This policy type includes the following types of mandates/standards that exist across various industries. a. Mandatory Energy Performance Standards (MEPS): The government specifies the minimum level of energy performance that appliances, lighting and electrical equipment (products) must meet or exceed before they can be offered for sale or used for commercial purposes. MEPS are an effective way to increase the energy efficiency of products. By specifying a minimum energy performance level inefficient products are prevented from entering the marketplace, and manufacturers are given appropriate signals to increase product efficiency. For consumers, MEPS mean that products available in the market use less energy and have lower running costs over their lifetime. b. This policy type also includes policies that mandate/ promote energy efficiency across industries. Fuel economy standard: Fuel economy standards require new vehicles to achieve lower fuel consumption per kilometer driven and emissions over time. Standards are particularly effective in regions where manufacture vehicles, as they can influence manufacturers to invest in new technology and drive fuel economy improvements over time, while also providing regulatory certainty. In other markets, well-designed fuel economy standards ensure that imported vehicles meet a minimum threshold of fuel economy performance. The following are common design elements of an auto fuel economy standard: ● Identifying who will be responsible and how it will be managed ● Choice of regulated metric: In general, concerns about energy use and energy security have prompted adoption of fuel economy standards as measured in kilometres per litre (km/l) or miles per gallon (mpg). However, increasingly countries are using a greenhouse gas emission based standard (g CO2 equivalent/km or g CO2equivalent /mile). In any case, fuel economy and CO2 emission standards are equivalent. ● Limit value or corporate average standards ● Form of the standard ● Choice of attribute: An attribute-based standard (e.g. vehicle weight) ensures that vehicles across all fleet have to deploy newer technology since the standards cannot be met alone simply by selling smaller cars. Footprint based standards can help mass reduction. ● Target year for standards ● Stringency of standards ● Test Procedures ● Administrative Protocol ● Flexibility Mechanisms: Averaging, banking and trading, coupled with annual targets, can improve the cost-effectiveness of a given target. These flexibility mechanisms facilitate the implementation of the most cost-effective technologies, provide a greater incentive to improve emissions over the full spectrum of vehicles sold, and allow for more rapid progress towards emissions reduction goals. If not coupled with annual targets, banking of credits can severely erode the overall program benefits. ● Penalties for non-compliance: Penalties for non-compliance are an important part of ensuring that the CO2 reduction goals of the regulation are eventually met. It is important to set financial penalties at a level high enough to provide a strong incentive to comply with the standard rather than simply pay the penalty. In other words, the penalties should be higher than the cost of technology required to reduce CO2 emissions in order to make compliance the more cost-effective option. Many fuel economy standards integrate incentives for electric vehicles. They do this in a number of ways: ● in a calculation of the average emissions of vehicles ● through additional incentives (such as ‘super credits’) to incentivise manufacturers to sell electric vehicles ● mandates for a certain proportion of vehicles to be electric. Depending on the structure of the electric mandate, this could set the proportion of electric vehicles to be based on production, imports or sales. c. Mandatory phase down of existing equipment Policies that encourage or mandate winding down of higher emission, older equipment are included in this category. For example, as vehicles age, they lead to higher maintenance and fuel consumption costs and thus higher emissions. Policy guideline may include waiver of the fee for issue of certificate of registration for a new vehicle while the disincentives may include increase in the fee for conducting fitness test and renewal of fitness certificate for motor vehicles more than a certain time period (e.g. 15 years old; increase in the fitness certification fee for old transport vehicles etc. d. Renewable Portfolio Standard: An obligation placed by a government on a utility company, group of companies or consumers to provide or use a predetermined minimum targeted renewable share of installed capacity, or of electricity or heat generated or sold. A penalty may or may not exist for non-compliance. These policies also are known as “renewable electricity standards”, “renewable obligations” and “mandated market shares”, depending on the jurisdiction.