An investigation into the public’s attitudes to UK housing carbon emission reduction policies and technologies for home energy production from renewable sources

Abstract

The Climate Change Act of 2008 set a legally binding target to cut at least an
80% in greenhouse gas emissions from homes by 2050.With 68% of UK
housing stock owner-occupied the aim of the research was to assess
homeowners’ attitudes and perceptions of energy efficiency policies. Primary
data was gathered in a door to door survey of 40 households from four different
areas of Burnley. Twenty surveys were conducted at properties with solid walls
and 20 with cavity walls. This 20 was again split between areas with differing
weekly income levels. Data was also collected from local authority officers
working within the home energy efficiency sector. A central objective was to
assess their willingness and potential barriers to participation in an energy
saving strategy such as the Green Deal. The survey findings found that the
access to the right information on costs and time to recoup is crucial to
homeowner’s evaluation of the Green Deal scheme. The second objective was to
discover if hard to treat homeowners would be incentivised to act with the
introduction of the Green Deal and the new ECO subsidy. The survey found a
low interest for solid wall insulation in hard to treat homes is due to the price.
Homeowners in these properties intimated that only substantial subsidy grants of
£6,000 - £8,000 would empower them to act. The potential level of the ECO
subsidy ‘best estimate’ at £1000 - £2000 is prohibitive and extra funding on top
of the ECO subsidy and the Green Deal, needs to be found, for treating Hard to
Treat homes.