They enjoy a greater range and higher quality of shops, leisure facilities, schools, hospitals, and other services. But it has also created greater demand for the services that energy provides, e.g. heating and cooling, lighting, transportation. Increased service demand need not have led to a rise in actual energy use, provided that, among other factors, improvements in energy efficiency kept pace. However, this was not the case. In fact, since 1990 the rate of improvement in energy efficiency has been about half of what it was in the two previous decades (IEA, 2009a). Improved energy efficiency is often the most economic and readily available means to do that.