• About this site|
• Site index|
• Contact us|
• Jobs

Warm Homes Technical Report: Social Drivers: Phase 2 Report

Executive Summary

1 Overview of Social Drivers Work Programme

2 Four Local Workshops

3 Interpreting the Concept of a 'National Programme'

4 Recommendations for Developing a National Warm Homes Programme

Appendix A: Analysis of Issues and Options for Programme Design

Appendix B: Attendance Lists for the Four Community Workshops

Appendix C: Comparative Analysis of the Four Warm Homes Workshops

2 Four Local Workshops

2.1 The series of workshops

Originally, three workshops were planned. One was to be an incentives options policy workshop with a range of government officials in order to work through the pros and cons of options and other programme design matters at a central government policy level. The other two were to be community workshops, originally planned for Christchurch and Masterton.

In the event, the Ministry for the Environment substituted the policy workshop with another half-day workshop at which the social drivers project team presented progress results to a group representing parties involved in the existing Warm Homes-type programmes (Environment Canterbury, Christchurch City Council, Nelson City Council), Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, Building Research Association of New Zealand, Ministry of Health, and the South Waikato District Council, with whom the Ministry for the Environment was in the process of negotiating to establish a small Warm Homes pilot project from April to June 2005. The social drivers team was one of three contracted groups to make presentations, the others being Glenn Seymour (Strategic Energy) on aspects of modelling heating choice, and Emily Wilton (Environet) on emissions inventory work.

During the hour-long presentation by the social drivers team, topics covered included the approach and conceptual framework adopted, the findings on social drivers, the analysis of issues and options for maximising householder response, and some preliminary feedback from the Christchurch and Masterton workshops.

The Ministry then requested the addition of two further regional workshops, with the aim of extending and diversifying the range of community perspectives incorporated into the analysis. The two additional workshops were to be in Tokoroa and Timaru. Tokoroa provided an example of a larger town with an acute winter-time air quality problem, in a region with no previous involvement in public programmes to address the problem and very modest involvement (through Housing New Zealand) of energy efficiency upgrades to houses. Timaru provided an example of a provincial centre with a significant winter-time air quality problem and a regional council (Environment Canterbury) with considerable experience of its Clean Heat programme, but also with the opportunity to learn from Christchurch experience before implementing something similar in Timaru.

It should be noted that these locations were chosen as they are areas known to have serious air quality problems. The findings from the workshops will have this background to them and the solutions proposed for these areas may be more extreme than those required in other locations.

2.2 The purpose of the workshops

The express purpose of these workshops was to:

• provide information on the project team's findings about social drivers (ie, why people heat their homes the way they do, why people use/do not use energy-efficiency measures, etc), and to elicit workshop participants' ideas on which social drivers they consider to be most influential for home heating decisions in their communities
• discuss particular issues of programme design and implementation
• discuss potential improvements to existing energy-efficiency and clean-air programmes, and the implications for developing a nationwide integrated Warm Homes programme.

It soon became clear that, with the exception of the Christchurch workshop, these workshops were an important first or early step in raising awareness of the nature and extent of the air pollution problem in these local communities. They also served as an opportunity for smaller communities to consider how they might establish a co-operative process of programme implementation at the local level. In the case of Christchurch, the workshop served as an opportunity for local stakeholders (some of whom had been interviewed during Phase 1 because of their directly relevant experience) to discuss the merits of feasible improvements to the existing Clean Heat programme.

Attendance lists for each of the four community workshops are provided in Appendix B.

2.3 Workshop feedback on social drivers

Each workshop listed and prioritised key factors that influence people's decisions about adopting less polluting forms of heating in their homes (Table 1). The colour coding and numbering illustrates groups of generic factors, which are discussed below.

Table 1: Summary of workshop responses on key influencing factors

Key points from this comparison

• There was a strong commonality of factors between all workshops.
• Most factors can be positive or negative - which stresses the reality that markets are segmented, where a positive attribute for one segment can be a negative attribute for another.
• A few factors of importance are specific to local circumstances.
• Cost/affordability issues were raised consistently across all workshops as the most important factor.

