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Mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) is increasingly being promoted in the UK as a means of reducing the CO₂ emissions from dwellings, and installers report growing activity in the retrofit market. However, the airtightness of a dwelling is a crucially important factor governing the achievement of CO₂ reductions, and the purpose of this paper is to understand the technical implications of airtightness levels in an experimental dwelling, purpose built to typical 1930s standards, at the same time as gaining the users’ perspectives on airtightness and ventilation in their homes.

In‐depth interviews were carried out with 20 households to collect information on their retrofit and improvement strategies, attitudes to energy saving and their living practices as they impinge on ventilation. The experimental house was sealed in a series of interventions, leading to successive reductions in the air permeability as measured by a 50 Pa pressurisation test. The behaviour of a whole‐house MVHR system installed in the experimental house, was simulated using IES Virtual Environment, using a range of air permeability values corresponding to those achieved in the retrofit upgrading process.

In the house considered, air permeability must be reduced below 5 m³/m²h for MVHR to make an overall energy and CO₂ saving. However, to achieve this required a level of disruption that, on the basis of the views expressed, would be unlikely to be tolerated by owners of solid wall dwellings.

The paper is the first to combine results from a user‐centred approach to exploring the existing practices of householders with a simulation of the energy and CO₂ performance at different levels of airtightness of an experimental house in which MVHR has been installed.

High levels of interior water vapour lead to condensation and black mould that in turn represent significant risks to residential properties and their occupants. Beliefs about window opening are good predictors of the degree to which householders will actually open windows to purge their homes of water vapour, including water vapour that they themselves generate. The present study tested if a short information-giving intervention could enhance householders’ beliefs that foster window opening as purge ventilation and, in turn, lead to greater window opening.

Data were collected from 242 UK householders with robust psychometrically sound measures embedded in an online self-report survey that also presented the intervention information.

The intervention led participants, and males in particular, to have significantly greater concerns about condensation and mould and significantly less concerns about heat loss costs arising from opening windows, and these altered beliefs in turn predicted a greater intention to open windows in the future.

By sharing simple information, surveyors and other building professionals can help householders take the simple step of opening their windows and so reduce the threats that condensation and mould present to themselves and their homes.

This is the first study to test (1) a time-based model that predicted the intervention would have a positive effect on specific window opening attitudes and that those new attitudes would in turn affect window opening intentions, and (2) if the intervention had different effects on men and women.

This study examines whether or not the waste management practices of the poor households living in squatters and low‐cost flats in Kuala Lumpur are conducive to the environment. With the aim of accomplishing the above, the study empirically assesses knowledge, attitude and behaviour of the urban poor concerning their household solid waste management. With primary data collected from the level of living condition and waste management practices of the urban poor, the study employed a multiplicity of statistical techniques such as t‐tests of equality of means, one‐way analysis of variance, chi‐square ‘likelihood ratio’ tests, and descriptive statistics. The findings of the study provide evidence to the effect that poverty does not cause environmental degradation as the knowledge, attitude, and behaviour of the urban poor concerning solid waste management are found to have been conducive to the environment. The study suggests that the problems of poverty and environment need to be seen differently as the causal relationship between the two does actually depend on the level of socioeconomic profile and the type of environmental practices of a particular group of community

This paper aims to investigate residential occupants’ motivations and behaviour on energy savings. Energy consumption in residential buildings is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

By using an online survey questionnaire instrument, this research collected 504 sets of responses from households in the state of New South Wales, Australia.

Through statistical analysis of the data collected, this research found that construction cost and government incentive were considered as the major influencing factors on achieving energy-efficient residential building development, and the lower bills resulted from the reduced energy and water consumption were considered as the most important benefits. The research also found that many households exhibited a high level of awareness and had implemented some sustainability improvement measures. It is suggested, based on these research findings, that governments should articulate, by means of education, the rationale and benefits of sustainable home development that are identified in this research and reduce material costs and increase government incentives.

