ABSTRACT
Throughout the affluent West, domestic energy use is a major contributor to total end-use energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. In this context, attempts to reduce and decarbonise domestic energy use are a key focus of energy policies. In the UK, home energy consumption makes up roughly a third of all UK energy use (DECC 2013 a) and 15 per cent of total UK carbon emissions (DECC 2013 b). As a governance response, construction of new, low-carbon buildings – such as those installed with ‘smart’ technologies and electricity generation capabilities, and/or designed with high energy efficiency – has formed a central plank of policy approaches to date (Reid and Houston 2013). The importance of these low-carbon buildings is lent added significance given that they will shape how we live in years to come, thereby contributing to future energy use and associated carbon emissions. This importance is widely recognised by policy and, in the UK alone, recent years have seen increasing stringency of statutory standards (for example, Building Regulations), growth in voluntary standards (for example, Code for Sustainable Homes, Passivhaus, BREEAM) and associated professional accreditation courses, new financial incentives (for example, Feed-in-Tariffs, Renewable Heat Incentive, Green Deal), and new institutions (such as Zero Carbon Hub and Passivhaus Institute). Together, these developments have been made manifest in a burgeoning number of pilot projects around low-carbon housing (see Brown and Vergragt 2008; Lovell 2004, 2007 a, 2007 b). Nevertheless, there remains much work to be done before low-carbon homes constitute the norm for housing practice.
