The international agreed upon UN COP21 Paris Agreement argues the urgent need of a shift in greenhouse gas emissions. This has been one of the reasons for the Dutch government to establish goals that comply with these agreements. One approach that is being used is the implementation of heat grids. Literature shows the importance of acceptance from tenants, but fails to provide information regarding the effects of communication strategies on the willingness to adopt heat grids. This research explores the current willingness and openness of tenants to adopt new technologies and its barriers to this, as well as the influence of the role of involved stakeholders and its communication strategies. The main research question therefore is: ‘How can actively involved stakeholders enhance communication to improve the adoption of heat grids among housing association tenants?’ The current gap will be researched through an explorative qualitative study, using literature, (intercept-) interviews, and case studies to identify the key problems. The findings show that a well-tailored narrative, aligned by the views of all stakeholders, helps to lower the social, behavioral and economic barriers related to heat grid adoption, where establishment of trust between tenants and organizations should be the principle for the communication strategy. This research contributes to the already existing literature by providing new insights in organizational barriers among the engaged stakeholders, as well as how certain communication strategies can be enhanced to create a successful project and helps in achieving energy transition goals.

In alignment with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11, particularly Target 11.3 on inclusive and sustainable urbanization, many countries and regions now regard public participation as a cornerstone of human settlements planning. China’s recent neighborhood rehabilitation initiatives likewise prioritize resident engagement, though the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced new obstacles and reconfigured participatory processes. Against this backdrop, this thesis investigates resident participation for neighborhood rehabilitation in post-pandemic China. Drawing on established theories of public participation and neighborhood revitalization, it proposes a conceptual framework centered on stakeholder concerns, power relations, and information sharing, and examines mechanisms that foster sustained resident involvement. Wuhan, the initial epicenter of COVID-19, serves as the case study. Results identify 37 key concerns, each subject to varied stakeholder perceptions. Power operates through multiple channels, shifting across project phases. Despite frequent information sharing, exploitation and competition persist. Organizers, particularly community-based organizations, play a critical role but face resource constraints, shifting power dynamics, and information manipulation. Straightforward participatory activities, early engagement, and greater influence increase resident willingness to stay involved. Nevertheless, opacity and exclusion, amplified by power imbalances and selective information control, remain pressing issues. Synthesizing the lessons and insights, the thesis concludes with short- and long-term measures to “enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanization and capacity for participatory, integrated, and sustainable human settlement planning and management (SDG 11.3).”@en

The research questions reads: “How to increase the adoption of sustainable renovations in listed cultural heritage buildings by providing insight into the decision-making process of owner-occupiers?” The research method first includes a theoretical study about the factors that influence the rate of adoption. Second, semi-structured interviews were held chronologically with 7 professionals, 9 LCHB owners and 7 professionals. And lastly, a workshop about the barriers of sustainable renovation in LCHBs attended by 25 Dutch professionals. The first round of interviews with 7 professionals and the interviews with 9 LCHB owners led to the creation of a sustainable renovation decision-making process for owners. And the interviews with 9 LCHB owners, the second round of interviews with 6 professionals and the workshop results led to the drivers, barriers, opportunities and recommendations
Furthermore, LCHB owners were asked questions about their sustainable renovation personality, the answers hereof resulted into two very different persona types. These persona types are also based on the characteristics of owners and the barriers they encountered. A recommendation is to take these personas into account when forming a strategies to increase sustainable renovations.
The other recommendations are to: add a building technology professional to the cultural heritage committee, make municipalities communicate more with LCHB owners, make municipalities use infra-red cameras to take some thermal images of before and after a sustainable renovation as inspiration for other LCHB owners, make LCHB owners use infra-red cameras to check if everything is installed properly, subsidize local community-organized information gatherings for LCHB owners, subsidize owners that can realize the sustainable renovation themselves (DIY) but face a lack of money as their main barrier and, lastly, emphasize making LCHBs beautiful and future proof.

