Boosting long-term-oriented thinking to promote home energy retrofit: A choice experiment

In the built environment sector, enhancing energy efficiency through energy retrofitting is a key strategy to mitigate climate change. Despite the efforts made by local municipalities to offer technical and financial support, the rate of home energy retrofit remains low. The decision to undertake home energy retrofit is complex for homeowners....

From collective to individual decision-making: barriers and opportunities to improve the success rate of the energy retrofits in the Dutch owner-occupied sector

The building sector can contribute considerably to reducing global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In the Netherlands, the GHG emissions must be mitigated by 95% by 2050 relative to the 1990 baseline. Various factors, such as low renovation rates cause uncertainties in reaching these targets. The current study aims for investigating the barriers...

Identification of the behavioural factors in the decision-making processes of the energy efficiency renovations: Dutch homeowners

Over half of all residential buildings in the Netherlands are owner-occupied. In this study, the influence of behavioural factors on individual decisions toward energy efficiency renovations (EERs) was investigated. This study focused on contextual (e.g. building characteristics), personal (e.g. awareness of energy consumption), and...

The Hassle Factor as a Psychological Barrier to a Green Home

In order to reach climate goals, policymakers stimulate homeowners to invest in sustainable measures in and around their house. Unfortunately, however, the number of green home measures lacks behind. This article introduces perceived hassle as an important reason for this shortfall. It is claimed that homeowners perceive hassle during different...

Energy Efficiency of Soft Pneumatic Extension Actuators

Mobile soft robots show great potential for exploration of unknown and hard to navigate environments. Sadly, most of these robots are currently being held back by their power sources and control systems. These components, which are usually quite heavy and bulky, need to be integrated before mobile soft robots can cut their tethers and explore...