Purpose: Decarbonising the housing stock is one of the largest challenges in the built environment today, which is getting the attention not only from policymakers but also from social housing corporations, financial organisations and users. In line with the international Paris-Climate-Change-Conference 2015, Dutch cities and housing associations have embraced this challenge with the ambitions to become carbon neutral in 2050. To reach such goals, both the rate and depth of renovation need to increase. Several technical solutions to eliminate the energy demand in dwelling have been developed and tested. Nevertheless, the intake rate of deep retrofitting is low. Despite recent developments, there are still significant barriers related to financing, lack of information and user acceptance. To address those barriers, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between energy efficiency upgrades and the cost of living. Design/methodology/approach: Focusing on walk-up apartments in the Netherlands, a framework of refurbishment measures that affect the energy efficiency was identified, and their performance was calculated. Furthermore, the rental price adjustment was estimated, taking into account the refurbishment investment and the exploitation cost of the renovated dwellings. Findings: The comparison of the energy use and rental price for the different options demonstrated how the different renovation measures affect the energy cost, the energy use, rent and cost of living. The tenants are more likely to accept the solutions that take into account the total cost of living and sustainability benefits. The study gives a holistic standpoint to the issue of energy upgrades, by quantifying the effect of the potential measures for the whole exploitation period. It has shown the potential of the different interventions to improve the performance and living conditions, without necessarily increasing the total cost of living. Practical implications: Such results aim at supporting the decision making between the stakeholders, primarily housing associations and tenants. Originality/value: The importance of the study is that it gives a holistic standpoint to the issue of energy upgrades, by quantifying the effect of the potential measures for the whole exploitation period. The cost, as a key, if not the more most decisive, issue, is put into perspective in relation to the benefit, in order to give a direction to the renovation design and arguments for the stakeholders’ dialogue. The approach of the study goes beyond cost-optimality of measures and investigated the relation between energy upgrades and cost, as a way to evaluate design variation and address the lack of information barrier in renovations. Moreover, it also proves that deep renovation is feasible without increasing in the total cost of living, which is a principal argument to promote renovations.

Decarbonizing the housing stock is one of the largest challenges in the built environment today, and is getting attention not only from policymakers, but also from social housing corporations, financial and tenants’ organisations. In line with the international Paris-Climate-Change-Conference 2015, Dutch cities and housing associations have embraced this challenge with the ambitions to become carbon neutral in 2050. To reach such ambitious goals, both the rate and depth of renovation need to increase significantly. In the Netherlands, the Energy Agreement for Sustainable Growth, indicates that 300.000 dwellings have to be renovated annually, in accordance with the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive adopted by the European Union, to improve the Dutch building stock towards energy neutrality. Several technical solutions to eliminate the energy demand in dwelling have been developed and tested. Nevertheless, the intake rate of deep retrofitting is low. Currently, most improvements in residential buildings consist of basic maintenance and shallow renovation, but broader or deeper energy renovation measures are required. Despite more recent developments, there are still significant barriers related to financing, lack of information, and user acceptance. Complex technical characteristics are not always taken into account by tenants; the focus is usually on the ease of use, comfort and living expenses.

To this end, the present study sets of to investigate the relationship between energy efficiency upgrade measures and cost of living. Focusing on the post-war, multi-family social housing in the Netherlands, a framework of refurbishment measures that affect the energy efficiency were identified, and their performance was simulated. The variations refer to the façade design, thermal envelope upgrade, winter-garden addition and reviewable energy. The energy efficiency indicator is the energy cost reduction, as well as the carbon footprint of the energy use. Furthermore, the rental price adjustment was estimated, taking into account the refurbishment investment and the operation cost of the renovated dwellings. All tested combination of variables resulted in significant energy savings, up to 70%, while energy generation was proven to be cost-effective, as it has a considerable positive effect on the energy use and the energy cost, without increasing the rental price.

The results aim at supporting the decision-making discussion between the stakeholders, primarily housing associations and tenants. The relation between the energy consumption and rental price for the different options identifies the effect of design variation and demonstrated the attractive solutions that the tenants are more likely to accept, taking into account the overall cost of living and sustainability benefits.

Increasing energy efficiency of the housing stock is one of the largest challenges in the built environment today. In line with the international Paris-Climate-Change-Conference 2015, Dutch municipalities and housing associations have embraced the ambition to achieve carbon neutrality for their social housing stock by 2050. However, most deep renovation designs for increasing the energy efficiency of dwellings focus on the relatively easy portion of the housing stock: postwar row housing. Furthermore, such design solutions are mostly produced without much care for architectural quality and cultural heritage, nor for testing for consumer preferences. Yet, such aspects are of major importance in tenement housing, particularly regarding the architectural quality of the huge numbers of walk-up apartment buildings from the inter- and postwar periods owned by housing associations in the larger cities. Renovation of buildings of this typology is more complex because of, among others, technical, social, and heritage factors. To support decisions in this complex context, a General Transformation Framework and a Roadmap has been developed for generating design solutions for deep renovation of representative parts of postwar walk-up apartment buildings with the aim to increase energy efficiency; retain its architectural legibility and cultural heritage value; and allow for the presentation of (end) users, with various options for adaptation to assess their preferences.