Implications for the Warm Homes project

• A national programme framework with a number of strong common elements would appear to be appropriate for all locations.
• There is, nevertheless, the need for 'localisation' - to build on community strengths and knowledge and to take account of specific local circumstances.
• Acknowledging the segmented nature of some of the factors, some parts of the programme need to be specifically tailored to market segments (a 'horses for courses approach'). For example, specific information/awareness raising and support could be targeted at the elderly, while lifestyle/convenience/comfort factors could be used as a focus for marketing to other segments.

Analysis of specific factors

(1) Financial issues, including the cost/affordability of change

This was the most commonly cited key factor across all four workshops. The issue mainly relates to the initial capital cost to move to a clean heating appliance (and other associated investments). [Note that workshop attendees had a strong weighting towards representation by social agencies, with a high awareness of affordability issues for these groups] Most workshops saw publicly funded programmes as an effective way to achieve positive change.

(2) Relative desirability of heating options

This factor appears to be highly segmented: some workshop participants saw non-wood options as being less desirable because of higher costs and less heat output. In Christchurch, electricity costs and reliability were a concern. On the other hand, workshops also acknowledged the attractiveness of new technology options, with some attendees regarding cheap electricity prices as being a positive driver for some.

(3) Awareness and understanding of issues

Workshops identified raising awareness and understanding (particularly of the adverse health effects associated with cold homes and air pollution) as an important factor encouraging change, and the current lack of awareness and understanding (within some segments) as a barrier to change.

(4) Lifestyle issues

Today's busy lifestyles were widely regarded as a factor pushing people towards instantaneous and fast heating systems - generally these systems use cleaner energy sources. On the other hand, some lifestyles were not amenable to this, with some householders being highly resistant to changing from established patterns.

(5) Household priorities

As above, this factor could be both positive and negative depending on the market segment: the positive driver being when a household's desire for more warmth/cleaner heating aligns with the Warm Homes goals, the negative driver when households are amenable to changing their heating but can't afford it or can't put in the time to follow through.

(6) Community leadership/enthusiasm

This factor was identified at two workshops as being a key factor in initiating positive change. Leadership is required at various levels in the community (eg, political through to community groups), but implicit is a high level of unity and consensus among the various players on the way forward.

(7) Regulations

These were raised at the two Canterbury workshops as a positive driver of change, probably reflecting participants' local knowledge of the limited uptake of clean heating appliances (under the Clean Heat programme), in which only incentives have been available to drive change.

(8) Rental property barriers

Most workshops identified that (private) rental properties present a particular barrier to change. Landlords have no legal requirements to invest in clean heating (other than complying with any local air plan regulations), and many landlords don't necessarily see a return from the investment, although there is a proportion of landlords who are willing to respond to tenants' requests for improved amenities. Tenants won't invest in a fixed capital item because it is not their property, and tenancies are typically of short duration (less than one year). The strongest resistance occurs in the low-income, more transient segment of the rental market.

2.4 Lessons learnt about community buy-in and programme participation

Discussions at each of the four workshops revealed distinct differences in the characteristics of the air quality/cold homes problem in each community, certainly when considered in combination. In a sense, these characteristics can be seen as describing social drivers that are particularly important in each community. They highlight the importance of acknowledging that any national programme must support local variation. To put it another way, the top-down elements of a national programme must complement and enable the bottom-up elements of community response.

The factors likely to influence the nature of community responses in each of the four communities were summarised under the following headings:

• extent of the air quality problem
• degree of the air quality problem
• resource/technical aspects influencing the response
• social/demographic/community aspects influencing the response
• community awareness of the problem
• experience of public programmes of any kind which address air quality and/or health issues or energy efficiency improvements
• agency networking and active collaboration
• programme local funding constraints in relation to the extent and degree of the air quality/ cold homes problem and the socio-economic status of the community.

A comparison of these factors for each of the four communities is given in Appendix C.

In summary, the three workshops (not including Christchurch due to its level of engagement):

• validated and confirmed information obtained from other key sources, particularly the 30-plus key informant interviews carried out for the Phase 1 Report
• confirmed that while there are some notable differences, the situations and issues of each had more similarities than differences
• demonstrated that with strong local input to address the differences and obtain community buy-in, it will be possible to develop an implementation strategy that can work in each of the three communities
• identified the need to revisit the name 'Warm Homes' before a national programme is rolled out, because there is confusion with Healthy Homes projects, a name that is a broader and better established descriptor for a narrower range of activities (ie, health benefits through energy efficiency for low-income households).