Energy renovations offer unique opportunities to increase the energy efficiency of the built environment and for the existing housing stock; they are the most important solution. Usually, energy savings are based on modeling calculations. However, recent research has shown that the predicted energy consumption differs largely from the actual consumption. In this paper, the effectiveness of energy measures is re-assessed based on actual consumption data. We use a monitoring system, which contains information about the energy performance of around 60% of the Dutch non-profit housing sector (circa 1.2 million dwellings). We connect the data from this monitoring system to actual energy consumption data from Statistics Netherlands on a dwelling level. Using longitudinal analysis methods, from 2010 to 2014, we are able to identify the energy efficiency improvements of the stock and determine the effectiveness of different measures in terms of actual energy savings. The results reveal the actual energy savings of different efficiency measures and highlight the significance of the actual energy consumption when a renovation is planned or realized.

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This paper presents results from the first international comparative study of non-profit housing organizations in Australia, England and the Netherlands to engage with panels of organizational leaders. The study uses a ‘modified Delphi method’ with Likert-type scaled surveys, followed by in-depth interviews. The paper introduces the concept of hybridity as a way of understanding the interaction of state, market and community drivers in steering non-profit housing organizations. In all three countries, findings indicate that there are clear limits to independence from continued state influence. In England this takes the form of state-directed cross-subsidy and welfare reform, in Australia business development strategies have had to respond to volatility and reductions in state funding, while in the Netherlands public policy has recently restricted the remit of associations to a low-income niche and reduced commercial involvement. These findings lend support to ‘contested logics’ models of organizational hybridity rather than either ‘out-of-control monstrous hybrids’ or linear privatization models.

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It is generally acknowledged that the existing housing stock plays a vital role in attaining national and international energy efficiency targets. As for new building, mandatory regulations can be (and are) developed to attain energy-efficient homes, but energy improvements in the existing stock are, because of property rights, strongly dependent on the voluntary cooperation and participation of the owners. For many years, governments have been developing instruments for stimulating energy investments among homeowners. This is a subject of persistent concern, as many regulations and policy initiatives are not very successful, and good examples are scarce. Particularly regarding the owner-occupied sector, the term ‘customer journey’ is frequently used to denote the decision-making process from an initial interest in a good or service towards the purchase of it. The process is rarely straightforward and can have many pitfalls; there is a high risk that a willingness to invest is eventually not materialised in actual investments. On the basis of literature review, this paper outlines what the notion of a ‘customer journey’ includes. How can be process be described and analysed? What are the ‘stops’ in this journey, where critical decisions are taken? What kind of decisions are these? Which types of journeys can be distinguished? The paper reviews models and designs for customer journeys and addresses the policy implications. @en

The existing housing stock plays a major role in meeting the energy saving targets set in the Netherlands as well as in the EU. Existing buildings account for 38% of the final energy consumption in the European Union (EU), and they are responsible for 36% of the CO₂ emissions. Energy renovations in dwellings offer unique opportunities to reduce both energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. In this article, the renovation rates for the non-profit housing stock of the Netherlands are presented, based on the changes in the energy performance of 856,252 dwellings for the period of 2010–2014. The data necessary are drawn from a monitoring system that contains information about the energy performance of approximately 60% of all dwellings in the sector. The method used follows the changes of the dwellings’ physical properties and reported energy performance. The results show that although many energy improvements have been realized, they result in small changes of the energy efficiency of the dwellings. Deep energy renovation rates are very low. If this pace continues, the progress is too little to reach national and international policy targets. The renovation rates are not high enough and the trends seem difficult to reach.