A framework on improving residential sustainability was proposed in this paper. Stakeholders in the sustainable home supply chain could use this framework as a reference to pave the way for energy efficient home development from their perspective

This paper examines how accounting concepts were utilised in domestic waste collection services in Ireland over the past two decades or so. In comparison to other former “free” services in the Irish context, the prevalence of accounting concepts has been greater and delivered a more successful outcome.

Drawing on the concepts of calculation, the “economic” and economization, events around domestic waste policy in Ireland are examined, and the increasing prevalence of concepts such as price, cost and profitability in these processes are a focal point. Publicly available documents such as government policy documents, parliamentary records and media reports are utilised to draw out these concepts. The period of analysis is 1996–2018.

The findings reveal the role of accounting concepts in the economization of domestic waste policy in Ireland. The result of the economization process was a fully privatised, profit-oriented, price-monitored system.

This research provides a broad view of accounting concepts in the management of domestic waste. It highlights how waste policy in Ireland travelled through instances of being political and economic over time. The research is limited by its use of secondary data.

This study highlights how accounting concepts were used in varying ways to bring about a satisfactory solution to domestic waste disposal in Ireland, namely the privatisation of waste services.

Increased economic development in emerging economies has spurred the growth of “fast fashion” and this in turn has led to not only an opportunity for recycling activity but also a need to do so from a sustainability perspective. The purpose of this paper is to consider the emergence of such recycling activity in a developing economy.

A process flow approach guides identification of stakeholders and an analysis of reverse supply chain structure and processes. An adapted and extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB) model is employed to explore recycling behaviour at the household level.

The authors find rather haphazard garment recycling channels in Delhi NCR. In particular product acquisition processes are characterised by poor value appropriation and provide a limited service to households. This is supported by the householder survey that finds poor satisfaction levels with most recycling channels. PLS path modelling tested hypotheses that each of the four constructs (attitudes, subjective norm, perceived control and sense of duty) are significant determinants of “intention to plan to recycle”. Having tested for various possible meditating effects, sense of duty was found to act as a precursor to attitude. In this model all other constructs were significant determinants of intention to recycle garments. Thus the study highlights the role of “sense of duty” in attitude formation, a key determinant of intention to recycle garments. This highlights the importance of adherence to sustainable practices and the need for associated governance and regulation. Subjective norm points to the impact of a range of people, including experts. While perceived control points to difficulties encountered both from a self-efficacy and external (opportunity) perspectives.

The findings suggest that reverse supply chain design should address the limitations of the product acquisition process (especially poor value appropriation and limited collection services) and respond to household motivational factors and perceived difficulties.

The study considers the impact of the garment product lifecycle on household behaviour. In this context the adapted TPB model addressed the role of conscious planning. The model is extended to include sense of duty, this contributes to emerging work in this field.

Improving energy efficiency of buildings and appliances has been shown to be the most cost‐effective way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The aim of this research is to identify householders' lifestyle choices within homes that impact on energy use and their motivation to conserve energy. The results help to identify methods to increase the uptake of sustainability practices that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions in residential buildings.

A postal survey was adopted as the quickest and most cost‐effective way of surveying a large sample of householders across Australia. The survey was sent to 2,500 randomly selected residents, 500 in each of the five largest Australian cities by population.

The results identified that barriers to energy efficiency in households include: larger homes and smaller households; initial costs of sustainable features, and a lack of consumer information about benefits and savings from incorporating energy‐efficient devices. The most common reason why people are not acting in more sustainable ways is inconvenience or laziness.

The response rate was very low and retired persons were over‐represented, as they are the people with more time to answer surveys. Further research is warranted to achieve a larger, more representative sample.

These results will be useful to Government policy makers as they help to identify methods to increase the uptake of sustainable features and energy conservation in homes.

This study is the first attempt at a nation‐wide study of residential behavior to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in homes.

To improve building performance and meet statutory carbon reduction targets, a radical transformation of existing UK building stock is needed. Much previous research on building performance has focussed on large-scale construction. However, retrofit of existing housing stock – which will contribute the majority of the requisite efficiency improvement – is carried out by practitioners in the repair–maintain–improve (RMI) subsector. These practitioners are the sole traders and micro-firms who constitute two-fifths of employment in the construction sector. The study aims to examine the factors influencing these practitioners in RMI work to understand how better to engage them with improved building performance.

