ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 661

Awareness and Skills Barriers
Providing correct and proper information is important for the retrofit market to work efficiently.
Many Consumers tend to lack interest in these energy saving projects for more complex reasons
that was categorized in three areas as BPIE 2011 report stated (Fig.6).

Figure 6: Administrative and Institutional barriers (adopted from BPIE 2011)
Expenditure and Benefit’s Separation
Expenditure and Benefit’s Separation is also known as a split incentive barrier (Fig.7).

Figure 7: The split incentive barrier
This is a classic issue between the landlord and the tenant. There are different ways where the
investor in a building may not get the financial return he expects, such as:
• Owners invest in a building where the tenants are responsible for paying the bills.
• Owner’s inability to rise rent after building retrofit for any reason.
• The renovated building is located in an area where the market price does not mirror the building’s energy performance.
In addition to all the previous barriers, in the US, the Rockefeller Foundation 2012 added that
measurements and verifications were considered difficult to perform until recently. Moreover, the
limited retrofit projects to compare with, is considered another barrier.
4.2 The Challenges
It is noted that not almost all the listed barriers are related to technical or market issues, but the
lack of activity occurs because of the financial as well as the other barriers. These barriers are not
permanent and eventually will be overcome. However, a few challenges need to be considered to
cope with the building’s demand for a more efficient supply chain and delivery scheme. Figure 8
shows these areas:

Retrofitting existing buildings in UAE: barriers, opportunities, and recommendation

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