Marina Topouzi | University of Oxford (original) (raw)

Papers by Marina Topouzi

Building Research and Information, Apr 29, 2015

Buildings and Cities

The Australian policy approach, based on the NABERS energy performance benchmarking scheme for co... more The Australian policy approach, based on the NABERS energy performance benchmarking scheme for commercial offices, is promoted as a 'success story' and is of interest to governments internationally. This paper explores the evidence for the impacts of the Australian approach on energy use and carbon emissions, identifies the key elements of its conception, design and implementation, and investigates the role of government. It uses a mixture of literature review, re-analysis of quantitative data and analysis of 30 original stakeholder interviews. The literature suggests that NABERS' appeal to multiple benefits of energy efficiency and its place in the wider policy mix should help deliver positive results. Analysis of publicly available data has highlighted data gaps. However, evidence suggests significant energy savings have been made, although the attribution to NABERS alone, given the policy mix, is uncertain. The interviews show high levels of agreement that the policy mix has transformed large commercial office buildings. They also highlight the wide range of actors mobilised to deliver this change and the central role of well-designed government intervention and support. The Australian experience is rightly of interest to international governments, but they must recognise that replicating its success requires attention to detail and long-term commitment. POLICY RELEVANCE The decarbonisation of commercial buildings is challenging and many countries, including the UK, are struggling to make progress. In-use performance benchmarking policies such as NABERS are considered to be effective by engaging with industry and promoting the multiple benefits of energy efficiency. The lessons from the Australian experience help to identify four key policy design features for governments to consider: (1) political leadership, adequate financial resources and people with the right engineering and

Advancing Energy Policy, 2018

Good quality research depends on good quality data. In multidisciplinary projects with quantitati... more Good quality research depends on good quality data. In multidisciplinary projects with quantitative and qualitative data, it can be difficult to collect data and share it between partners with diverse backgrounds in a timely and useful way, limiting the ability of different disciplines to collaborate. This chapter will explore two examples of the impact of data collection and sharing on analysis in a recent Horizon 2020 project, RealValue. The

Journal of Cleaner Production, 2019

This is a repository copy of Exploring the practices and roles of UK construction manufacturers a... more This is a repository copy of Exploring the practices and roles of UK construction manufacturers and merchants in relation to housing energy retrofit.

IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 2019

In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its report on the impacts of glob... more In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C. It called for “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” to reduce the risks of increasing climate change. Energy use in buildings is one of the key contributors to greenhouse gas emissions in the UK and EU. Detailed policies to support high standards in new build and acceleration of ambitious retrofit are a necessary part of any serious response to climate change. This paper begins with a description of key UK policies on energy use in the buildings, and future UK government plans as expressed in the Clean Growth Strategy. It analyses the direction of travel, and looks at the rate of change compared with what will be required to rapidly reduce carbon emissions from the sector. Current buildings policies are insufficient to meet the challenge of climate change. Both positive and negative examples of changes in policy are presented. A ne...

To benefit and protect the populace, government policies often promise aspirational changes to cu... more To benefit and protect the populace, government policies often promise aspirational changes to current practice. Different kinds of narratives are important in the framing, explanation, motivation, and understanding of policies and strategies. For example, the UK government's 2008 Climate Change Act proclaimed that all new homes will be zero carbon by 2016. This 'hero story', where society is 'saved' by clever technologies, is inspiring, positive and familiar. An alternative is the 'learning story', where things are not quite as simple as they first seemed. In a learning story, protagonists are normal people who need to overcome a challenge. In energy policy, the learning story could address the gap between the technical potential and what is achieved in practice. Three real-world examples from retrofit and new-build projects are used to show how implicit narratives can create conflict when the tellers (e.g. researchers) have to tell one kind of st...

The ‘performance gap’ between design and actual energy use is well recognised. Much of the debate... more The ‘performance gap’ between design and actual energy use is well recognised. Much of the debate on the performance gap focuses on the use and accuracy of building energy models or on the ‘misbehaviour’ of users and maloperation of measures. This paper focuses instead on the design and construction phases of retrofit projects. Pioneering case studies in deep low-carbon refurbishment in the UK show a lack of quality assurance and poor integration of the intermediate stages between design and implementation within retrofit process. In retrofitting existing buildings there is an unseen presence of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ daemons that are ‘hidden’ in different retrofit work stages. The intermediate construction stages from design to delivery tend to involve the majority of unforeseen complexities that are difficult to know until work is under way. The consequence of this is not only an uncertainty in actual energy performance that challenges the ambitious carbon emissions reduction targets, ...