Due to the increase of renewable energy sources and electrification, the traditional electricity grid cannot provide for our transition to a more sustainable future. One of the main problems is net congestion, as the net has reached its capacity, with an even further predicted increase in the future. As the expansion of the current net is not fast enough to keep up with the increase in energy supply and demand, there is a need to manage our energy more efficiently. Compared to other alternatives, the use of local energy systems seems to be the most promising one. In reaction to this, the Dutch government is implementing a new measure: the Group Contract (Groeps-TO), making it possible for business parks to share their electricity, and therefore implement a local energy system. In anticipation of this, numerous pilot initiatives in the Netherlands have explored electricity sharing through various approaches. This facilitated the opportunity for conducting research on this innovative implementation. However, there remains a gap in the research on the understanding of stakeholders and their interdependent relations and collaborations, in the context of local energy systems. This understanding is important to eventually stimulate further implementation of local energy systems, and thus tackling net congestion. Therefore, the research question of this thesis is: What underlying factors influence stakeholder collaboration to improve further deployment of local energy systems on business parks?. This research composes of a literature review, four case studies including 18 semi-structured interviews with actors and a questionnaire distributed among the located companies on the business park. Additionally, a focus group session was conducted with experts in the field of local energy systems, to validate the findings. The results of these findings provide insights into the stakeholder collaboration and their underlying factors. The Strategic Niche Management theory (Schot & Geels, 2008) was used to unravel the underlying factors with, next to vision and learning activities, a focus on the social network, which has been identified as the primary barrier to the sustainable transformation of Dutch business parks. Additionally, by using the Multi Actor Network analysis (Gerding et al., 2021), insights into stakeholder collaboration and actor relationships have been discovered. Furthermore, barriers and enablers of stakeholder collaboration in the context of local energy systems were observed in the case studies. By analysing the factors: vision, learning activities and barriers and enablers, an adjusted and generalized actor network has been proposed for local energy systems on Dutch business park. This actor-network provides valuable insights into the actors of these projects, and their mutual relations. These insights contribute to the ultimate goal, to pave the way for the wider adoption of local energy systems within business parks in the Netherlands.

Belgium, one of the top four European countries with high per capita fossil fuel usage in buildings, has allocated 332 million for improving renovation subsidy schemes in the Flemish and Brussels-Capital regions. This funding aims to accelerate energy efficiency renovations (EERs) in residential buildings. However, financial constraints are not the only barriers to EERs. Governance presents a significant challenge, particularly for non-owner-occupied buildings. In Flanders, 29% of dwellings are rented, with 66% being privately rented. More than half of the rented homes in Flanders have an energy performance certificate D or even lower. Tenants in multi-family buildings encounter difficulties in meeting socially and materially required energy service levels. Renovating privately rented apartments can play a crucial role in achieving Belgium's energy efficiency targets and reducing energy bills for tenants facing energy poverty. Existing literature primarily focuses on identifying barriers for homeowners and governance issues related to energy-efficient building stock, but little research examines aligning policy instruments with these identified barriers. This study aims to explore how policy instruments can overcome barriers and help achieve Flemish energy efficiency targets while alleviating energy poverty. The research includes a literature review and semi-structured interviews, with a focus on incorporating the tenant perspective on EERs. Recommendations will be provided to the Flemish government to accelerate EERs in the private rental sector. To reach the energy efficiency targets, policy instruments should be implemented at the regional and municipal levels, involving distribution grid managers, banks, and other organizations. The Flemish government should create a stable environment for landlords, integrate energy poverty reduction targets into their strategy, and prioritize measurable regulatory interventions. Municipalities, such as Antwerp, should adapt to regional strategies and provide educational support in collaboration with energy houses. Market parties should develop business models that demonstrate the financial benefits of energy efficiency renovations to both landlords and tenants and offer temporary dwellings. By studying Flemish and European renovation strategies, analyzing barriers and policy instruments, and considering the Flemish context, this research aims to answer the question of how policy instruments can be implemented to achieve Flemish targets for energy efficiency renovations and reduce energy poverty in the private rental sector.

