The abstract is available in the Neuropsychiatrie de l'Enfance et de l'Adolescence.

The residential sector in England is often identified as having the largest potential for emissions reduction at some of the lowest costs when compared against other sectors. In spite of this, decarbonisation within the residential sector has not materialised. This thesis explores the complexities of decarbonising the residential sector in England using a whole systems approach. It is only when the interaction between social, psychological, regulatory, technical, material and economic factors are considered together that the behaviour of the system emerges and the relationships between different system components can be explained giving insight into the underlying issues of decarbonisation. Building regulations, assessments and certification standards are critical for motivating and driving innovation towards decarbonising the building stock. Many existing building performance and evaluation tools are shown to be ineffective and confound different policy objectives. Not only is the existing UK SAP standard shown to be a poor predictor of dwelling level energy demand but it perversely incentivises households to increase CO2 emissions. At the dwelling level, a structural equation model is developed to quantify direct, indirect and total effects on residential energy demand. Interestingly, building efficiency is shown to have reciprocal causality with a household’s propensity to consume energy. That is, dwellings with high-energy efficiency consume less energy, but homes with a propensity to consume more energy are also more likely to have higher energy efficiency. Internal dwelling temperature is one of the most important parameters for explaining residential energy demand over a heterogeneous building stock. Yet bottom up energy demand models inadequately incorporate internal temperature as a function of human behaviour. A panel model is developed to predict daily mean internal temperatures from individual dwellings. In this model, socio-demographic, behavioural, physical and environmental variables are combined to estimate the daily fluctuations of mean internal temperature demand. The internal temperature prediction model is then incorporated in a bottom-up engineering simulation model. The residential energy demand model is then used to project decarbonisation scenarios to 2050. Under the assumption of consistent energy demand fuel share allocation, modelling results suggest that emissions from the residential sector can be reduced from 125 MtCO2 to 44 MtCO2 after all major energy efficiency measures have been applied, the power sector is decarbonised and all newly constructed dwellings are zero carbon. Meeting future climate change targets will thus not only require extensive energy efficiency upgrades to all existing dwellings but also the complete decarbonisation of end use energy demand. Such a challenge can only be met through the transformation of existing building regulations, models that properly allow for the effects of human behaviour, and flexible policies capable of maximising impact from a heterogeneous residential building stock.

There is strong interest across industries and academia in exploring the potential of innovation to address global sustainability issues and hence assist in making a paradigm shift towardsmore sustainable practices. To overcome the challenges of sustainability it is not enough to inject incremental solutions but a paradigm shift should suggestively be aimed at. As a result Sustainability innovation is being approached more holistically as opposed to in the past when it mostly focused on process, product or organisational innovation. The concept ‘SustainabilityOriented Innovation’ (SOI) considers this holistic view and looks at innovation as a process or trajectory and considers sustainability from a both social, environmental as well as an economic perspective. For holistic solutions to arise it is evident that challenges need to be solved togetherin multi actor networks and not in an insular manner. Yet, researchers have in the past focused mostly on who should govern or be involved in sustainability innovation whilst there is a lack in understanding how it should be accomplished collectively. Understanding how different parties such as civil society, public authorities and industries can collaborate to create valuable solutions can be imperative for future sustainable development.By combining SOI with Actor Network Theory (ANT) this paper sheds light on how actors engage in SOI processes and form a multi-actor network. Actor Network Theory helps deciphering the innovation process, viewing it as non-linear and continuously evolving negotiation between multiple actors rather than as an insular and linear process. Two SOI cases are examined through the theoretical lens of ANT to investigate the innovation process through moments of translations rather than static stages. As the integration of SOI and ANT is under researched this paper makes a theoretical contribution by integrating the theories and thus enriching this area. Findings emphasise how the focal actor, in a SOI process, engages with other actors in the multi-actor network. The findings can hence assist actors in initiating or transitioning towards Systems building approach by shedding light on how to navigate the complexities of the process and engage with other actorsinvolved. / Det finns ett starkt intresse för både industrier och akademiker att utforska potentialen av innovationför att lösa överskuggande globala hållbarhetsproblem. För att övervinna hållbarhetsutmaningarnaräcker det inte med att injicera inkrementella lösningar, utan ett systemperspektiv bör anammasoch ansträngningar riktas mot att främja ett paradigmskifte. Hållbarhetsinnovation börjarlångsamt närma sig ett mer holistiskt tillvägagångssätt, från att tidigare fokuserat på process,produkt eller organisatorisk innovation. Konceptet “Sustainability Oriented Innovation” (SOI)anammar denna helhetssyn och ser innovation som en process eller resa och beaktar hållbarhet urbåde ett socialt, miljömässigt och ekonomiskt perspektiv. För att det ska uppstå systembyggandeoch holistiska lösningar är det uppenbart att utmaningarna måste lösas tillsammans, i nätverkav ett flertal individer samt samhällsaktörer och inte på insulära vis. Tidigare har forskare ändåfokuserat mest på vem som ska styra eller vilka som ska vara inblandade i hållbarhetsinnovation,medan det saknas en förståelse för hur det ska uppnås kollektivt. Det är därför avgörande förframtidens hållbarhetsutveckling att förstå hur olika parter, som det civila samhället, myndighetersamt industrier kan samarbeta för att skapa värdefulla lösningar.Genom att kombinera SOI med Actor Network Theory (ANT) utforskar denna text hur aktörerengagerar och interagerar i SOI-processer samt bildar mångfaldiga aktörnätverk. ANT hjälpertill att dechiffrera innovationsprocessen genom at beakta den som ickelinjär och kontinuerlig,som en förhandling mellan flera aktörer snarare än en ensidig och linjär process. Två olika typerav SOI processer undersöks genom ANTs teoretiska lins för att belysa dem genom ‘moments oftranslations’ snarare än statiska faser eller steg. Eftersom integrationen av SOI och ANT nästintilluteblivit i litteraturen är detta ett teoretiskt bidrag som berikar förståelsen för att kombinera de tvåteorierna. Resultaten betonar hur den centrala aktören, i en SOI-process, engagerar och interagerarmed andra aktörer. Slutsatens belyser hur man navigerar komplexiteten i hållbarhetsprocesser ochengagerar berörda aktörer. Den beskriver därmed hur organisationer och individer i praktiken kaninitiera eller övergå till holistiska metoder och anamma systemperspektiv.

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