This paper presents results from the first international comparative study of non-profit housing organizations in Australia, England and the Netherlands to engage with panels of organizational leaders. The study uses a ‘modified Delphi method’ with Likert-type scaled surveys, followed by in-depth interviews. The paper introduces the concept of hybridity as a way of understanding the interaction of state, market and community drivers in steering non-profit housing organizations. In all three countries, findings indicate that there are clear limits to independence from continued state influence. In England this takes the form of state-directed cross-subsidy and welfare reform, in Australia business development strategies have had to respond to volatility and reductions in state funding, while in the Netherlands public policy has recently restricted the remit of associations to a low-income niche and reduced commercial involvement. These findings lend support to ‘contested logics’ models of organizational hybridity rather than either ‘out-of-control monstrous hybrids’ or linear privatization models.

Energy renovations offer unique opportunities to increase the energy efficiency of the built environment and for the existing housing stock; they are the most important solution. Usually, energy savings are based on modeling calculations. However, recent research has shown that the predicted energy consumption differs largely from the actual consumption. In this paper, the effectiveness of energy measures is re-assessed based on actual consumption data. We use a monitoring system, which contains information about the energy performance of around 60% of the Dutch non-profit housing sector (circa 1.2 million dwellings). We connect the data from this monitoring system to actual energy consumption data from Statistics Netherlands on a dwelling level. Using longitudinal analysis methods, from 2010 to 2014, we are able to identify the energy efficiency improvements of the stock and determine the effectiveness of different measures in terms of actual energy savings. The results reveal the actual energy savings of different efficiency measures and highlight the significance of the actual energy consumption when a renovation is planned or realized.

The existing housing stock plays a major role in meeting the energy saving targets set in the Netherlands as well as in the EU. Existing buildings account for 38% of the final energy consumption in the European Union (EU), and they are responsible for 36% of the CO₂ emissions. Energy renovations in dwellings offer unique opportunities to reduce both energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. In this article, the renovation rates for the non-profit housing stock of the Netherlands are presented, based on the changes in the energy performance of 856,252 dwellings for the period of 2010–2014. The data necessary are drawn from a monitoring system that contains information about the energy performance of approximately 60% of all dwellings in the sector. The method used follows the changes of the dwellings’ physical properties and reported energy performance. The results show that although many energy improvements have been realized, they result in small changes of the energy efficiency of the dwellings. Deep energy renovation rates are very low. If this pace continues, the progress is too little to reach national and international policy targets. The renovation rates are not high enough and the trends seem difficult to reach.