Despite the efforts made in the World and the Netherlands for the energy transition of the building stock, policies and research have been mainly focusing on housing, leaving the non-residential building stock lacking in keeping up an adequate pace and in need of additional efforts to catalyse its transition. The retail sector represents the highest share of the non-residential building stock, with shopping centres as the building typology with the highest energy retrofit potential. However, despite its potential, data gathered from previous research have demonstrated that the complex multi-stakeholder governance structure of these buildings makes the decision-making process for an EER difficult. Several barriers have already been identified in the literature about this issue. Yet, they are scattered and not identified within the decision-making process and the complex governance system of a shopping centre. Therefore, this research aimed to reveal stakeholders’ behaviours during the EER within a process perspective, finding the interrelationships between the different parties involved during the different steps of the process, and giving light on the areas that need to be addressed in other to guarantee a smoother process. To achieve it, exploratory qualitative research was carried out for which the following main research question is proposed: “How can retail owners support a better decision-making process to steer EERs of shopping centres?”. The methodology included a mixed approach between literature study and qualitative empirical research from three case studies of shopping centres in the Netherlands. The results demonstrate shopping centre owners have a crucial role in optimizing the EER decision-making process and overcoming barriers. Key recommendations for achieving optimal and holistic solutions that enhance energy efficiency and sustainability in shopping centres include developing a cohesive and integrated sustainability strategy, optimizing its governance structure, investing in centralized building data systems, addressing tenant-related barriers in EERs, and fostering collaboration among internal and external stakeholders, among others.

Recently, there has been growing concerns about CO2-emissions, labour dynamics and demand volumes in the Dutch construction industry and industrialised timber constructions have the potential to help solve parts of these challenges. However, relatively little is known about how to identify pathways to adopt industrialised timber construction in practice, especially from the viewpoint of next adopters. Therefore, this study addresses the question of what are pathways for next adopters to adopt industrialised timber construction in Dutch practice? To find an answer to this question a combination of literature review and interviews will be used. The interviews will be of exploratory nature and conducted within firms that are planning on adopting industrialised timber construction in the near future or are in the middle of this process. The goal of this research is to develop pathways for next adopters to adopt industrialised timber construction in Dutch practice. Besides just the final thesis report itself, deliverables contain amongst others a coherent literature review on the used constructs, an interview protocol, the results of analysing the data and the outcomes of the verification by the interviewees and the focus group.

From the data analysis in this research, 8 aggregate dimensions can be identified that prove to be critical in the process of adopting industrialised timber construction. These dimensions are (1) identifying next adopters, (2) context of adopting, (3) role of network/partners in the adoption process, (4) learning processes, (5) challenges when adopting, (6) risk management, (7) critical success factors and finally, (8) advantages when adopting. Also, most striking findings from the interviews are pointed out. Thereby, much of the analysed data corresponds with findings from previous studies. For each of the case studies, their pathway of adopting is described using the above 8 dimensions. These pathways also have a relation to time and are based upon 5 stages in the innovation adoption process which are defined in previous studies and theories. These stages are: attitude, persuasion, decision, implementation and confirmation.

Between the different case studies, differences and similarities are described. As a result, 3 different pathways are identified and presented in this research. The three pathways differ per aggregate dimension, but also in timeframe and emphasis per stage.

The three different stories of the cases in this study show that the adoption process can not always be framed in the same linear steps that have been found in literature. Therefore, this research introduces the ‘Cycle of innovation adoption in industrialised timber construction’ model. In this model, the typical steps in the innovation adoption process are recognized, but they are placed in a circle and supplemented with the 8 aggregate dimensions found in the data analysis. These 8 dimensions show the different phases in which organisations can ‘jump on’ or ‘jump off’ the innovation adoption process.

