Members of the Digital Society and Economy IRT, along with representatives from The Crichton Trust, are presenting a paper as part of The United Nations Experts Meeting No 23rd ‘Home/Family & Climate Change’ in collaboration with and hosted by the Home Renaissance Foundation and Nottingham Trent University. This paper is part of a longer-term collaboration between the University of Glasgow and The Crichton Trust.

Prof. Bridgette Wessels (University of Glasgow), Jennifer Challinor (The Crichton Trust), and Dr Ryan Casey (University of Glasgow) are presenting a paper titled ‘Net-Zero Homes as localities of households, neighbourhoods, and natural environments’. This paper considers the question of how to engage more effectively with home and family as a resilient unit to help societies and economies combat climate change. It focuses on ‘connected locality’, which is how people, place and planet come together in shaping homes that then become ‘net-zero by default’. The focus of this paper is on home as dwelling through the relationship between types of shelter and the environment, based on research and developments in Scotland, namely, the Ladyfield development site and plans in Dumfries and Galloway, though we argue it can be adapted to other contexts in the Global North and beyond.  

Households face challenges in adapting to and mitigating climate change which need to be addressed in ways that work with diverse communities and dwellings, through policies that can be adapted to people and place. The focus on climate resilience and the impact of homes, although important, decentres the importance of what home means and its role in supporting wellbeing as well as net-zero goals. Home is a complex cultural phenomenon involving dwelling spaces, relations amongst household members, artefacts, technologies, and economic, social and environmental hubs and networks where people want to feel safe, comfortable and at ease. This is not always the case, but the ideal of home remains strong and has social and cultural value. This understanding of home is needed to address sustainability from a home-focussed perspective and how it relates to wellbeing. In this sense, sustainability is about meeting people’s present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to do the same, which includes not just natural, but also social and economic resources.

There is a lack of focus on homes and their relationship with neighbourhoods as spaces of services, sociality, and the environment. Working towards homes which are net-zero by default requires approaches that work from a natural habitat or in rewilding where homes and households become active partners in a process of dwelling rather than passive users of natural spaces and local services. This means asking how natural environments of all types interact in the shaping of homes and neighbourhoods. It also means considering how household wellbeing can be embedded into meaningful connected localities that are net-zero. This requires research in developing a new conceptual and analytical framework to address how homes can be socially and environmentally shaped to dwelling that is net-zero by default.

Drawing upon Silverstone et al.’s (1992) concept and framework on domestication to understand the take-up and use of technology in the home in relation to household agency, Wessels, Challinor and Casey argue that the framework can be adapted to address how homes can be socially and environmentally shaped to dwelling that is net-zero by default. This is a four-part process which involves:

1. Identifying household needs and sustainable practices, to develop a household-centric approach (integration)

2. Embedding relations between home, neighbourhood, and environment so household-centric approaches to sustainability are supported in the context of wider structural change (adaptation);

3. Supporting innovation in industry and shape the development of net-zero homes and neighbourhoods​ (innovation);

4. Converting the potential for homes to be net-zero by default elsewhere that can be adapted to people and place (conversion).

The Ladyfield development is an early exemplar of how homes can be socially and environmentally shaped to dwelling that is net-zero by default. In their paper, Wessels, Challinor and Casey demonstrate how the Ladyfield development can be analytically examined through this adaptation of Silverstone et al.’s (1992) framework.

The Ladyfield model provides a radical new vision in its holistic and relational approach. It takes mechanistic approaches to housing types, neighbourhood proximity, and access to work, education, and health into a relational paradigm of lived neighbourhoods – natural and social. It moves climate change approaches beyond narrowly understood electrical and carbon neutral technologies into working with communities, neighbourhoods, and the home in creating meaningful, connected, and sustainable living. The development works with how households live and provides the resources and design of homes and neighbourhood that builds resilience, and importantly, home and environment wellbeing to support new ways of dwelling. Therefore, taking a framework that has people, place and planet understood through a relational lens of dwelling means that there is a potential for creating net-zero by default ways of living.  This concept is aspirational and not fully worked-up but if we can learn from early case studies such as Ladyfield, we can build a knowledge base to underpin future innovation and practice.

 

The Experts Meeting on HOME/FAMILY & CLIMATE CHANGE will take place on 28-29 September 2023 at Nottingham Trent University.

First published: 20 July 2023

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