In the EU, housing retrofit rates have to increase to about 2.5–3% of the housing stock per year to achieve policy goals. The development of new business models and collaboration of SMEs in a fragmented market is expected to result in an increase in home renovations. This study presents a way to better understand the usefulness of the business model as a market device for collaborating firms for realising home energy renovations, by analysing literature and action research observations. Joint innovation decisions during business model development were traced back for 24 groups emerging from the supply side in five European countries. Commonalities for all groups were analysed to understand the usefulness of the business model. The business model development experiences show that effort is still required to support SME collaboration and to introduce basic marketing knowledge within SMEs, particularly to identify the customer segment and its values and to clarify the effectiveness of existing communication channels. Business models appear to be very useful for collaborative vision formation and networking and for clarifying the need of customer-oriented approaches that include project management and structured guidance of homeowners. However, they do not readily lead to the introduction of collaborative businesses, for which action plan are needed. Collaborating companies are advised to pay specific attention to identifying quality assurance and independent advice for home energy renovations. The research acknowledges the success of action-based research approaches to support collaborative business development and recommends its future use to speed up market development.

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On average 64 % of the dwellings in Europe are owner-occupied. Although there is an enormous potential to reduce their energy use and hence CO2 emissions, the current average renovation rate is just around 1,2 %. The development of one-stop-shops is expected to increase the market uptake of home renovation. Developing emerging frontrunner consortia of SMEs, this research looks into opportunities and barriers for stimulating business development to develop the supply of integrated nearly zero-energy building (nZEB) renovations of single-family homes. Experiences were collected from frontrunner consortia that want to offer nZEB renovations to owners of single-family homes. Using a business model canvas approach, the main barriers and opportunities were compiled from business development meetings with 24 consortia from five countries. Furthermore, a year after finalizing this exercise, the researchers evaluated the outcomes of the business development. Based on the findings from the emerging consortia, the research identified key issues that are important for business model development. For reaching early adoption of nZEB single-family home renovation, effort is still needed for developing collaboration of SMEs, for improving customer interfaces and for dealing with barriers that emerge after business model development. Consortia are advised to pay specific attention to the use of the business model canvas for structuring their ideas, to discuss the opportunities to jointly develop one-stop-shops, and to seek collaboration with “independent” actors to reach out to larger groups of homeowners. Policy could support emerging consortia as the chances for successful market introduction are high.@en