Minna Sunikka-Blank

• Senior Lecturer at University of Cambridge

This research addresses global housing crisis, a secondary city of Dilla in Ethiopia as a case study. This study seeks to fill the empirical knowledge gap in popular housing typologies and tenure types in urban development in the Global South outside metropolitan areas. Drawing from an in-depth study of 18 households , the focus is on housing choic...

Behavioural energy studies rarely include children. This is due to complex research ethics when working with minors but perhaps also related to overlooking children as household members with an agency of their own. Drawing from a social practice theory perspective, this research explores how children act as an intersection point of domestic practic...

This film utilises participatory filmmaking to explore transitional housing in Pickwick, Cape Town. As we join 5 women inhabiting the space, we gain insights into their lived experience of the environment. The aim of the resulting film is to reveal insider narratives in contrast with top-down imaginations of inhabitation.

Within Australia, domestic and family violence (DFV) is a major health and welfare issue that disproportionately impacts on women, children, and vulnerable segments of the population. This paper examines the results of a systematic literature review aimed at identifying the existing evidence base in relation to the nexus between accommodation desig...

Provision of affordable housing and energy access is an urgent challenge in India and South Africa. This study adopts a participatory filmmaking approach to understand women’s agency in low-income domestic housing in Mumbai and Cape Town. Through their films, the women shared insights of how the transitional housing environment has impacted their e...

Use of air-conditioners (ACs) is predicted to rise globally. However, there remains a gap in understanding the role of media and emotions in normalizing AC. Guided by the social practice theory, this study investigates escalating use of ACs in Jordan, drawing on statistical data, advertisement content analysis, and expert interviews. From the marke...

The article explores the interpretation of sustainability from the Japanese perspective. Drawing from four case studies, the article asks: how is sustainability interpreted in the context of urban regeneration in Japan? Two case studies (Musashi Kosugi and Kashiwanoha) are high-rise, high-density developments that use new building technology but ha...

Like many countries of rapid urbanisation, Ethiopia has an acute low-income housing shortage. Ethiopia’s Integrated Housing Development Programme (IHDP) can be seen as an attempt to innovate low-income housing provision. Over 200,000 IHDP units have been built since 2005. Drawing from a Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) survey in Amhara region, this...

Urban densification and massive restructuring projects in China have dictated profound socioeconomic changes. This paper explores changes in social capital and residents’ daily practices (cooking, eating, cleaning, shopping and socialising) in Jinan, Shandong province, after their low-rise courtyard dwellings were demolished and replaced with high-...

This paper develops the social science concept of intersectionality, exploring how macro-level factors in 28 EU countries in 2010–2018 put upward pressure on the percentage of single parent households unable to heat their homes. Intersectionality research avoids categorising individuals according to one dominant characteristic, such as gender or ma...

The impact of different places on women’s practices has not been much explored in the context of informal settlements in Iran, where they face many restrictions due to socio-cultural norms. Using a qualitative approach, this paper investigates how different geographies of place affect women’s practices for social interaction and physical activity....

Slum rehabilitation housing (SRH) are critical transitional spaces in urban informality that has deep-rooted implications on poverty alleviation efforts. However, current literature reports systemic injustices in SRH on access to essential services, including energy injustices. This study investigated distributive injustices in the SRH across three...

Like many countries of rapid urbanisation, Ethiopia has an acute low-income housing shortage. Ethiopia�s Integrated Housing Development Programme (IHDP) can be seen as an attempt to innovate low-income housing provision. Over 200,000 IHDP units have been built since 2005. Drawing from a Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) survey in Amhara region, this...

Slum rehabilitation housing (SRH) are critical transitional spaces in urban informality that has deep-rooted implications on poverty alleviation efforts. However, current literature reports systemic injustices in SRH on access to essential services, including energy injustices. This study investigated distributive injustices in the SRH across three...

Text-based data sources like narratives and stories have become increasingly popular as critical insight generator in energy research and social science. However, their implications in policy application usually remain superficial and fail to fully exploit state-of-the-art resources which digital era holds for text analysis. This paper illustrates...

Drawing from film studies, this paper introduces a new, experimental method to understand domestic practices and energy use in the home. The paper adopts the methodology of the AHRC CineMuseSpace project and applies it in the context of energy studies. A detailed keyword ontology was developed in order to identify practices, technologies and energy...

