Community housing retrofit in the UK and the civics of energy consumption

The existing housing stock in the UK will make a significant contribution to national carbon emissions for many decades to come. Existing houses present a significant challenge to systemic upgrades because they are influenced by a disparate set of regulations, incentives, and stakeholders. Unlike the new build industry, there is no single set of standards to regulate and steer the energy performance of the existing housing stock. To address this challenge, a wide range of government bodies and non-governmental organisations have initiated domestic retrofit programmes based on the notion of ‘community’. The aim of community retrofit programmes is to create a collective of various actors who influence domestic buildings to make retrofit activities more effective and widespread. This rescaling of domestic housing retrofit from the individual household to the community level counters the fragmented and incremental character of domestic retrofit activities by creating shared networks of inquiry and action. This chapter explores the social and political aspects of community domestic retrofit programmes to understand their implications to sustainable urban transitions. The chapter begins with a summary of the challenges to systemic domestic retrofit in the UK and the deficiencies of the ‘rational choice’ model that is commonly employed by Government and other organisations to reform the existing housing stock. Then, four emerging approaches to collective domestic retrofit are presented to illustrate how the notion of community reframes the relationship between individuals and the state. Finally, the chapter concludes with reflections on the emerging civics of low-carbon transition that are embedded in community housing retrofit programmes.