IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sol/wpaper/2013-143285.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Smart City Block: a new level of intervention for city renovation and reducing energy consumption

Author

Listed:
  • Frédéric Klopfert
  • Olivier Mortehan
  • Hélène Joachain
  • Caroline Lhoir

Abstract

The Directive 2002/91/CE on the energy performance of buildings requires that by end 2020, all new buildings within Member States are “nearly zero-energy”. Though this is technically feasible for any new construction, the problem of reducing the energy consumption of the existing building stock seems much trickier. Can or will all owners invest to renovate their houses? Are information and financial incentives sufficient? Will individual cost-benefits or return on investment calculation at micro level be enough to overcome the barriers to renovation?The Smart City Block project aims to promote renovation at the level of a city block. It thus directly tackles the insufficiently explored “meso level” where stakeholders with different motivations should interact to achieve a common goal. This interdisciplinary project proposes a variety of technical solutions including insulation techniques and highly energy-efficient equipment but also exploits energy savings that can only be achieved by behavioural changes related to new living organisations. As the proposed approach cannot be applied systematically to any city block, the first step was to develop a methodology for determining where such a block renovation is feasible, within the 5000 city blocks of Brussels.In order to evaluate the acceptance of households, a survey was conducted on four city blocks in Brussels, representing over 450 households. It was therefore necessary to expose the possible solutions in a comprehensive manner for a diverse set of inhabitants. A list of “elements” (including items such as architectural, building performance, HVAC, common living spaces, equipment and gardens or vegetable garden) was produced by specialists (engineers, architects, urban developers and sociologists). The last section of the paper provides the survey methodology and some early results showing inhabitants low attractiveness of energy saving technologies and limited desire to share energy consuming activities.

Suggested Citation

  • Frédéric Klopfert & Olivier Mortehan & Hélène Joachain & Caroline Lhoir, 2013. "Smart City Block: a new level of intervention for city renovation and reducing energy consumption," Working Papers CEB 13-017, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
  • Handle: RePEc:sol:wpaper:2013/143285
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/143285/1/wp13017.pdf
    File Function: wp13017
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ajzen, Icek, 1991. "The theory of planned behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 179-211, December.
    2. Shove, Elizabeth & Walker, Gordon, 2010. "Governing transitions in the sustainability of everyday life," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 471-476, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Litvine, Dorian & Gazull, Laurent & Dabat, Marie-Hélène, 2014. "Assessing the potential demand for biofuel by combining Economics and Psychology: A focus on proximity applied to Jatropha oil in Africa," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 85-95.
    2. Hélène Joachain & Frédéric Klopfert, 2011. "Emerging trend of complementary currencies systems as policy instrument for environmental purposes: changes ahead?," Working Papers CEB 11-047, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    3. Spangenberg, Joachim H. & Lorek, Sylvia, 2019. "Sufficiency and consumer behaviour: From theory to policy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 1070-1079.
    4. Anneli Selvefors & I. C. MariAnne Karlsson & Ulrike Rahe, 2015. "Conflicts in Everyday Life: The Influence of Competing Goals on Domestic Energy Conservation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(5), pages 1-18, May.
    5. Schwanen, Tim & Banister, David & Anable, Jillian, 2011. "Scientific research about climate change mitigation in transport: A critical review," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 45(10), pages 993-1006.
    6. Moshood, Taofeeq D. & Nawanir, Gusman & Mahmud, Fatimah & Mohamad, Fazeeda & Ahmad, Mohd Hanafiah & AbdulGhani, Airin, 2022. "Why do consumers purchase biodegradable plastic? The impact of hedonics and environmental motivations on switching intention from synthetic to biodegradable plastic among the young consumers," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    7. Maria Andersson & Ola Eriksson & Chris Von Borgstede, 2012. "The Effects of Environmental Management Systems on Source Separation in the Work and Home Settings," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 4(6), pages 1-17, June.
    8. Tran Huy Phuong & Thanh Trung Hieu, 2015. "Predictors of Entrepreneurial Intentions of Undergraduate Students in Vietnam: An Empirical Study," International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, vol. 5(8), pages 46-55, August.
    9. Peng Cheng & Zhe Ouyang & Yang Liu, 0. "The effect of information overload on the intention of consumers to adopt electric vehicles," Transportation, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-20.
    10. Alsalem, Amani & Fry, Marie-Louise & Thaichon, Park, 2020. "To donate or to waste it: Understanding posthumous organ donation attitude," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 87-97.
    11. Benoît Lécureux & Adrien Bonnet & Ouassim Manout & Jaâfar Berrada & Louafi Bouzouina, 2022. "Acceptance of Shared Autonomous Vehicles: A Literature Review of stated choice experiments," Working Papers hal-03814947, HAL.
    12. Kristin Thomas & Evalill Nilsson & Karin Festin & Pontus Henriksson & Mats Lowén & Marie Löf & Margareta Kristenson, 2020. "Associations of Psychosocial Factors with Multiple Health Behaviors: A Population-Based Study of Middle-Aged Men and Women," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(4), pages 1-17, February.
    13. Kamruzzaman, Md. & Baker, Douglas & Washington, Simon & Turrell, Gavin, 2013. "Residential dissonance and mode choice," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 12-28.
    14. Ficko, Andrej & Boncina, Andrej, 2013. "Probabilistic typology of management decision making in private forest properties," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 34-43.
    15. Muhammad Shahid Qureshi & Saadat Saeed & Syed Waleed Mehmood Wasti, 2016. "The impact of various entrepreneurial interventions during the business plan competition on the entrepreneur identity aspirations of participants," Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research, Springer;UNESCO Chair in Entrepreneurship, vol. 6(1), pages 1-18, December.
    16. Julie Bayle-Cordier & Loïc Berger & Rayan Elatmani & Massimo Tavoni, 2023. "Breath, Love, Walk? The Impact of Mindfulness Interventions on Climate Policy Support and Environmental Attitudes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-29, July.
    17. Szu‐Szu Ho & Rosie Stenhouse & Aisha Holloway, 2020. "Understanding HIV‐positive drug users’ experiences of taking highly active antiretroviral treatment: Identity–Values–Conscious engagement model," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(9-10), pages 1561-1575, May.
    18. Alexandre Cabagnols & Ali Maâlej & Pierre Mauchand & Olfa Kammoun, 2022. "The determinants of entrepreneurial intention of scientist PhD students: analytical vs emotional formation of the intention," Insights into Regional Development, VsI Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center, vol. 4(4), pages 63-82, December.
    19. Diwanji, Vaibhav S. & Cortese, Juliann, 2020. "Contrasting user generated videos versus brand generated videos in ecommerce," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    20. Carlos Bazan, 2022. "Effect of the University’s Environment and Support System on Subjective Social Norms as Precursor of the Entrepreneurial Intention of Students," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(4), pages 21582440221, October.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sol:wpaper:2013/143285. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Benoit Pauwels (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cebulbe.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.