What factors incentivise or disincentivise people to make energy improvements? What are relevant examples of how people’s behaviours have changed (e.g. to invest in energy efficient measures)? And what are the most effective ways to provide trusted advice to individuals to inform their decisions?

Background

Focusing on decarbonising buildings, to consolidate evidence around the potential effects of net zero on the housing stock, housing supply and the housing market.

Next steps

The lead contacts are: Lesley Smith, Senior Principal Research Officer, Analysis, Research and Co-ordination Unit, Analysis and Data Directorate: Lesley.Smith@levellingup.gov.uk and David Hughes, Head of the Chief Scientific Adviser’s office: psChiefScientificAdviser@levellingup.gov.uk.

Source

This question was published as part of the set of ARIs in this document:

DLUHC Areas of research interest GOVUK

Related UKRI funded projects


  • Fast-tracking Low-Energy Use via Retrofit (FLEUR)

    Almost a third of the total energy use in the UK is attributed to the energy used in homes. The materials, products and technologies necessary to retrofit a dwelling and achieve a substantial reduction in energy use are ...

    Funded by: ESRC

    Lead research organisation: University College London

    Why might this be relevant?

    The project focuses on incentivizing homeowners to carry out low-energy retrofit, which is relevant to understanding factors that incentivise people to make energy improvements.

  • People, Energy and Buildings: Distribution, Diversity and Dynamics (PEB:D3)

    To enable the UK to meet legally binding carbon targets and establish a resilient and secure energy system, the coming decades need to see an historic transition: the almost complete decarbonisation of energy supply, the...

    Funded by: EPSRC

    Lead research organisation: University College London

    Why might this be relevant?

    The project aims to develop tools to understand the complexity and variability of energy consuming behavior, which is relevant to understanding factors that incentivise people to make energy improvements.

  • RCUK Innovation Fellowship in UK Housing Stock Decarbonisation

    Several models have been developed in the UK to predict the energy and associated carbon emissions of the UK housing stock. These have been used to predict the reductions in energy use and carbon emissions arising from a...

    Funded by: ESRC

    Lead research organisation: University of Sheffield

    Why might this be relevant?

    The project focuses on developing a social simulation platform to model the likelihood of households investing in energy reducing renovation options, which partially addresses the question on factors that incentivise people to make energy improvements.

  • Energy literacy through an intelligent home energy advisor (ENLITEN)

    The UK is committed to an 80% reduction in human-created greenhouse gas emissions. As well as financial incentives, carbon reduction will require an increase in "energy literacy", i.e. it will require members o...

    Funded by: EPSRC

    Lead research organisation: University of Bath

  • Household Inclusive Approaches to Domestic Decarbonisation

    **Household Inclusive Approach to Domestic Decarbonisation** Our project aims to reshape how households approach energy efficiency and decarbonisation. Recognising the challenges homeowners face, we're proposing an incl...

    Funded by: Innovate UK

    Lead research organisation: FF FURBNOW LIMITED

  • 'Smarter' homes?: a netnographic exploration of low carbon living

    With growing concerns about climate change and energy security, how we use energy in the UK is receiving more attention than ever before. The way in which we use energy in our homes has been at the forefront of this atte...

    Funded by: ESRC

    Lead research organisation: University of St Andrews

  • The Square Mile

    The Square Mile Retrofit Project seeks to identify the best approach to deliver large-scale area based retrofit of Europe’s existing housing stock. This project explores this by taking three square mile areas to identify...

    Funded by: Innovate UK

    Lead research organisation: PARITY PROJECTS LIMITED

    Why might this be relevant?

    The project focuses on identifying and testing various retrofit strategies for energy improvements in existing housing stock, including community engagement and behavior analysis.

  • The Fairer Warmth App

    Home energy improvements could save £770 million a year from household energy bills by 2030 and save £500 million a year for the NHS (LGA,2022). But, identifying and then supporting the people in most in need...

    Funded by: Innovate UK

    Lead research organisation: CENTRE FOR ENERGY EQUALITY LTD

  • Energy Demand Research Centre (EDRC)

    The UK is facing an energy crisis on three fronts: climate change, energy security, and affordability. This challenge requires a fundamental change in our society, to enable a deep energy demand reduction and wide use of...

    Funded by: EPSRC

    Lead research organisation: University of Sussex

  • eViz - Energy Visualisation for Carbon Reduction

    eViz uses innovative digital techniques to transform energy decisions and behaviour. People's behaviour can cause energy use to be 30-40% higher than Building experts anticipate. Generally, people are keen on saving ener...

    Funded by: EPSRC

    Lead research organisation: Plymouth University

    Why might this be relevant?

    The project uses digital techniques to visualize energy flows and behavior changes, leading to energy efficiency measures and reduced energy bills.