Energy use in buildings remains a significant part of overall energy demand. Deep renovation proj... more Energy use in buildings remains a significant part of overall energy demand. Deep renovation projects, delivered at scale, remain a challenging task to achieve a lower carbon building stock. The complexity of building renovation is related to inherent characteristics of buildings which require distinct project management techniques. While there are now more projects focusing on achieving operational performance, there is still very little research on the management of the renovation and retrofit process itself – this paper aims to contribute to that literature. First, the policy context for renovation is briefly set out. Then five different approaches to building renovation are distinguished: whole house; fabric first; room-by-room, step-by-step, measure-by-measure. These categories provide the basis for analysis of the risk of there being a gap between designed and actual energy performance. In addition, ten stages of retrofit are set out, and three different types of risk at each ...

Over the past 20 years efforts have been made to bridge the performance gap by developing design ... more Over the past 20 years efforts have been made to bridge the performance gap by developing design guidance and reports to raise awareness and increase construction quality of the delivery and handover stages; as well as improving tools and prediction methods by validating them with real data comparing anticipated performance with achieved energy use. The complexity of the gap ‘problem’ increases in deep, low-carbon refurbishment processes. Both the scale and quality of construction work need to be increased if challenging emission reduction targets are to be met. Established professional work plan frameworks (e.g. RIBA and Soft Landings) have been designed mainly with new build in mind without explicitly capturing important stages of a retrofit project that close the loop from in-use to design and back to in-use. The Appraisal (or Strategic) stage misses important diagnostic actions for evaluating client/occupant past experience and assessing existing building energy performance and ...

Current regulatory and other policy trends in housing refurbishment relating to low-carbon perfor... more Current regulatory and other policy trends in housing refurbishment relating to low-carbon performance standards tend to involve complex technologies and systems as well as innovative solutions to achieve 80p emissions reduction in line with the UK national target for 2050. Indicators of domestic energy performance tend to assume ideal performance of materials, complex systems and services, and that they are installed to high standards and under specific conditions, as well as rational occupant behaviour and interactions. Previous studies exploring the influence of socio-technical factors on the UK’s domestic energy use highlight that one of the main reasons for under-performance of individual projects is the lack of understanding of how people interact with domestic technology. Considering this, and given that there is still little evidence on deep refurbishments that implement low-carbon 'whole house' approaches in the UK, this research explored occupants' interaction ...

Pioneering case studies of housing renovation show that 80-90% emissions reductions are achievabl... more Pioneering case studies of housing renovation show that 80-90% emissions reductions are achievable using existing technology, but the task requires very high standards of design, installation and integration of energy system components. The often-observed design-performance gap is related to how the industry is structured and construction projects are managed, not because of a fundamental lack of products and technologies. Many disciplinary studies have investigated aspects of the problem: technical potential, management practice, estimates for ‘green’ jobs, policy appraisal. However, little work has been done to understand the construction sector as potential agents of change in delivering and maintaining a low-energy housing stock. An inter-disciplinary approach is needed to understand the practices and processes of the institutions and firms in the market for repair, maintenance and improvement (RMI) of housing. RMI firms are incumbents in the housing-energy system in the sense t...

Buildings and Cities

This paper examines whether current residential retrofit metrics are fit for purpose and if they ... more This paper examines whether current residential retrofit metrics are fit for purpose and if they can help deliver swift and significant cuts in carbon emissions. Information is presented on metrics used for a variety of UK and European Union building and building retrofit standards and evaluation and assessment tools. An analytical approach is developed that offers a simplified set of four key aspects of metrics: scope, headline measurement, normalisation factor and timescale. This helps to unpack the complexity of metric design. However, choice of metrics is not simply a technocratic issue, because their design is not value free. Two examples where metrics form the basis for policy-making for retrofit and energy use in buildings are described: UK Energy Performance Certificates and the Energiesprong approach to deep retrofit. Use of multiple metrics improves their fitness for purpose and is already established practice in some standards and policy. Metrics in common use omit many aspects of energy use in buildings. New metrics are required that can take account of the whole life of a building, the time profile of retrofit, or the ability of the building to be flexible as to when energy is used. Policy relevance • Existing and new metrics can contribute to the transformation of the building stock. They have real-world impacts on buildings, those retrofitting them and their occupants. • Retrofit metrics embody values and views about how retrofit should be undertaken. • Unpacking metric design and considering scope, headline measures, normalisation factors and timescale separately can help inform better policy decisions. • There is no one ideal metric for building retrofit-many policies and standards use multiple metrics. • A focus on carbon metrics only for retrofit can lead to missing opportunities for high-quality building fabric. Energy metrics remain important.

