Zero carbon homes in the UK? Analysing the co-evolution of policy mix and socio-technical system

Abstract

Florian (2020) Zero carbon homes in the UK? Analysing the co-evolution of policy mix and socio-technical system. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions,

The Great Reconfiguration

“…A third reason is that the housing crisis increased the dependency of the government on housebuilders to build more homes. The building industry used this structural dependency to push for scrapping the ZCH (Edmondson et al, 2020).…”

“…Policymakers hoped that the ZCH-target, increasingly stringent Building Regulations, and voluntary standards would encourage reorientation of incumbent housebuilders (O'Neill and Gibbs, 2020). To support this reorientation, the government also helped to create the Zero Carbon Hub (which was primarily funded by industry actors) to investigate, test, and demonstrate various zero-carbon options and create a platform for discussion and network building between industry and government (Edmondson et al, 2020). As discussed in Section 6.3.2, some housebuilders did indeed start exploring more radical low-carbon building options.…”

“…PH-designs have only marginally entered mainstream commercial markets, because of relatively limited interest from homebuyers (who are often deterred by higher PH prices) and volume housebuilders (Lynch, 2014;Pitts, 2017). The introduction of the 2006 Zero Carbon Homes (ZCH) target initially stimulated some industry hedging, because it was complemented in 2007 by the announcement of government plans to build five eco-towns (with 5,000-20,000 homes built to zero-carbon standards), which formed an attractive commercial opportunity (Edmondson et al, 2020). Incumbent building firms (e.g., Barratt, Stewart Milne) started to explore PH-designs and also funded the Zero Carbon Hub (created in 2008) to engage in relevant research and technical demonstration (Lynch, 2014).…”

Closing the mineral construction material cycle – An endogenous perspective on barriers in transition

“…The diffusion of innovative solutions into the local regime depends on effective D. Kliem et al replication of existing knowledge and regime standards and can interfere with regional diversification processes (Boschma et al, 2017). The role of the regional diversification processes in the governance of co-evolutionary processes between public policy actors has received limited attention from transition scholars (Hansen and Coenen, 2017), but provides critical insights into the governance of transitions (Binz and Truffer, 2017) and the efficacy of policy interventions (Edmondson et al, 2020). Co-evolution refers to the feedback processes between technologies, organizations, and institutions (Foxon, 2011), which can result in technological or institutional lock-ins (Unruh, 2000).…”

Starting low, reaching high? Sequencing in EU climate and energy policies

“…To the best of our knowledge, these novel frameworks are still in need of empirical validation of the suggested mechanisms. A notable exception is the co-evolution framework by Edmondson et al (2018), which is applied to the case of zero-carbon homes in the UK by Edmondson et al (2020). The broader questions we ask here are: Do the mechanisms actually work out in different practical cases as theorized?…”