The hidden face of efficiency

Abstract

Efficiency has a double face: it is necessary, but sometime it is an illusion. It is not the solution for an energy hungry world, but is a part of the solution for a sustainable world. Exploring the boundaries of efficiency is like to be inside the smallest box of a Chinese boxes set; If you don’t open your mind to the world outside, you will stop to the walls of the smallest box thinking to have done the best possible, ignoring the largest scenarios to be explored. In this article are described the different approaches to explore the infinite efficiency scenarios that can be opened in the future. Efficiency could be an as costly as useless exercise, with the only effect to move a little bit on the limit of an economic system that is overexploiting natural resources and damaging the ecosystem services fundamental for life. To avoid it is necessary to drive investments to create an efficient economic and human environment, building specific infrastructures, like smart grids, and heat pipes, promoting energy exchanges among different end uses. In other words, before promote efficient appliances on the consumerist market, it is necessary to define a pattern of sufficiency to create a new efficient scenario of a qualitative wellbeing looking forward to a circular and sustainable economy.