Collaborations and partnerships between supplying parties are of great importance for adopting circular principles in the built environment and should be investigated within the development of circular supply chain management (CSCM). Therefore, the focus of this research is on collaboration opportunities within CSCM, where the need for active and dynamic actor networks, supply chain learning, future visions and circular business models will be discussed in more detail. During this research I worked together with the Municipality of Rotterdam through an internship. They also found research into collaboration opportunities within CSCM interesting and necessary. Besides, they added that they wondered what the role of the municipality could and should be in supporting (local) circular supply chain collaboration (CSCC) in order to scale up the circular renovation of the private housing stock in Rotterdam. Therefore, the ultimate goal of this research is advising the Municipality of Rotterdam on their position in this innovative process of CSCC. To achieve this goal, this research focusses on the following research question: How could CSCC be facilitated by municipalities to achieve upscaling of circular renovation of Dutch owner-occupied housing? First, an analysis into the state-of-the-art has been carried out, which has looked into the current circular construction and renovation concepts and principles being used in Europe, the Netherlands and the city of Rotterdam. Based on this analysis, the following research variables have been identified, which needed to be further investigated: adoption of innovations, actor networks, supply chain learning, future visions and circular business models. Second, a literature review is given of relevant theories and concepts related to these variables, which has identified the main research indicators that I wanted to use to reflect upon during and after the empirical part of the research (listed in the theoretical framework). Third, a stakeholder analysis has been carried out, consisting of two phases of semi-structured interviews, an (additional) internal survey and a focus group discussion. In the first interview phase, interviews were held with public parties, including municipalities, universities and knowledge institutions. In the second interview phase, interviews were held with private parties and civil organizations, including actors of different (local) market parties, branch organizations within the building sector and interest groups for homeowners. This analysis has resulted in four main barriers of CSCC in which the municipality could exert influence: insufficient internal integration, insufficient communication, insufficient realisation and insufficient facilitation. To find more clarity with regard to the first main barrier, an internal survey was circulated within the municipality, which provided more insights from a broader group of employees from different clusters and departments. The remaining three main barriers have been discussed within a focus group, where I have investigated from a management perspective whether the suggested opportunities in terms of (more) concrete strategies mentioned by different stakeholders, will work or not to solve these identified barriers and mismatches in practice. Fourth, the results of the stakeholder analysis have been compared with literature, examining the importance of obtained solutions for the identified mismatches in more detail. This has resulted in an advisory action plan for the Municipality of Rotterdam, which states that the municipality should act as a director and should focus more on the following main tasks: (1) Internal integration: stimulate and coordinate internal integration between colleagues, visions, ambitions and social challenges of different clusters and departments. (2) Communication: create an open, transparent and accessible local communication network between public and private parties, including the municipality, knowledge institutions, market parties, interest groups for homeowners and residents. (3) Realisation: implement developed circular and modular building and renovation ideas, principles and concepts, starting with designating municipal buildings and public space where the local market is given the opportunity to experiment. (4) Facilitation: offer various municipal (learning) tools to help the local market in the start-up phase, like (online) theme sessions, comprehensive courses and teaching programs/workshops. The full advice is drawn up on the basis of these four main tasks. Practical recommendations are given that could be a positive stimulus for CSCC to achieve upscaling of circular renovation of Dutch owner-occupied housing. These recommendations answer the main research question.

Following the Paris agreement and the agreements with the EU, the Dutch government has made their climate agreement with the goal for the whole built environment to be energy-neutral and free of natural gas by 2050. The Dutch government has tasked the municipalities to lead this process as they are the most suited party. The Dutch building stocks for housing consist of a substantial part of condominium associations where only 25% scores an energy label B. Especially in the bigger cities, the building stock consists of a large part out of condominium associations. As municipalities can not force them to renovate, they have a slow decision-making process, and there are complex ownership situations, the energy transition for condominium associations is a big challenge. This research focuses on the larger associations (6+ members) as group dynamics also start to play a role. This research aims to advise the municipalities on their approach and position in the energy transition for condominium associations. To achieve this goal, the research focusses on the following main research question:

‘How can municipalities enhance their approach for stimulating condominium associations to renovate their dwelling for the energy transition?’