Buildings and Cities, 2021

The Australian policy approach, based on the NABERS energy performance benchmarking scheme for co... more The Australian policy approach, based on the NABERS energy performance benchmarking scheme for commercial offices, is promoted as a ‘success story’ and is of interest to governments internationally. This paper explores the evidence for the impacts of the Australian approach on energy use and carbon emissions, identifies the key elements of its conception, design and implementation, and investigates the role of government. It uses a mixture of literature review, re-analysis of quantitative data and analysis of 30 original stakeholder interviews. The literature suggests that NABERS’ appeal to multiple benefits of energy efficiency and its place in the wider policy mix should help deliver positive results. Analysis of publicly available data has highlighted data gaps. However, evidence suggests significant energy savings have been made, although the attribution to NABERS alone, given the policy mix, is uncertain. The interviews show high levels of agreement that the policy mix has tran...

Advancing Energy Policy, 2018

Good quality research depends on good quality data. In multidisciplinary projects with quantitati... more Good quality research depends on good quality data. In multidisciplinary projects with quantitative and qualitative data, it can be difficult to collect data and share it between partners with diverse backgrounds in a timely and useful way, limiting the ability of different disciplines to collaborate. This chapter will explore two examples of the impact of data collection and sharing on analysis in a recent Horizon 2020 project, RealValue. The main insight is that it is not only projects but also the processes within them such as data collection, sharing and analysis that are socio-technical. We shall examine two examples within the project—validating the models and triangulating the qualitative data—to examine data synergy across four dimensions: time (synchronising activities), people (managing and coordinating actors), technology (in this case focusing mainly on connectivity) and quality. Recommendations include developing a data protocol for the energy demand community built on ...

The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Feb 1, 2018

This is a repository copy of A co-evolutionary approach to understanding construction industry in... more This is a repository copy of A co-evolutionary approach to understanding construction industry innovation in renovation practices for low-carbon outcomes.


Over the past 20 years efforts have been made to bridge the performance gap by developing design ... more Over the past 20 years efforts have been made to bridge the performance gap by developing design guidance and reports to raise awareness and increase construction quality of the delivery and handover stages; as well as improving tools and prediction methods by validating them with real data comparing anticipated performance with achieved energy use. The complexity of the gap 'problem' increases in deep, low-carbon refurbishment processes. Both the scale and quality of construction work need to be increased if challenging emission reduction targets are to be met. Established professional work plan frameworks (e.g. RIBA and Soft Landings) have been designed mainly with new build in mind without explicitly capturing important stages of a retrofit project that close the loop from in-use to design and back to in-use. The Appraisal (or Strategic) stage misses important diagnostic actions for evaluating client/occupant past experience and assessing existing building energy performance and Indoor Environmental Quality. Similarly although Project roles are described, they do not include the skills/knowledge that individuals (or teams) need; or the tools/ methods that can be used to manage and reduce unforeseen risks related to the existing building condition. This paper presents a modified version of the RIBA Plan of Work, which shows existing and additional workstages for deep refurbishments in a continuous cycle, linking roles to skills, knowledge and tools. Drawing upon evidence from pioneering empirical studies in deep refurbishment in the UK, the notion of 'failures' and key lessons from previous 'horror' and 'learning' retrofitting stories are used here to highlight problems and risks in each of the proposed work stages; and to address the major changes needed in traditional processes to reduce the retrofit performance gap.

Building Research and Information, Apr 29, 2015

Buildings and Cities

The Australian policy approach, based on the NABERS energy performance benchmarking scheme for co... more The Australian policy approach, based on the NABERS energy performance benchmarking scheme for commercial offices, is promoted as a 'success story' and is of interest to governments internationally. This paper explores the evidence for the impacts of the Australian approach on energy use and carbon emissions, identifies the key elements of its conception, design and implementation, and investigates the role of government. It uses a mixture of literature review, re-analysis of quantitative data and analysis of 30 original stakeholder interviews. The literature suggests that NABERS' appeal to multiple benefits of energy efficiency and its place in the wider policy mix should help deliver positive results. Analysis of publicly available data has highlighted data gaps. However, evidence suggests significant energy savings have been made, although the attribution to NABERS alone, given the policy mix, is uncertain. The interviews show high levels of agreement that the policy mix has transformed large commercial office buildings. They also highlight the wide range of actors mobilised to deliver this change and the central role of well-designed government intervention and support. The Australian experience is rightly of interest to international governments, but they must recognise that replicating its success requires attention to detail and long-term commitment. POLICY RELEVANCE The decarbonisation of commercial buildings is challenging and many countries, including the UK, are struggling to make progress. In-use performance benchmarking policies such as NABERS are considered to be effective by engaging with industry and promoting the multiple benefits of energy efficiency. The lessons from the Australian experience help to identify four key policy design features for governments to consider: (1) political leadership, adequate financial resources and people with the right engineering and