A total of 31 semi-structured interviews were conducted with RMI professionals from around the UK and analysed using template analysis.

The analysis identified capabilities of the practitioners who influence building performance, including knowledge and co-ordination of people and resources; opportunities including state action and customer demand; and motivations including pride in work, customer care and satisfaction, maintaining a viable business and working relationships.

The participants were a small, mixed group in terms of firm size and specialisation. The qualitative approach adopted provided detailed insights but does not make claims for statistical generalisability or representativeness of the findings. Future work could look to extend the findings with a statistically representative survey.

For a successful transition to high standards of building performance, modelling is not enough. Initiatives are needed to address the multiple factors which determine engagement in energy-efficient retrofit: capacities, opportunities and motivations. The desire of RMI practitioners to meet customer expectations could be used to develop pragmatic building performance evaluation, guided by householder satisfaction criteria.

The study examined the attitudes and experiences of an under-researched sector who are essential to the delivery of improved building performance. This study makes a novel contribution by applying an established psychological model of behaviour change, the capability, opportunity, motivation – behaviour model, for the first time in this domain.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a research project investigating people’s experiences of domestic fires in a Northern UK city region. Although there is much research exploring behaviours during fire incidents and identifying who, where and (to a lesser extent) why, fires occur, there is little understanding of people’s experiences of domestic fires. This includes how individuals come to reflect on and understand the incident; how they articulate how events unfolded leading up to, during and immediately post incident; and how experiencing an incident may influence an individual’s perception of fire risk or the possibility of him or her experiencing a further fire. This paper contributes to this understanding by providing an overview of key findings from a recent empirical research project.

A participative, qualitative research design was developed in which Community Safety Advisors (CSAs) were trained in data collection and analysis techniques. CSAs undertook interviews with 72 individuals who had experienced a non-fatal domestic fire incident between 2012 and 2013. The interviews were transcribed and analysed by the authors in consultation with CSAs through a series of “action research” and “participative data analysis” workshops and events.

The authors report on key findings from the study with respect to how people recollect the fire incident; their understanding of why it occurred and what could have been done to prevent it; and their reflections on how the incident may (or may not) have influenced their current views on fire and fire risk.

The research has a number of implications for research and policy. This includes greater understanding for the role of narrative data in understanding fire incidents and post incident reflections, as well as recognising the potential for fire and rescue services to widen their research and analysis agendas. Analysis also identifies the importance of clear communication in prevention strategies, including with respect to communicating the causes of fire and the “get out-stay out” message.

The authors believe the research project to be one of the first, internationally, to record qualitative experiences of domestic fires and situate these experiences within a broader framework of fire risk. In presenting an overview of the findings here, the intention is to promote our learning to other researchers and practitioners in the fire-risk sector and beyond.

The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic framework for maintenance and refurbishment in domestic housing sector for utilising BIM processes, which tackles ageing housing stock and allows for sustainability improvements, and carbon footprinting.

The methods used consisted using modern technology currently used in the built environment sector, and applying them to BIM framework. The BIM implementation covered both technical and social implications, and appraisal of different approaches needed to make the framework effective within the housing sector.

The study revealed that there are many modern approaches for a BIM framework in relation to maintenance and refurbishment, and a possible strategic BM approach largely used in new built sector can be applied to domestic building to achieve effective modern asset management. This makes the housing stock easier to manage as well as addressing vital issues such as carbon footprint, and excessive energy wasted on inefficient buildings envelopes.

Further testing and adoption of the approach and model proposed, will result in greater acceptance of BIM for housing management and greater realisation of benefits.

A potential model that can be used and applied to domestic housing sector as a result of this research.

Demonstration of a road map for BIM applications within the maintenance and refurbishment for housing stock is currently under researched, and the findings aimed to address such a gap. This can in turn shift the focus of BIM towards asset management and building performance rather than just new build.