Barriers to low carbon retrofit in the domestic built environment

Low carbon retrofit in the domestic built environment is crucial for bringing about a radical environmental and social change in cities. There are around 20 million homes in the UK in need of varying degrees of low carbon and energy efficiency retrofit due to inefficiency. In 2008, UK’s 26 million dwellings were estimated to be responsible for 27% of the country’s total CO2 emissions. 75–85% of the UK’s current building stock will still be in use by 2050. Therefore, improving the energy and carbon performance of existing homes is a major part of dealing with the challenges of climate change, security of energy supply and fuel poverty. The national government and the EU policies have given rise to low carbon retrofitting in the domestic built environment. However, scaling up low carbon retrofit presents a number of barriers from different stakeholders’ perspective involved in the process and understanding the barriers is a key in this journey. This study carried out a systematic review of the existing literature to explore a range of barriers to low carbon retrofit in the domestic built environment. Upfront capital cost, lack of knowledge, interest and time, lack of adequate information and advice, personal behaviour, lack of confidence in suppliers, contractors and technologies, split incentives between landlords and tenants, physical structure of the property, conservation and heritage, inconvenience and disruption and the absence of robust policy and regulatory systems are the major barriers to low carbon domestic retrofit in cities. This study argues that there is a need to address these barriers through effective policy and strategy measures at a national and local level. This may have implications for the design and operation of future low carbon retrofitting in the domestic sector in the UK and abroad