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Compared to the private rental and the owner-occupied sector, the non-profit rental sector in the Netherlands is expected to have relatively large possibilities for deep interventions in the housing stock. Nevertheless, recent findings from a monitor containing around 1.5 million homes in the Dutch non-profit rental sector show that the improvement of the energy performance of the respective homes is mostly carried out in small steps: in many of the improved dwellings only one single measure is applied, and deep energy renovations are rare. Advocators of such renovations nevertheless believe that these are the most appropriate way to substantially reducing energy consumption and argue that the developments and proliferation of energy renovation concepts is the best way forward. Others, however, do not see this as realistic and argue that reality forces us to proceed on the path of small interventions. This study sheds more light on this debate from the way in which housing providers conceive and implement their portfolio and asset management strategies. From these investment policies, it seeks explanations for the dominance of the small interventions and investigates the room for a more concentrated allocation of budget resources. To this end, housing providers with different energy investment policies are selected and interviewed.@en

Energy renovations offer unique opportunities to increase the energy efficiency of the built environment and for the existing housing stock, they are the most important solution. Usually, energy savings are based on modelling calculations. However, recent research has shown that the predicted energy consumption differs largely from the actual consumption. In this paper, the effectiveness of energy measures is re-assessed based on actual consumption data. We use a monitoring system, which contains information about the energy performance of around 60% of the Dutch non-profit housing sector (circa 1.2 million dwellings). We connect the data from this monitoring system to actual energy consumption data from Statistics Netherlands on a dwelling level. Using longitudinal analysis methods, from 2010 to 2014, we are able to identify the energy efficiency improvements of the stock and determine the effectiveness of different measures in terms of actual energy savings. The results reveal the actual energy savings of different efficiency measures and highlight the significance of the actual energy consumption when a renovation is planned or realized.@en

Purpose: Recent findings from a monitor containing around 1.5 million homes in the Dutch non-profit rental sector show that the improvement of the energy performance of the respective homes is mostly carried out in small steps: single measures per dwelling dominate and deep energy renovations are rare. From the way in which housing providers conceive and implement their portfolio and asset management strategies, the purpose of this paper is to explain for the dominance of the small interventions and investigate the argument for a more concentrated allocation of budget resources. Design/methodology/approach: In total, 12 housing providers with different energy investment policies were selected and interviewed. Findings: Results show that energy investments, as most other investments, must fit in regular investment schemes and have to follow general decision criteria such as the lifespan of the respective building element and the market position of the respective dwelling. As these schemes are limited in budget and time, the room for a more concentrated allocation of budget resources is small. Research limitations/implications: The number of organisations interviewed is obviously not statistically representative, but gives a good indication of the investment planning practice in the Dutch non-profit housing sector. Originality/value: Much has been written about the (slow) progress of the energy performance in the housing sector, but not about the more structural organisational forces behind this progress.

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Recente uitkomsten uit de monitor SHAERE laten zien dat de energetische verbetering van woningen doorgaans in kleine stappen plaatsvindt: in veel van de verbeterde woningen is slechts één energetische maatregel genomen; verder komen ingrijpende energetische renovaties weinig voor. In dit artikel wordt nagegaan in hoeverre deze uitkomsten te verklaren zijn uit het algemene investeringsbeleid van corporaties. Tevens is de ruimte verkend voor een beleid waarin grote sprongen in energieprestatie op de voorgrond staan.@en

Dutch housing associations are in the middle of making significant changes in their organizations. Triggered by recent economic and political developments, housing associations are shifting from conducting a wide range of activities on the real estate market and related social services to a focus on ‘just’ providing social housing, combined with a highly increased emphasis on efficiency. The associated organizational developments take shape in changes in different organizational elements such as strategies, culture, human resources, leadership styles and ICT systems. In theory, it can be expected that if different organizational elements are adapted in a congruent way, they are likely to reinforce each other and thus lead to increased efficiency and/or effectiveness. Little research, however, has been conducted in the way these elements are currently being adapted. In this paper an analytical model is presented to explore organizational changes in different elements of the organisation is presented and is tested on a housing association.@en

