Integrating residents' heating practices into energy retrofit decision-making: a sufficiency-oriented approach

In the energy retrofit decision-making process, standardized assumptions about thermal comfort overlook the diversity of residents’ heating practices, promoting a one-size-fits-all approach. This can lead to resource-intensive interventions that fail to deliver proportional energy savings, cost-efficiency, and carbon emissions reductions. In our recent publication, co-authored with Carolina Recart, Lenneke Kuijer and Roel Loonen, we integrate residents’ heating practices into the decision-making process to rethink the scale of envelope retrofits through a sufficiency approach. By aligning retrofit strategies with residents’ heating practices, we identified more suitable solutions, such as moderate retrofits or targeted measures, that deliver higher cost-effectiveness and environmental benefits.