of retrofitting. With these two mechanisms combined, residential energy labeling can potentially create a market that values both energy efficiency and the long-term cost of energy; in turn, this is a market that is enabled to demand energy efficiency and drive widespread, mainstreamed home energy upgrades. Indeed, labeling as a strategy for spurring residential energy efficiency moves away from simply expanding upon current retrofit incentives and outreach – programming which is reliant on limited state and federal funding. Moreover, current home energy upgrade programs in the U.S., even the most successful ones, have achieved penetration rates of less than 2% due to a lack of homeowner uptake (DOE SEEAction 2011c). Many of these programs also have been largely reliant on utilities to design, implement, and operate residential efficiency initiatives. The market may benefit if utilities supported a competitive market of energy efficiency services, instead of creating and operating those services, as this could introduce creativity into the business of residential retrofits and relieve utilities of day-to-day program management. In short, transparency provides an alternative strategy to simply expanding upon existing programs, which depend on limited government funding or utilities to actively push energy efficiency to perhaps less-than-eager homeowners. Thus, states that seek to catalyze the market for residential energy efficiency can enable the provision of more complete information through building energy labels. However, as Chapter II will detail, there is a great deal of heterogeneity in current approaches to building labeling, and there are numerous concerns over current approaches to residential energy rating and disclosure. As a result, the research focus of this thesis is: how can residential energy performance in the U.S. be best assessed and disclosed, in order to optimize the benefits for the delivery of energy efficiency? While research to date offers many insights into improving and optimizing the nascent field of building labeling, there is a particular research need in terms of asset ratings (based on on-site building assessment) vs. operational
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