Current domestic energy saving policies are mainly focused on building fabrics and domestic appliances, with less attention to address occupants’ energy use behaviour and their attitudes towards potential policies. This study aims to address the gap in understanding domestic energy use through a survey in Shanghai, which focuses on the characterist...

The interaction of energy and buildings institutes a complex socio-technical system that influences the eudemonic well-being of the occupants. Understanding these drivers become even more necessary in impoverished areas where occupants struggle to avail essential energy services. The literature indicates that energy injustice can be addressed throu...

Text-based data sources like narratives and stories have become increasingly popular as critical insight generator in energy research and social science. However, their implications in policy application usually remain superficial and fail to fully exploit state-of-the-art resources which digital era holds for text analysis. This paper illustrates...

Distributive energy justice as a policy instrument is crucial to meet UN-SDG 7 targets at the poorest section of rapidly urbanising Global South. This study mobilised this policy instrument to derive poverty alleviation focal points across slum rehabilitation housing in Brazil, India and Nigeria. It emphasises on the social dimensions of energy ser...

In response to pressures imposed on the energy sector, several countries in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region have committed to increasing the percentage of renewable energy to reach 15–50% of the energy supply by 2030. New governance models are required to conceptualise and guide the energy transition into a more sustainable direction. Th...

This paper focuses on low-energy interventions in the design and use of houses from a socio-technical perspective. It explores the links between housing (design) and household (use) practices for sustainability transitions in middle-class housing in Lahore, Pakistan. Using two case-study houses as examples of variation in design, in addition to sem...

Gender mainstreaming in slum rehabilitation is a critical determinant for the success or failure of it. Slum rehabilitation in Mumbai is a hallmark example of a participatory process which is supposed to improve the quality of life and well-being among the rehabilitated occupants, on paper. Yet our findings show that the key stakeholders’ (i.e. pol...

Recent work in socio-technical theories has focused on conceptualising agency of the built environment in shaping social change. For energy policy, connections between building energy consumption and household practices have been well established by practice theorists. However, the role of the built environment in prefiguring household practices re...

This study explores the effect of slum rehabilitation on appliance ownership and its implications on residential electricity demand. The low-income scenario makes it unique because the entire proposition is based on the importance of non-income drivers of appliance ownership that includes effects of changing the built environment (BE), household pr...

This paper investigates what level of modelling (zoning or internal load scheduling) is required to support heating related retrofit decision-making. First, this paper tests the effect of thermal zoning by incrementally reducing the number of thermal zones from modelling every room as a separate zone to modelling the house as a single zone. Second,...

Slum rehabilitation policies in India is observed to have a rebound effect on the occupants, where rehabilitated occupants move back to the horizontal slums. In this study, we investigate the cause behind this rebound phenomenon based on a theory of homeostasis, where the loss of homeostasis refers to occupants' heightened discomfort and distress i...

Women's involvement in decision-making in domestic energy remains an under-researched area, especially in the urban context. This research adopts a gendered perspective in exploring slum rehabilitation housing in India. Based on a household survey and a focus group discussion (FGD), women’s household and working practices are explored in interview...

Social science approaches commonly used in household energy consumption research tend to focus on regular, everyday determinants of household behavior (discourse, practices, sociotechnical relations, actor-networks, etc.). Their conceptual frames avoid consideration of economic inequality and how it affects home ownership, energy efficiency investm...

This paper seeks to address the gap in current studies of domestic energy-use in countries in the Global South from a socio-technical perspective. It explores a trajectory of domestic spatial layouts and accompanying household practices over the last century in Lahore, Pakistan. The research identifies various nexuses of practice-spatial arrangemen...

This research seeks to address the gap in studies of energy consumption in developing countries from a social science perspective. The research uses Social Practice Theory (SPT) to gain better understanding of homeowners’ practices and resulting electricity demand in middle-class households in Pakistan, with broader implications for other developin...

The US Better Buildings Neighborhood Program (BBNP) consisted of 41 different versions of thermal retrofit programmes with a common structure and objectives. This created a natural experiment in thermal retrofit programme design. This paper uses qualitative interviews with programme organizers measured against third-party programme performance data...

This research seeks to address the gap in studies of energy consumption in developing countries from a social science perspective. The research uses Social Practice Theory (SPT) to gain better understanding of homeowners’ practices and resulting electricity demand in middle-class households in Pakistan, with broader implications for other developin...

