This paper presents evidence for the role of building energy certificates as a behaviour change tool that drives improvements in the energy performance of public buildings. Findings are presented from an evaluation of a large-scale voluntary building labelling campaign, CYBER Display (R). Energy-Cities, the European association of local authorities, launched its Display (R) Campaign in 2001 aimed at encouraging authorities to publicly display the energy and environmental performances of their buildings. Over 500 local and regional authorities in Europe participated in producing over 22,000 certificates. The database contains over 10,000 buildings and provides an excellent opportunity to produce an overview of the broad energy performance trends of buildings in Europe. Common technical factors are identified that lead to improved energy performance. Evidence from a comprehensive survey also reveals a further set of common factors in terms of communication activities that appear to lead to improved energy performance. The paper concludes that whilst building energy certificates are no panacea for the problem of increased emissions from public buildings, producing and displaying building energy certificates such as the Display (R) Poster can act as a catalyst for behaviour change. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.