How Can Intermediaries Promote Business Model Innovation: The Case of ‘Energiesprong’ Whole-House Retrofits in the United Kingdom (UK) and the Netherlands

Abstract

The SPRU Working Paper Series aims to accelerate the public availability of the research undertaken by SPRU-associated people, and other research that is of considerable interest within SPRU, providing access to early copies of SPRU research.How can intermediaries promote business model innovation: the case of 'Energiesprong' wholehouse retrofits in the United Kingdom (UK) and the Netherlands

Role of knowledge and policies as drivers for low-energy housing: Case studies from the United Kingdom

“…Calls have been made to introduce new policies to support retrofit (BEIS, 2017). Further, for example, Energiesprong in the Netherlands, which has provided large-scale retrofits guaranteeing improved energy and comfort performance, has been used as an example of what the UK could learn from other countries (Brown et al, 2018).…”

“…While design did not feature as prominently in the retrofit cases, comfort did. Incorporating a design approach -as presently attempted by the Dutch initiative Energisprong which suggests that design can be used as a sales argument to advance (pre-fabricated) low-energy houses in a broader scale (Brown et al, 2018) -and extending this beyond retrofitting buildings with historical values (cf. Harrestrup and Vedsen, 2015) to making homes more comfortable, could advance the appeal of whole house retrofit and thereby accelerate the low-energy housing transition.…”

Aesthetic appealing wall insulation: A novel approach for uptake of solid wall insulation in the UK

“…It is also beneficial to provide customer service for all the steps of the project such as design, material selection, supervision of the project and after care service [109]. Following on from the results of this study, it is important to clarify all factors of aesthetic, energy saving, cost, in the retrofit project to maximize the attractiveness of the package for the customers, and to minimize the disruption time of the retrofit process for homeowners and deliver projects according to schedules suitable for customers.…”