two strata for firms with revenues in the previous fiscal year below or above 1 million Euro. This threshold also corresponds to the one that determines the maximum amount of co-funding of investments within the Municipality’s grant.

The randomization is conducted at the firm level.

No

no clusters

230 firms

The sample is made by small and micro enterprises of the municipality of Legnano, recruited thanks to the collaboration of the municipality and various local trade and industry associations, such as the local representatives of the Artisans’ Trade Association, Commerce Trade Association, and the Italian Confederation of Industry.
All these partners have sent invitations to participate in the survey to their contacts via email, newsletters, social media, and phone calls. To be eligible to participate in the survey, a firm must be based in Legnano and not be obliged by law to perform an energy audit (this obligation falls on large firms in energy-intensive sectors).

We expect to recruit about 76 firms for each of the three experimental arms.

Based on power calculations, we aim for a sample of 230 firms, divided equally between the three treatment arms. Assuming a standardized effect size of d = 0.43, 80% power, and 90% confidence level, and individual-level randomization, with equal shares across treatment groups, the design would require about 76 observations per treatment arm. The standardized effect size is taken from the meta-analysis by on the effectiveness of nudges by Mertens et al. 2022. Mertens, S., Herberz, M., Hahnel, U.J.J., Brosch, T., 2022. The effectiveness of nudging: A meta-analysis of choice architecture interventions across behavioral domains. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 119