The drivers of and barriers to energy efficiency in renovation decisions of single-family home-owners

Building renovation is one of the key factors in fostering energy efficiency in the building sector. However with regard to the long-term policy goals such as the Kyoto-Protocol and the IPCC recommendations the past and current rates of such renovations have been too low in most European countries including Switzerland. To identify the relevant factors affecting the renovation decisions of single family home owners three approaches are pursued. The first one consist of an analysis of the exogenous economic, technical and legal frameworks. In the second approach the perception of these boundary conditions by the owners from their subjective point of view is analysed, relying on a survey of owners of single-family homes. Owners were also queried about their motivations and reasons for insulating or not insulating. The third approach consists in the modelling of renovation decision regarding the building envelope based on revealed discrete choice data gained from a survey conducted in the Swiss residential building sector. The model is specified in relation to technical, socio-economic and behavioural hypotheses to test for commonly stated assumptions regarding drivers of and barriers to energy efficiency renovations. From the three approaches it can be concluded that building envelope renovations are affected by technical parameters, and general housing activities such as building extensions and motivations rather than by socio-economic variables such as income, education or age. Finally, findings are used to draw policy implications regarding instruments to promote energy efficiency in the buildings sector.