This paper explores why domestic energy policies, thermal retrofitting and the operation of domestic energy-efficient technologies are often met with social inertia in practice. Two sets of interview data – UK homeowners who have retrofitted their property and social housing tenants living in energy-efficient housing – reveal a very different mix o...

Research on the performance gap suggests that the actual energy consumption in buildings can be twice as much as expected from modelled estimates. Energy models rely on predictive indicators and assumptions that are usually done at the design stage, without acknowledging behavioral patterns of actual users, amongst other uncertain elements. Moreove...

The ten questions posed in this paper stand out among others after six years of joint and collaborative research, by the authors, on sustainable domestic thermal retrofit policy. This is a very wide field, touching on many disciplines, and we approach it from an interdisciplinary perspective informed by our experience in architecture, engineering,...

Research on performance gap suggests that the actual energy consumption in buildings can be twice as much as expected. Energy models rely on predictive indicators and assumptions that are usually done at design stage, without acknowledging behavioural patterns of actual users. Moreover, in the context of performance gap, it is evident that energy e...

The version of practice theory developed by Theodore Schatzki is employed increasingly in energy consumption research. This emerged in response to problems Wittgenstein had identified in the core logic of prevailing rule-based, inter-subjectivist social theories of the late 20th century. Since then, however, the use and development of Schatzkian pr...

How can programme design and strategy drive the decision actually to undertake retrofit upgrades? The US Better Buildings Neighborhood Program (BBNP) and the UK Green Deal both represent ambitious efforts to drive domestic retrofit markets. These programmes are compared and the differences in their conversion rates explored in the context of market...

In order to reduce CO2 emissions in line with UK policy, existing UK homes need to be retrofitted to high thermal standards. A large proportion of these homes have traditional or aesthetically pleasing features which people are reluctant to compromise for the sake of thermal efficiency. A minority of such dwellings are protected by statute, but mil...

The ‘prebound effect’ characterises how average heating energy consumption in older homes is consistently lower than these buildings' calculated energy ratings, and helps explain why energy savings from thermal upgrades are often lower than anticipated. This paper explores the conceptual links between prebound and rebound effects and aims to quanti...

Understanding thermal comfort and heating behaviour is crucial for energy policy and practice on sustainable buildings. This paper proposes a socio-technical systems (STS) approach to analyse and compare occupant heating behaviour and thermal comfort at home. The domestic sector accounts for nearly one third of total UK energy use, and building ene...

Policy on domestic thermal retrofits is usually designed as a top-down enterprise, setting standards and inducing homeowners to retrofit accordingly. Its underlying assumption is that correct retrofit technology is developed by experts and comes down through supply chains to households, who apply it as designed to their properties. However, this mo...

Consumption of domestic heating energy (space and water heating combined) in Germany has been falling in recent years. Official figures indicate it fell by 17 % in 2000–2011, from 669 to 564 TWh (temperature adjusted), while the population reduced by 2 % and the number of occupied dwellings increased by 3.4 %. German policy has strongly promoted de...

Heating energy consumption has been falling steadily in Germany since 2000. The most recent reliable figures show it fell from 669 TWh to 550 TWh in the years 2000–2009, a reduction of 119 TWh, or 18%. A number of different factors could be contributing to this: replacement of old dwellings with energy-efficient new builds; thermal retrofits of exi...

EU member states are committed to the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) and the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), including a 20% energy efficiency target by 2020. Most European countries have adopted market-led policies to meet these targets, relying on voluntary take-up by homeowners. Some impose taxes on energy inefficiency, but...

Germany has engaged better-off homeowners in advanced thermal retrofits to high standards. However, at this level retrofits are inherently economically inefficient, and empirical research shows they often bring significantly smaller savings than calculated. This ‘top-end’ approach also fails to engage the bulk of homeowners, due to severe technical...

Estimates of heating fuel saving potential in German homes are generally based on a calculated consumption figure. The methodology for working this out is set down by the German Institute of Standards. But how close is this figure to dwellings’ actual heating energy consumption, and how does this affect the real energy savings potential through the...

German law restricts the thermal demands of building regulations to levels that are ‘economically viable’ (wirtschaftlich), i.e. that pay back, through fuel savings, within the technical lifetime of the thermal measures. In an effort to reduce CO2 emissions deeply and rapidly, the government sets thermal regulations as tightly as this law allows. B...

