Research project
The role of climate resilience strategies, Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs), and access to clean energy on house prices and inequality
- Start date: 1 November 2024
- End date: 31 July 2025
- Principal investigator: Dr Gissell Huaccha
- Co-investigators: Professor Gary Dymski and Dr Muhammad Ali Nasir
Description
Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) play a crucial role in assessing the energy efficiency of buildings and their CO2 impact. With the growing emphasis on sustainable growth and climate change mitigation strategies, understanding the role of climate resilience strategies, EPC ratings, and access to clean energy on house prices and inequality is imperative, especially in the United Kingdom (UK).
The UK is one of the top 20 energy-consuming countries, accounting for approximately three-quarters of the global energy demand. It also possesses the oldest housing stock in Europe (BRE, 2020), has legally binding environmental policy goals reflecting national contributions to addressing key planetary boundaries (BEIS, 2021), and is the most inter-regional unequal country among its high-income peer group (McCann and Ortega-Argilés, 2021).
Therefore, understanding the multifaceted relationships between the UK’s climate resilience strategies, EPC ratings, and access to clean energy on house prices and inequality can provide valuable insights into achieving SDG7 (ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all) targets in a fair, sustainable, and inclusive way.
This project is funded by Leeds University Business School’s Climate Change and Environmental Research Fund.
Research overview
This interdisciplinary research project is aimed at analysing and visualising data trends and policy implementations related to climate resilience, EPC ratings, clean energy access, house prices, and inequality.
The project aims to achieve four main research objectives:
- Investigate the role of UK climate resilience strategies in mitigating the impact of climate-related risks on property prices and inequality.
- Quantify the impact of EPC Ratings on House Prices across different regions in the UK.
- Assess the relationship between access to clean energy sources and property values.
- Explore potential policy implications for enhancing energy efficiency, promoting access to clean energy, and fostering climate resilience in the housing sector in a fairer, more sustainable, and inclusive way.