First, to answer this question, a literature review was carried out to create the theoretical framework. The literature review looked at public policy, energy-efficient governance and different types of policy instruments governmental bodies can use to stimulate people. In addition to that, the literature review also looked at the customer journey of condominium associations. The review on the customer journey also includes transaction costs, collective decision-making processes and stakeholder analysis. With this literature review, two frameworks have been created. First, one framework has been created to study the approaches of different municipalities and one to discover the different barriers that condominium associations encounter in their process. Second, with the framework for the customer journey as a basis, the first round of interviews was held with actors close to condominium associations. This discovered where the barriers lie for condominium associations and what municipalities could do about that. This focuses on the three different types of barriers that condominium associations can encounter: transaction cost barriers, collective decision-making barriers, and barriers to comprehending and applying for the help of municipalities. Third, the second round of interviews was held with representative stakeholders to study Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht approaches. By looking at the research variables of the framework, it was possible to compare and analyse the approaches. From this analysis, lessons were drawn about the approaches of the municipalities and the barriers. Fourth, the barriers encountered by the condominium associations in Amsterdam were compared with the analysis of the approaches of the different municipalities to see if the approach of the municipality of Amsterdam could be enhanced. This piece of advice was generalized to enhance the approach of municipalities for stimulating condominium associations for the energy transition which states that:

The municipalities should become the facilitator of the energy transition, and condominium associations should be assisted wherever they can be in the customer journey. Municipalities should look for ways to make this possible. Five tasks are given to do this;

Instigating
Municipalities should raise awareness and engage condominium associations to stimulate more condominium associations to renovate their building.

Teaching.
More adequate boards and well-functioning condominium associations must be created by ensuring basic understanding with condominium associations of what it means to be one.

Guiding ans assisting.
Municipalities must assist and help condominium associations in their customer journey to help them overcome barriers to ensure that more condominium associations finish their journey.

Take away barriers.
The municipalities should look for general barriers for all condominium associations and see if there are ways to make this process easier.

Communication and Collaboration.
To prevent them from all inventing the wheel, municipalities must start working together with market parties and each other. This collaboration helps with sharing and understanding the problems and barriers better.

The full advice, together with practical recommendations, answers the main research question.

With the current climate challenges that we currently face, we also need to take a look at the existing operation of the systems to which we are so accustomed. Within the EU, there are policies to make the housing stock energy neutral by 2050. However, this sentiment is not shared internationally. Within the EU, there are several options made available for making renovation of existing stock more financially feasible, with models provided by initiatives such as STUNNING, REVALUE, or ABRACADABRA to name a few. Though the EU has options made available, this is not the case for the rest of the world. The research focuses on the applicability of the aforementioned options available in the EU to a Middle Eastern context through the creation of a scenario building using aggregation methods and using a sensitivity and Monte Carlo analysis to check the performance of each financial model. The research also combines the
financial with other technical frameworks such as finding optimum insulation thicknesses and its influence on the pay back periods. The research works in 4 parts, creating a model building through aggregate modeling and frameworks, running the financial dashboard based on the characteristics of the model building and doing a sensitivity and Monte Carlo analysis, then finally an interview is conducted with experts, showing them the data of the model building and then asking about the limitations of said financial models. The applications are reviewed in a foreign context, in this case Kuwait, and
in addition, the effects of the large scale application of these models are examined in the literature review. The results show that financially speaking, it is completely feasible to apply these models within Kuwait, and in fact they work better than they do in western contexts because of the avoidance of the landlord-tenant conflict since landlords are responsible for paying utility fees. On average, given Kuwait’s current inflation rates, electricity prices, water prices and average rental rate per m2, we are seeing an average of a 4 year payback period on a major rehabilitation, without even the need for a real estate reevaluation. The micro economic results are also compared with studies made on macro-economic knock on effects of mass renovation within the country, and it was found that it was feasible. Through the interviews, however, it was found that though there are few barriers in the financial sense, there is a lack of understanding and need for a larger investigation into the sociological and behavioral barriers found within this context.