Policymakers, their expert advisors and the academic community use mathematical models to evaluate the economic viability and payback time of thermal retrofits. Most of these models have the form of a cost-benefit analysis, where the thermal upgrade costs are compared to the net present value (NPV) of the benefits expected to be received in future...

Since 2002, prescribed thermal standards have been mandatory for homes being renovated in Germany. This policy has become entwined with Germany’s climate policy of 80% reductions in GHG emissions by 2050, and is the main tool used by the Federal government to drive forward home heating energy efficiency improvements. A second policy instrument is F...

Thermal retrofitting of existing homes is widely seen as an economic and technically feasible way to reduce domestic heating energy consumption, which accounts for 14.6% of Germany’s total energy consumption. But energy savings from retrofits are dependent on the laws of physics and the geometric and physical characteristics of the actual housing s...

Germany aims to reduce CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050 compared to 1990 levels and has merged this target with mandatory Energy Saving Regulations for thermal renovation of existing homes: the policy uses the criterion of ‘economic viability’, whereby renovations must pay back through the space and water heating fuel savings they produce. This paper e...

This book focuses on thermal retrofits of homes in Germany, but its findings have a much wider application than that one country. Germany is one of a number of northwest European countries that have taken major strides in recent decades to reduce domestic heating fuel consumption: not only by continually tightening the thermal standards for new bui...

In the domestic heating sector a number of different mathematical models are used to evaluate the economic viability of thermal retrofit measures. Currently, however, none of these models incorporate the effect of fuel price elasticity of demand. This paper offers a method for incorporating a factor for fuel price elasticity into models for assessi...

German regulations for the thermal renovation of existing homes demand high thermal standards, which the government claims are technically and economically feasible. This paper examines existing data on 3400 German homes; their calculated energy performance ratings (EPR) are then plotted against the actual measured consumption. The results indicate...

Currently, the majority of the European housing stock falls towards the bottom of the energy efficiency rating scale on the EU Energy Performance Certificate. If governments and businesses are to successfully address ambitious CO2 reduction targets, then it will be imperative that energy-efficient measures and policies focus on existing housing. In...

Despite the lack of mandatory thermal requirements in the housing sector, an average Japanese household consumes around one-third of the energy for heating and cooling compared with a UK or German household. Based on a policy analysis and interviews, this paper identifies the concept and policies for sustainable building in Japan considering the ch...

If sustainable development is really to be based on substantive community participation, a change in attitudes, beliefs and values is required. Even these changes will not be sufficient to reach the ambitious goals set across Europe through the Local Agenda 21 and other policy documents. The rigorous adaptation of decision-making processes to inclu...

Since more than two-thirds of the United Kingdom housing stock in 2050 will comprise houses that have already been built, the need for a focus of policy on the already-built private housing stock is apparent. This study examines the impact that subsidy can make in bolstering the performance of the Energy Performance Certificate by reducing carbon e...

If sustainable development is really to be based on substantive community participation, a change in attitudes, beliefs and values is required. Even these changes will not be sufficient to reach the ambitious goals set across Europe through the Local Agenda 21 and other policy documents. The rigorous adaptation of decision-making processes to inclu...

Greater potential energy savings can be achieved in the large stock of existing dwellings than in the relatively small proportion of newly built dwellings. Although the energy performance of existing dwellings is much poorer than new dwellings, the stock of existing dwellings is very large in a 'mature' built environment of most developed countries...

In 2003 the European Commission introduced the EC Directive on the energy performance of buildings in recognition of the importance of energy savings in the urban housing stock. The Directive gives the member states freedom to design the different elements in practice. The energy certificate for existing buildings demanded by the EC Directive can b...

Although progressive government guidelines and knowledge about sustainable housing exist, progress in implementing them in practice has been slow. The perceived costs and the lack of market demand have been identified as the main barriers. A choice of fiscal instruments is essential in sustainable housing policies. This article presents an analysis...

This paper describes the outcomes of a survey of assessment methods for sustainable urban development (SUD) undertaken by an international network called BEQUEST. It addresses aspects of good practice in terms of SUD, explores the range of methods available and explains the classification used in the directory of methods included in the BEQUEST Too...