This paper applies a multi-criteria analysis (MCA) and marginal abatement cost curves (MACC) to evaluate public policies mechanisms to promote the dissemination of energy efficiency (EE) and on-site renewable energy sources (RES) technologies in Brazilian buildings sector. The objective here is to bring together the advantages of both methods in order to provide more valuable insights to policy makers. The MCA results show that in the case of more integrative policies, which considers, for instance, potential of jobs creation, the mechanisms to foster distributed RES and solar water heaters are better ranked than in MACC analysis, where only cost-effectiveness of each option is evaluated. Other key finding is that: (1) there is a significant cost effective potential that could be reached through alternative mechanisms not implemented yet in the country, such as public procurement regulation and building codes and; (2) minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) could be broader in scope and more stringent and include the use of energy in standby mode and tubular fluorescent lamps. In particular, some important appliances such as large air conditioning devices should have more aggressive MEPS. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.