this opportunity cost may be very large and in particular in a context of increasing global demand stress on resources and climate concerns they may represent a cost that we cannot afford to bear further analysis and evidence is required to ensure that the full socioeconomic potential of energy efficiency measures is being delivered the significant impacts indicated by work on these benefits to date suggests that the pursuit of energy savings should no longer be seen as a goal in and of itself but rather should be considered as a means to pursue a range of practical improvements for various levels of society this paper investigates the range of outcomes from energy efficiency improvements which extend to benefits that are significantly wider than energy savings alone