The world has been facing a detrimental climate change since the beginning of the industrial era due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that are expected to increase exponentially whereas the energy sector is the largest pollutant. Households in the Netherlands are one of the dominant final end users of energy and a transition within this group could contribute to reducing GHG emissions. Local authorities endorse efforts to implement energy policies, but face the complexity in actor networks. This research focusses on how public, private and civic actors manage upscaling residential heat-generating facilities to district scale in the built environment in the Netherlands. While measures to reduce the GHG emission for electricity seem decisive, the vast majority of the Dutch households retain a carbon lock-in for heating. A motion towards decarbonisation is an area-based approach in which deep geothermal district heating networks. Although scholars acknowledge the existence of barriers and opportunities of upscaling the residential heat provision to district level, little literature is found on cases where the existing residential building stock is adapted for renewable district scale heat-generating facilities with geothermal energy as source in the Netherlands. This research addresses the knowledge gap on the management of upscaling geothermal district heating networks by public, private and civic actors by performing an actor analysis. The main goal of the research is to gain understanding in the local approaches and efforts of Geothermal District Heating Development (GDHD) and aims to clarify, gather and model the involved actor roles. Empirical research on the managerial actor roles is performed on the development project of Ammerlaan-TGI and Haagse Aardwarmte Leyweg (HAL). The findings on the case study reveal compiled chronologic events managed by a variety of actors. While actors are interwoven with each other by their dependencies, their managerial roles are evaluated on using management aspects in a cross-case setting, indicating how related management aspect variables apply to the GDHD. The outcome is assessed by experts who participated in a two-round Delphi-study from which effective roles for upscaling of geothermal district heating in the coming years is determined. The results show a large public actor integration in GDHD and role segregation among the actors, pointing out the immaturity of the sector. The public actors need to continue using stimulus tools and develop regulatory tools to foster maturation of the sector and evoke competitive advantage. Also their capacity building tools should be used to their full extent to match the heat supply and demand. Consensus between public, private and civic actors is considered most effective in GDHD, where through intensive communication, negotiation and decision making is agreed on the desired environmental quality for the built environment, our built environment.

Research on circular economy in the construction industry is only recently gaining momentum. A circular economy does not produce any waste. The construction sector is the most polluting sector in the Netherlands and uses 50% of the used raw materials. Therefore, circular building methods might decrease the demand on raw materials in the Dutch construction sector. This research aims to identify what factors can stimulate the adoption of circular building methods by the general contractor.

In this research a cross-case analysis is conducted with two building projects that aimed to use circular building methods. During the interviews for these case studies, some barriers for the adoption of circular building methods were identified. The six barriers which are mentioned most often are the perception of high costs, limited regulation, lack of a circular business model, unattractive esthetics, negative attitude from actors involved, and lack of integrality within the building process.

To have a positive influence on the adoption of circular building methods, and resolve the identified barriers, the general contractor may take the role of an integral manager to manage the social network, supply chain, and building process and facilitate the learning process. When taking this role it is suggested that the general contractor works together with other actors to develop a new business model. This new business model should aim to take away the current barriers for circular building methods.

The main difference between any other innovation in the building sector and circular building methods is that circularity needs more integrality. Other innovations are often only on a specific part of the project, it suffices with only changing or managing on a small part of a building project. However, circularity affects every small part of a project and therefore needs an integral manager.

This study applies model-free reinforcement learning (RL) on a case study based in Utrecht province in the Netherlands to optimize for on-site renewable energy. This aims at reducing the interaction of net zero-energy buildings with the grid as a result of an increase of heat pump installations and renewable energy systems (RES) integration. It is believed that this will become increasingly more important since the regulations regarding 2020 ascribe significant increase in energy efficiency of the built environment. On-site RES self-consumption is therefore a central lead in this research. The project data comprise air source heat pump and solar energy data of 6 different households for the months June to November 2016. The RL learning algorithm was applied to the different data sets to derive an optimized individual and generalized control strategy. Simulations were carried on, to acquire the resulting energy consumption, self-consumption, and self-sufficiency. The results show an increase of individual self-consumption between 17% and 348% and self-sufficiency between 18% and 72%. This results in an additional monetary benefit for the occupants based on the transition proposals of 2020 for the renewable energy generation net-metering abolishment in the Netherlands. Furthermore, reducing the grid interaction implies benefits for the grid operators in terms of investments required for grid reinforcement.