Alleviating energy poverty as a governance issue in the built environment: mapping out decision-making bottlenecks for upscaling the insulation of the housing stock

Considering that energy poverty is caused on the one hand by an income factor and on the other hand by a household’s energy expenses, one way of alleviating such energy poverty is by lowering energy expenses through better insulation of the houses people live in. And considering that – at least in the Netherlands – a very large share of the energy poor households live in dwelling of (social housing) corporation, it makes sense to look at these corporations for large-scaled insulation of the housing stock. Even though such insulation of the housing stock is currently being pursued by housing corporations (as well as home owners and landlords), it seems that the pace is slow and the obstacles for upscaling are plenty. But what is hindering the upscaling of insulating the housing stock by housing corporations? In this paper we explicitly see the objective of accelerated improvement to poorly insulated houses as a governance question. We ask, therefore, which of the existing decision-making structures contribute to the difficulty of upscaling the insulation of the housing stock. On the basis of a case study in the Netherlands – the Metropole Region Amsterdam (MRA) – we seek to map out the current governance system relevant for renovating the housing stock of housing corporations, and look for possible improvements in that system. In this governance mapping exercise, we are firstly interested in the mutual dependencies and interaction between relevant actors (or stakeholders). We empirically investigate which actors play a role in decision-making on renovating the housing stock; what different decision-making powers, mandates, and interests these actors have; whether and how all relevant actors communicate to one another; and what knowledge, data, and information they use (or indeed lack) to make large-scale plans for renovations. Of special interest here are the types of agreements made between housing corporations and municipalities, the enforceability of those agreements, the extent to which (local) government can demand particular renovation action by housing corporations, and the extent to which these (local) governments can provide the (long-term policy) conditions that enable housing corporations to invest in these insulation endeavours. As part of this question we also look at the interaction of actors at different governmental levels: what are the interdependencies and interactions between locally operating housing corporations and national policymakers? Secondly, we look at possible hindrance of existing rules and regulations, and ask which changes can be made there to accelerate the insulation of the housing stock. Such rules and regulations can be of financial nature, such as investment and guarantee rules for corporations or governmental subsidy programmes, but can also be of more cross-cutting nature, such as environmental regulations like flora and fauna building permits. Though the question of how decisions are made seems obvious, we may come to a breakthrough by ‘simply’ connecting the right actors, interests and mandates.