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markets and sectors that faced little if any international competition EZ, 1999, p. 12. For the former, the government opted for self-
regulation and for the latter for government policy in the form of energy tax, standard setting and regulation.
In 2004 the government decided that energy saving would no longer be compulsory for companies participating in the CO
2
emissions trade. In effect, this meant that the Netherlands decided not to impose energy
efficiency standards for the greater part of manufacturing energy consumption. We return to this in section 3.4.1.
The Clean and Efficient working programme was introduced in 2007. In it, the government declared that the European CO
2
emissions trading system was the cornerstone of its mix of instruments VROM, 2007, p. 49.
In addition, where feasible and relevant, the government supports the introduction of energy efficiency and CO
2
emission standards. It would prefer worldwide and European standards to national standards in order
not to distort the international market.
3.3 Policy impact known in advance
In both 1999 and 2007, studies carried out for the Ministries of VROM and EZ found that the intended policy measures would probably not achieve
the set goals. ECN and the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment
RIVM Beeldman et al., 1999 extrapolated the effects expected from the instruments introduced in the Climate Policy Implementation
Memorandum VROM, 1999. Their main conclusion was that the proposed policy package might be sufficient to achieve the goals set for
2010 but not all the expected effects would be equally hard. They thought 40 of the expected policy effect was uncertain. The main
uncertainties related to weakness in the implementation of the Benchmarking Agreement in the manufacturing sector, the voluntary
agreements still to be reached with energy companies, the significant overlap of instruments in the transport sector and the voluntary nature of
the instruments in the built environment sector Beeldman et al., 1999. ECN and the RIVM Menkveld et al., 2007 also calculated the effects
expected of the instruments in the Clean and Efficient working programme. They concluded that successful implementation of the
working programmes measures would have a significant impact on
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energy saving but the intended target of 2 per annum could be achieved only if everything fell into place: high economic growth, a strict
European energy saving policy including a high price for CO
2
emission allowances and strict standards on cars and electrical appliances and the
implementation of high-intensity measures to achieve a very high proportion at least 80 of the technical saving potential would actually
be realised. If European policy were not so strict, the maximum saving per annum would be between 1.6 and 1.9.
3.4 Policy effects by sector
This section looks at the combinations of instruments that have contributed to energy saving in each sector and the known effects of the
instruments used.
3.4.1 Manufacturing
A significant proportion of the instruments used in the manufacturing sector have not had a significant policy impact. The exact impact of some
of the other instruments cannot be quantified. Emissions trading system
Although the European CO
2
emissions trading system has become the governments main policy instrument to save energy in the energy
intensive manufacturing sector, its effectiveness so far has been very limited. The systems impact relies heavily on the price of a CO
2
emission allowance and the extent to which entrepreneurs regard the system as
permanent. It did not result in substantial savings in the Netherlands between 2005 and 2007. We consider this further in section 5.5.7.
Voluntary agreements Voluntary agreements play an important role in the policy for medium -
sized and large manufacturing companies. So far, the impact of voluntary agreements in the manufacturing sector has been mixed. In the first
multiyear agreement the participants together accounted for 75 of energy consumption in the manufacturing sector and all relatively
inexpensive and simple measures could still be taken. It is therefore assumed that this agreement improved energy efficiency in the sector.
The impact of the second multiyear agreement, for the period 2000 -2008, was probably limited. Since wholesale consumers were exempt from the
multiyear agreements upon the introduction of the CO
2
emissions trading, the participants in the second agreement accounted for just 15 of
