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The UK's housing stock generates approximately 27 per cent of the country's total annual carbon emissions. In light of the legally binding targets to reduce carbon emissions, new housing is subject to a tightening of regulations governing energy demand and efficiency resulting in a gradual improvement in carbon emissions. The question is how to achieve the deep carbon emission reductions from existing domestic properties, of which 75 per cent will still be in use in 2050. Government has sought to provide incentives to homeowners to improve the energy efficiency of their households, and mandate improvements in socially rented housing using a range of fiscal measures, most recently the 'Green Deal'. There has however been little consideration of the 18 per cent of UK households who privately rent their home, a tenure that is growing fast. The aim of this research is to investigate the factors that influence private sector landlords when considering energy efficiency improvements to their tenanted homes. The results indicate that Government policy has consistently failed to engage private sector landlords in the issue of energy efficiency and thus measures must be taken to understand the motivations of landlords in order to design effective incentives and interventions.

Tensions are evident in energy policy objectives between centralised top-down interconnected energy systems and localised distributed approaches. Examination of these tensions indicates that a localised approach can address a systemic problem of interconnected systems; namely vulnerability.The challenge for energy policy is to realise the interrelated goals of energy security, climate and environmental targets and social and economic issues such as fuel poverty, whilst mitigating vulnerability. The effectiveness of conventional approaches is debateable. A transition to a low carbon pathway should focus on resilience, counter to vulnerability. This article draws from on-going work which evaluates the energy aspects of a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) project to refurbish and re-build a local authority"s entire stock of sheltered accommodation to high environmental standards. Initial findings suggest that whereas more conventional procurement processes tend to increase systemic vulnerability, a user focussed process driven through PFI competitive dialogue is beginning to motivate some developers to adopt innovative approaches to energy system development.

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