The potential for cost-effective energy efficiency improvements is very large. However, major impacts from energy efficiency improvements can take decades to be fully realised. In addition, today the building sector is requested to define strategies and decide which energy retrofit actions to undertake in their existing building stock. Since building users are very often encouraged to save energy based on measured energy consumption, it is essential to know that the indicator used to assess energy efficiency is really guiding the building use towards sustainability. This study examines how energy measures reflect energy efficiency indicators and how they can be combined so that the result is user-driven and reflects the reality of the building operational phase energy efficiency better. This study shows that energy efficiency can be measured by using alternative indicators and confirms that different indicators make a different impact on results showing efficiency. In the studied cases savings in energy consumption can be achieved by investing in technical measures or operating the building automation system based on actual occupancy. Results indicated that the size of the effect of energy measures is roughly similar in a case of alternative indicators of energy efficiency. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.