Abstract
Highlights
This special issue explores how the building stock might transition towards net zero, and what key theoretical and practical factors are going to determine the overall potential and shape the transition process. Nine papers explore these issues from a variety of perspectives, while considering retrofit scales ranging from small urban areas to entire national stocks, and potential measures including fabric improvements, changes in occupants’ behaviour and the adoption of new technologies. Some papers consider the technical potential for retrofits through urban stock modelling, including a new model that assesses both household and building suitability for potential retrofits. Another study analyses the impact of different circular economy principles on embodied carbon. Others focus on the political, social and financial issues surrounding retrofit programmes, e.g. examining how the buy-in, commitment and decision-making processes of governments, local authorities and individual building owners might shape the transition to net zero. A case study shows how occupants can be empowered, with workshops and access to data, to take control of their own buildings. Another paper follows the larger scale interventions organised by bodies such as Energie-Sprong in the Netherlands and RetrofitNY in the US. Two papers take a historical perspective. The first investigates how the current capacity for retrofit in the UK social housing sector has been shaped by history. The second asks what lessons can be learned for today’s retrofit programmes from the large-scale change made in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s from ‘town gas’ to gas extracted from the North Sea.