About this Research Topic
In the face of the climate-change crisis, carbon emission mitigation through housing renovation has transformed into key policy. Nonetheless, climate action on housing entangles with deep-rooted institutional frameworks that involve a variety of actors and levels of state intervention.
Simultaneously, climate policy implementation draws across diverse policy sections, involving public bodies, private actors, and the civil society, and impinges on the discretionary jurisdictions of regional or national states. Although housing policy may also be operated across different governance scales, very little is known about how climate-change policies conflict, challenge or influence housing policies, nor how social housing provision is reshaped to accommodate climate-change targets.
Additionally, little is known about the social and spatial trade-offs of climate-friendly housing construction and renovation, the beneficiaries and potential losers.
At the same time, climate finance, in the form of green and sustainable bonds, is pushed forward to motivate both the public and private sectors toward investments that “green” urban infrastructures.
Already real-estate investors have identified green housing projects and retrofits as opportunities for higher capital returns as the socio-ecological transformation of housing has the ability to generate yields throughout the renewed life cycle of buildings. Besides the incorporation of technological advances, retrofitted developments accommodate the environmental worries of those educated middle classes able to pay higher rents, which keeps apace investors’ rent maximizing behavior.
Additionally, access to state funding and local initiatives incite developers to incorporate climate-change discourse, and corroborate with new actors like energy utility companies, on the efficiency of building design. And as the market is leveraged toward the development of carbon-neutral housing involving new actors and “green” finance logic, there is a lack of awareness over the novel housing, real-estate and financial dynamics; synergies and contradictions that aim at implementing climate action on housing, the social trade-offs, and spatial impact.
This Research Topic aims at disclosing the novel dynamics in housing and the “green” financial logic that develops between climate policy, local governance, low carbon housing needs, and real-estate actors by investigating five research questions that remain, thus far, underexplored:
(i) how climate-change policies enmesh with housing policies and social housing provision;
(ii) what is the role of the local state and climate planning for low-carbon housing;
(iii) how investors and market actors perceive and enact climate policies for housing;
(iv) which means of climate financing are used to attain retrofits and by whom;
(v) for whom carbon-neutral housing production is destined to.
To help un-lock the messiness identified in climate urban governance, the social needs, at least regarding housing, and shed light on novel actors and processes that transform homes into carbon-neutral assets, we welcome contributions from different geographical contexts and socio-economic backgrounds that place housing at the intersection of climate change and financialization research.
Simultaneously, climate policy implementation draws across diverse policy sections, involving public bodies, private actors, and the civil society, and impinges on the discretionary jurisdictions of regional or national states. Although housing policy may also be operated across different governance scales, very little is known about how climate-change policies conflict, challenge or influence housing policies, nor how social housing provision is reshaped to accommodate climate-change targets.
Additionally, little is known about the social and spatial trade-offs of climate-friendly housing construction and renovation, the beneficiaries and potential losers.
At the same time, climate finance, in the form of green and sustainable bonds, is pushed forward to motivate both the public and private sectors toward investments that “green” urban infrastructures.
Already real-estate investors have identified green housing projects and retrofits as opportunities for higher capital returns as the socio-ecological transformation of housing has the ability to generate yields throughout the renewed life cycle of buildings. Besides the incorporation of technological advances, retrofitted developments accommodate the environmental worries of those educated middle classes able to pay higher rents, which keeps apace investors’ rent maximizing behavior.
Additionally, access to state funding and local initiatives incite developers to incorporate climate-change discourse, and corroborate with new actors like energy utility companies, on the efficiency of building design. And as the market is leveraged toward the development of carbon-neutral housing involving new actors and “green” finance logic, there is a lack of awareness over the novel housing, real-estate and financial dynamics; synergies and contradictions that aim at implementing climate action on housing, the social trade-offs, and spatial impact.
This Research Topic aims at disclosing the novel dynamics in housing and the “green” financial logic that develops between climate policy, local governance, low carbon housing needs, and real-estate actors by investigating five research questions that remain, thus far, underexplored:
(i) how climate-change policies enmesh with housing policies and social housing provision;
(ii) what is the role of the local state and climate planning for low-carbon housing;
(iii) how investors and market actors perceive and enact climate policies for housing;
(iv) which means of climate financing are used to attain retrofits and by whom;
(v) for whom carbon-neutral housing production is destined to.
To help un-lock the messiness identified in climate urban governance, the social needs, at least regarding housing, and shed light on novel actors and processes that transform homes into carbon-neutral assets, we welcome contributions from different geographical contexts and socio-economic backgrounds that place housing at the intersection of climate change and financialization research.
Keywords: Housing Financialization, Climate-Change and Housing Policies, Retrofits, Climate Finance, Housing Provision
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
