According to research by Natuur & Milieu (2022), 1.5 million homes with labels E, F and G in the Netherlands must be made more sustainable. According to the Climate Agreement, this should happen before 2030. This means that over the next 7 years more than 200,000 homes per year will have to be made more sustainable. How can municipalities, homeowners and implementing companies accelerate home sustainability?
The Dutch Association for Sustainable Energy (NVDE, the branch organization of companies active in the field of sustainable energy) recently advocated tackling entire neighborhoods at once instead of per home. In fact, the NVDE advocates a 'Delta Plan' for the energy transition and that is indeed much needed.
Subsidies inefficient, fragmented spending
Billions in subsidy money have been made available to municipalities and homeowners to implement sustainability measures. Until now, this has been left to the individual homeowner. A lot of paperwork is required to assess all individual applications and to pay the fees . In addition, there are so many regulations, all with different requirements, that the average citizen can no longer see the wood for the trees.
Ambitions in a scarcity economy
Another challenge is a chronic lack of people and materials to carry out the work. TNO advocates better management in the approach to sustainability. About 30,000 homes are now made gas-free every year and around 100,000 are insulated. The government could draw up long-term plans based on knowledge of the housing stock, which could simultaneously provide certainty for the executing and planning companies.
Similar homes can be tackled in quotas, which reduces costs and limits nuisance to a short period through collective purchasing and efficient implementation. By tackling entire streets, neighborhoods or districts at once, efficiency benefits can be achieved and perhaps larger steps towards sustainability can be made possible.
Cost indication offers tools for collective or individual purchasing
Based on data from Land Registry, RVO, energy suppliers and building detail information that has been brought together on the Cuby platform, the cost indication is calculated per label step and per measure for each home. This cost indication can be refined by adding information from the current situation, in which certain measures have already been implemented, for example. With this information, the home owner can purchase materials and services cost-consciously and result-oriented himself or collectively.
The cost indication per home is calculated on the basis of facade surfaces from a large open dataset, linked to current prices in the market. This cost indication provides insight into the costs incurred if the measures are carried out by a professional builder.
Because both the building surfaces and the costs are made visible, the information on Cuby can also be used when tendering for larger sustainability projects, in which homeowners and municipalities work together. It is also possible to link grants and loans on Cuby.
Support citizen initiatives
In the case of private home ownership, it appears that local residents want to develop sustainability scenarios together. Especially in neighborhoods where the same type of homes are located and homeowners want to invest individually.
Municipalities can support these citizen initiatives with the Cuby platform. Cuby offers insight into which type of sustainability best suits the individual home and offers the opportunity to share knowledge.
Vision, confidence and guts
Municipalities can operate smarter and accelerate the realization of home sustainability by driving, facilitating and coordinating this in a data-driven manner. Coordinated large-scale sustainability is cheaper and more manageable and controllable than the current individual approach. It does require vision and guts to draw up Neighborhood Implementation Plans with homeowners, implementing companies and subsidy providers.
Do you have vision and guts? Let us know if we can help with your 'energy transition delta plan'!
Please contact Aart van der Vlist, aart@sblc.nl
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