Glasgow Social Sciences Hub

Reducing the use of fossil fuels and making progress towards net-zero carbon emissions over the next 20 years are grand ambitions. But there are considerable hurdles blocking progress: financial; technical; lack of capacity; and behavioural incentives – to name four.

Housing retrofits – whereby existing buildings are changed to improve their energy efficiency and reduce emissions – are useful case studies of these challenges and the progress being made to overcome them.

We know that more than 80% of the housing stock that the UK will have in 2045 already exists. In other words, the required retrofit is a massive financial and physical programme lying ahead. It is made even more challenging by the fact that the country’s housing stock is comparatively old and highly variable in terms of quality and condition.

To improve the efficiency of UK energy use and reduce carbon emissions, one key area for action is the country’s housing stock. The required retrofit is a massive financial and physical programme.

In this blog Professor Kenneth Gibb from the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE) decribes how an early initiative of this kind in Glasgow’s tenement buildings offers lessons on how to make it work.