The Sustainable Housing Challenge
4.4 State, National, and International Scale
climate data should not just include temperature but also changes to other areas of the natural environment (such as sea level rise, flooding, and bush/forest fires), and be used to inform housing design, material and technology selection, construction methods, and use. When urban planners and other residential stakeholders are considering these things, they must consider where we are building and living.
Additionally, policy making for a low carbon future must bring together the technical with the social. Research looking at the transition to low carbon housing requirements in the EU, UK, North America, and Australia found that the jurisdictions that had the strongest current and future housing performance requirements clearly communicated how those requirements were going to address a range of environmental and social issues (such as health and well-being, fuel poverty) and linked the outcomes of the policy to other key government policies [9, 87]. In some locations, there is a shift in the focus and language around sustainable housing, moving from one that is strictly about environmental impact (e.g., zero carbon) to include the wider social benefits (e.g., improved health through more stable and comfortable indoor air temperature).
This is helping in broadening the benefits and appeal of sustainable hous- ing and addressing some of the arguments put forward by those against the changes. While some people might still see improving sustainability outcomes as a “nice” to have element, it is harder for people to argue against improved health and well-being and reduced living costs!
4.4.2 Governance
There are also key governance challenges to delivering sustainable hous- ing. As discussed in Chap. 2, the improvement to housing performance (or sustainability outcomes) has largely been driven by the introduction, and then revision, of performance requirements [88, 89]. However, these minimum performance regulations create tensions between policy mak- ers, the housing construction industry, and those who argue they do not go far enough. Often when it is suggested that minimum performance requirements should be improved, and that longer term targets should aim to achieve zero or low carbon/energy outcomes, there is significant push back from key stakeholders who are opposed. The housing con- struction industry tends to be entrenched in the ways they operate and do not like anything they perceive to impact their productivity or ability to make money. This then turns the discussion into a political point scor- ing and support exercise and ignores why the discussion is required in the first place. The revoking of the Code for Sustainable Homes in the UK is
an example where different politics played out to negatively impact the push towards more sustainable housing [90]. A change in government led to a change in priorities and, ultimately, a softening of sustainable hous- ing performance requirements and the long-term policy pathway.
An issue which has had increasing attention in recent years is that, despite the use of minimum performance standards, there is significant evidence of a performance gap between what those standards require and what is delivered as the end product, especially with new construction [91–94]. This is problematic for several reasons. Firstly, consumers are not getting what they are entitled to in relation to minimum perfor- mance. Secondly, it is locking occupants and owners into poorer perfor- mance and higher living costs. Thirdly, it helps perpetuate a housing construction industry that already struggles with issues of quality and accountability in many parts of the world.
Researchers have found that buildings can consume up to 250% more energy than predicted in design, although the gap tends to be in the 10–30% range across larger data sets [91]. A study of a housing develop- ment in Italy found that there was a gap of 44% between predicted and actual performance but that, by updating various assumptions in the design model (such as the weather file, use profile, and heating, ventila- tion, and air conditioning features), they were able to close this gap to 7%
[94]. Stellberg [95] translated the broader performance-design gap into an economic energy waste number by analysing studies from the USA that found there was a significant issue with high non-compliance against ele- ments of building codes in most states, and as high as 100% in some jurisdictions. This represented reduced economic and environmental ben- efits of the codes by up to US$175 million a year (for both residential and commercial buildings), demonstrating significant financial waste.
One of the ongoing challenges with addressing housing performance through policy is that policy has historically only been applicable to new construction which only make up a small percentage of the overall build- ing stock. For example, in Australia, new dwellings only make up approx- imately 1–2% of housing each year. Around the world, various reports highlight that the majority of the housing stock in 2050 has already been built [96]. If we are to deliver sustainable housing, we need to address the dwellings that already exist. The International Energy Agency estimates
that up to 2% of the existing building stock undergoes energy renova- tions per year and that these retrofits lead to energy intensity reductions of up to 15% [97]. To meet future sustainability targets, there is a need to improve this both in terms of number of retrofits undertaken and the improvement in energy reductions. Minimum performance standards addressing existing dwellings are comparatively recent and not yet a requirement in all of the countries that have requirements for new housing.
As regulation implementation varies around the world, it is problem- atic to rely on regulations in their current form to improve sustainable housing outcomes. Some jurisdictions (like Australia) aim to set a nation- ally consistent approach, which often contains some subtle variances for different climate zones. Other jurisdictions (such as the USA, and the EU to some degree) have a more fragmented approach where the introduc- tion or improvement of performance regulations is left to state or local governments to implement [9, 98]. There are arguments for and against both ways of delivering these regulations. On the one hand, a nationally consistent approach allows the housing construction industry to have more certainty when working across different locations and attempts to deliver a more collaborative approach to improving outcomes. The down- side is, as Australia found out, that if you require the consensus of all stakeholders to lift minimum requirements, it can take just one State or stakeholder to delay the process or create weaker outcomes. When gov- ernments are responsible for developing and setting minimum require- ments, it can lead to inconsistency in relation to what the targets and requirements are. However, this responsibility also allows the jurisdic- tions who want to lead or innovate housing to do so. This is what is hap- pening in California, which has a long history of leading in the sustainable housing regulation space [99]. Where the federal or national government does not have authority to set performance requirements, these govern- ments tend to use other levers to try and drive change including through the provision of rebates, subsidies, training, and other support [100].
There is also an issue of split incentives for rental housing where those responsible for paying energy bills (the tenant) are not the same as those who make capital investment decisions (the dwelling owner). A range of policy, economic, and sustainable housing researchers have found some
landlords are unwilling to spend money on sustainability or quality upgrades. The tenant does not have control over changes that can reduce living costs, improve health and well-being, and increase the thermal comfortable of their housing [101–103]. Some jurisdictions have devel- oped policies to try to overcome this split incentive. In the UK, the “How to rent a safe home” guidance states that landlords must ‘supply adequate heating in proper working order’, and that ‘a cold home is one that can- not be maintained at a temperature between 18°C to 21°C at a reasonable cost to the occupier’ [104]. In New Zealand, under the “Healthy Homes Standards”, ‘the landlord must provide at least one fixed (not portable) heater that can directly heat the living room to at least 18°C’ [105].