The circular built environment toolbox: A systematic literature review of policy instruments

The built environment plays a central role in the transition towards the circular economy as they concentrate major consumer and polluter human activities. However, the way BEs are – and need to be – driven by policy to reach cities’ circular goals is still an under-researched aspect. Particularly, there is limited knowledge of policy...

Pop-up consultancy centres as an instrumental policy means. Evaluation report: Triple-A: Stimulating the Adoption of low-carbon technologies by homeowners through increased Awareness and easy Access, Deliverable 3.4.1

Local authorities engaged in the Interreg 2 Seas project Triple-A aim to achieve an acceleration of the market in the owner-occupied single-family home renovation sector by increasing awareness of – and enabling access to – energy-saving technologies. This report describes local authorities' experiences of developing and using pop-up consultancy...

Neighbourhood consultancy centres for the adoption of low-carbon technologies by homeowners: Experiences from Dutch initiatives

Frontrunner local authorities aim to achieve a market acceleration in the owner-occupied single-family home renovation sector by increasing awareness of – and enabling access to – low-carbon technologies in residential target areas. With their easy availability, adaptability, and possible mobility, pop-up consultancy desks can provide local...

Overheid en “sociale” locatiedata: Een verkennend onderzoek naar de stand van social media (locatie)data gebruik Nederlandse overheid

Het doel van de verkenning is het uitbouwen en verspreiding van kennis over het gebruik van ‘sociale’ locatiegegevens door de overheid. Tijdens de verkenning wordt inzicht gegeven in de rol die locatiedata van sociale media en aan sociale media gerelateerde applicaties spelen bij de wederzijdse communicatie tussen de overheid en de burger. Door...

Consultancy Centres and Pop-Ups as Local Authority Policy Instruments to Stimulate Adoption of Energy Efficiency by Homeowners

The housing sector is responsible for a more than a quarter of the total final energy consumption in the EU. As the majority (70%) of the EU-housing stock is owner occupied and largely consists of single family dwellings it is understandable that many countries focus their energy saving policies on homeowners. Complementary to the national...

Implementing energy policies in urban development projects: The role of public planning authorities in Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands

Governing climate mitigation is complex, as the recurring gap between policy intentions and actions exhibits. Interventions at the urban scale represent an opportunity to implement energy policy targets. Urban development projects can function as carrier to implement innovative energy solutions as ‘by-product’. To do so, planners must...

Policy preferences and the diversity of instrument choice for mitigating climate change impacts in the transport sector

Different policy approaches and responses to common environmental challenges, such as climate change, exist between countries, and sometimes even within countries. This situation arises because public policy-makers are not only driven by concerns of theoretical purity but are also influenced by a range of social, political, economic, cultural...

Policy Instruments to Improve Energy Performance of Existing Owner Occupied Dwellings

The aim of this thesis is to add knowledge to the role and impact of policy instruments in meeting energy performance ambition in the existing owner occupied housing stock. The focus was instruments available in the Netherlands in 2011 and 2012. These instruments represented the 'on the ground' efforts to meet climate change targets.

Dutch municipalities and the quality of the owner-occupied housing stock

Owners are responsible to maintain their own dwellings in an adequate manner. In practice however all kinds of constraints occur. Lack of financial means and insufficient (technical or practical) knowledge are the most important barriers. Because the quality of owner-occupied housing exceeds the individual interest; there are also general...

'Doing more with less' or 'doing less with less'? Assessing EU cohesion policy's financial instruments for urban development

In the context of a severe economic crisis and austerity, new ideas were put forward to reform cohesion policy to enhance its effectiveness and the return on investment. Among them, financial engineering instruments, such as JESSICA, expected to offer a means to ‘do more with less’ in this difficult budgetary context. In the case of such...

Owner-occupiers and the quality of their dwellings

Home-owners are in principal responsible for maintaining the physical quality of their dwellings. It is in their own interest to do this in an adequate manner, but all kinds of constraints can and do occur in practice. Lack of financial means and insufficient (technical or practical) knowledge are only two of the possible barriers. The quality...

Defining nearly zero-energy housing in Belgium and the Netherlands

Europe expects the housing sector to evolve towards ‘nearly zero-energy’ dwellings. Meanwhile, general terms and research, marketing and legal definitions considering such dwellings have already been introduced. Appraisal of existing definitions is now needed for further policy development. This paper examines what nearly zero-energy terms can...

Waking a sleeping giant: Policy tools to improve the energy performance of the existing housing stock in the Netherlands

The Netherlands like many European countries has issued ambitious national targets to achieve climate change goals. It is recognised that to achieve these goals the energy saving potential idling in the existing housing stock must be exploited. To date the Dutch response is largely defined by the typical national repertoire of policy instruments...

Strong sustainable consumption and degrowth

Based on the analysis how the political and scientific discourses on Sustainable Consumption developed during the last two decades the paper develops the concept of Strong Sustainable Consumption Governance. Next to an emphasis that Sustainable Consumption has to consider resource consumption (including the available sink capacity of the...

Improvement of information for owner-occupiers about the quality of their house

Workshop 1. Session B.

Improvement of information for owner-occupiers about the quality

The use of fiscal instruments in sustainable building policies

Although progressive government guidelines and knowledge about sustainable building exist, sustainability measures are not adopted in large scale. Several barriers have been identified, especially the perceived costs of implementing environmental management and the lack of market demand. The choice of fiscal instruments is an important issue in...