This best practices guide provides a “cookbook” summary of the most effective policies to promote energy efficiency. Governments ranging from local to national can adopt these policies to foster the use of products and services which require less energy input to deliver the same or greater output. The policies are organized around foundational mechanisms, implementation mechanisms, and supporting mechanisms. The foundational mechanisms include Integrated Resource Planning, standards, and market design, while the supporting and pricing mechanisms feature structures for programs, funding, information and labeling, tax policy, R&D and training. The paper describes how each policy mechanism operates, assesses its likely effectiveness, and identifies best practices. The paper also identifies jurisdictions that have successfully applied the policies described.