EMBEDDING ENERGY SAVIING POLICIES IN THE DUTHC NON-PROFIT HOUSING SECTOR

misbe2011 Tracking Number 33

Many Dutch social landlords have formulated energy saving ambitions for their housing stock. On the national level, the Dutch government and several umbrella organizations have agreed that CO2 emissions will be reduced with 30% in 2018 compared to 2008. In the same year, 20% of the energy use in the housing sector should come from renewable energy sources and all newly built houses should be climate neutral. The existing housing stock should be climate neutral in 2050. Many studies on policy implementation have emphasized the difficulties of putting policies into practice. The paper presents several ways in which Dutch social landlords incorporate their energy saving policies in their ‘regular’ housing management, such as planned preventive maintenance, renovations and other physical improvements. The research questions are as follows: - What are the current energy saving policies of Dutch social housing organisations? Which objectives are formulated? - In which way do Dutch social housing organisations materialize their energy saving policies in their physical investments in new building and in the existing stock? What are the main stimuli and barriers for this materialization? - In which way do the current energy saving policies of Dutch social housing organisations coincide or conflict with their policies in other fields (e.g. rent setting, maintenance strategies)? - To which extent are the energy saving ambitions of Dutch social housing organisations realized? What are the main factors of success or failure for this? Several landlords were selected that have formulated an energy saving policy and that have at least some experience in implementing these policies. Interviews were held with managers of asset and maintenance management and with policy staff of social landlords. It is investigated to which extent the policy ambitions, both at the portfolio level and at the project level, are carried out, and in which way these ambitions are embedded in the organisations’ regular working processes. In addition, the main stimuli and barriers for the implementation of the energy saving policies are identified. Special attention has been paid to the feasibility of combinations of energy saving measures with other physical improvements in the housing stock. Results show that the implementation of energy saving policies in annual improvement and maintenance plans is in most cases not problematic, and that the most significant problems arise during the preparation of individual investment projects. Keywords: energy saving, implementation, social housing, the Netherlands