The existing housing stock plays a major role in the realization of the energy efficiency targets. The non-profit housing sector in the Netherlands dominates the housing market as it represents 31% of the total housing stock. In the municipality of Amsterdam, where this share is even 46%, subsidies were given to housing associations between 2011 and 2014 when an energy renovation of their rental property took place and resulted in a better energy performance. The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of thermal renovation on the actual and the predicted energy consumption of the dwellings concerned and to compare both types of consumption. For the non-profit rental dwellings that have undergone renovation in Amsterdam, we use longitudinal data from 2009 to 2013 to examine their actual and predicted gas consumption before and after renovation. The main outcome of the analysis is that in almost all groups of dwellings the gas consumed after renovation decreased significantly. Most of the dwellings had a combination of measures performed and the actual gas consumption savings depend on these combinations. Despite the fact that gas savings after renovation were observed in all dwellings no pattern was found indicating that the better the predicted energy performance achieved, the more actual savings were realized after renovation, but this may be due to the relatively small size of the sample.@en

Recent findings from a monitor containing around 1.5 million homes in the Dutch non-profit rented sector show that the energy improvement pace in the sector in the last years is too slow to meet the nationally agreed level in 2020. The findings also show that the improvement of the energy performance of the respective homes is mostly carried out in small steps: in many of the improved dwellings only one single measure is applied, and deep energy renovations are rare. Advocators of such renovations nevertheless believe that such improvements are the most appropriate way to substantially reducing energy consumption and argue that the developments and proliferation of energy renovation concepts is the best way forward. Others, however, do not see this as realistic and argue that reality forces us to proceed on the path of small interventions. This study sheds more light on this debate from the way in which housing providers conceive and implement their portfolio and asset management strategies. From these investment policies, it seeks explanations for the dominance of the small interventions and investigates the room for a more concentrated allocation of budget resources. To this end, housing providers with different energy investment policies are selected and interviewed. Results show that current practice leaves little room for deep renovations, but that a more mixed picture of small and deep interventions may be expected when zero-energy renovations grow out of their experimental status.@en

The existing housing stock plays a major role in meeting the energy efficiency targets set in EU member states such as the Netherlands. The non-profit housing sector in this country dominates the housing market as it represents 31% of the total housing stock. The focus of this paper is to examine the energy efficiency measures that are currently applied in this sector and their effects on the energy performance. The information necessary for the research is drawn from a monitoring system that contains data about the physical state and the energy performance of more than 1.5 million dwellings in the sector. The method followed is based on the statistical modeling and data analysis of physical properties regarding energy efficiency, general dwellings’ characteristics and energy performance of 757,614 households. The outcomes of this research provide insight in the energy efficiency measures applied to the existing residential stock. Most of the changes regard the heating and domestic hot water (DHW) systems, and the glazing. The rest of the building envelope elements are not improved at the same frequency. The results show that the goals for this sector will be hard to achieve if the same strategy for renovation is followed.@en

After the abolishment of object subsidies for housing construction and renovation in the mid 1990s, Dutch housing associations, the main non-profit housing providers in the country, heavily relied on market activities, such as selling homes to owner occupiers, to generate income for their social activities and to contribute to urban development policies. This worked well, which was one of the main reasons that these housing providers could adopt a wide field of operations, including not only the management and development of affordable housing for low-income groups, but also housing in other market segments, plus activities regarding care, welfare, local economy, employment and education. Recent economic and political developments, however, have caused housing associations to return on this path. Central in this paper is a research among Dutch housing associations about their values, strategic positioning and strategies. The research was executed in two waves (conducted in 2010/2011 and in 2013/2014, respectively), each consisting of a panel survey and interviews with selected panellists. This paper presents the results of the second wave. It is expected that after the first wave of the research, new regulations, such as the national implementation of European rules on state support and the introduction of a new property tax, have resulted in a further retreat from non-social housing activities. The analysis shows that this is indeed the case, but that the main shifts in priorities have not taken place directly after the credit crunch, but in later years.@en