Advancing Energy Policy, 2018

Good quality research depends on good quality data. In multidisciplinary projects with quantitati... more Good quality research depends on good quality data. In multidisciplinary projects with quantitative and qualitative data, it can be difficult to collect data and share it between partners with diverse backgrounds in a timely and useful way, limiting the ability of different disciplines to collaborate. This chapter will explore two examples of the impact of data collection and sharing on analysis in a recent Horizon 2020 project, RealValue. The

Journal of Cleaner Production, 2019

This is a repository copy of Exploring the practices and roles of UK construction manufacturers a... more This is a repository copy of Exploring the practices and roles of UK construction manufacturers and merchants in relation to housing energy retrofit.

IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 2019

In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its report on the impacts of glob... more In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C. It called for “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” to reduce the risks of increasing climate change. Energy use in buildings is one of the key contributors to greenhouse gas emissions in the UK and EU. Detailed policies to support high standards in new build and acceleration of ambitious retrofit are a necessary part of any serious response to climate change. This paper begins with a description of key UK policies on energy use in the buildings, and future UK government plans as expressed in the Clean Growth Strategy. It analyses the direction of travel, and looks at the rate of change compared with what will be required to rapidly reduce carbon emissions from the sector. Current buildings policies are insufficient to meet the challenge of climate change. Both positive and negative examples of changes in policy are presented. A ne...

To benefit and protect the populace, government policies often promise aspirational changes to cu... more To benefit and protect the populace, government policies often promise aspirational changes to current practice. Different kinds of narratives are important in the framing, explanation, motivation, and understanding of policies and strategies. For example, the UK government's 2008 Climate Change Act proclaimed that all new homes will be zero carbon by 2016. This 'hero story', where society is 'saved' by clever technologies, is inspiring, positive and familiar. An alternative is the 'learning story', where things are not quite as simple as they first seemed. In a learning story, protagonists are normal people who need to overcome a challenge. In energy policy, the learning story could address the gap between the technical potential and what is achieved in practice. Three real-world examples from retrofit and new-build projects are used to show how implicit narratives can create conflict when the tellers (e.g. researchers) have to tell one kind of st...

The ‘performance gap’ between design and actual energy use is well recognised. Much of the debate... more The ‘performance gap’ between design and actual energy use is well recognised. Much of the debate on the performance gap focuses on the use and accuracy of building energy models or on the ‘misbehaviour’ of users and maloperation of measures. This paper focuses instead on the design and construction phases of retrofit projects. Pioneering case studies in deep low-carbon refurbishment in the UK show a lack of quality assurance and poor integration of the intermediate stages between design and implementation within retrofit process. In retrofitting existing buildings there is an unseen presence of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ daemons that are ‘hidden’ in different retrofit work stages. The intermediate construction stages from design to delivery tend to involve the majority of unforeseen complexities that are difficult to know until work is under way. The consequence of this is not only an uncertainty in actual energy performance that challenges the ambitious carbon emissions reduction targets, ...

Energy use in buildings remains a significant part of overall energy demand. Deep renovation proj... more Energy use in buildings remains a significant part of overall energy demand. Deep renovation projects, delivered at scale, remain a challenging task to achieve a lower carbon building stock. The complexity of building renovation is related to inherent characteristics of buildings which require distinct project management techniques. While there are now more projects focusing on achieving operational performance, there is still very little research on the management of the renovation and retrofit process itself – this paper aims to contribute to that literature. First, the policy context for renovation is briefly set out. Then five different approaches to building renovation are distinguished: whole house; fabric first; room-by-room, step-by-step, measure-by-measure. These categories provide the basis for analysis of the risk of there being a gap between designed and actual energy performance. In addition, ten stages of retrofit are set out, and three different types of risk at each ...

Over the past 20 years efforts have been made to bridge the performance gap by developing design ... more Over the past 20 years efforts have been made to bridge the performance gap by developing design guidance and reports to raise awareness and increase construction quality of the delivery and handover stages; as well as improving tools and prediction methods by validating them with real data comparing anticipated performance with achieved energy use. The complexity of the gap ‘problem’ increases in deep, low-carbon refurbishment processes. Both the scale and quality of construction work need to be increased if challenging emission reduction targets are to be met. Established professional work plan frameworks (e.g. RIBA and Soft Landings) have been designed mainly with new build in mind without explicitly capturing important stages of a retrofit project that close the loop from in-use to design and back to in-use. The Appraisal (or Strategic) stage misses important diagnostic actions for evaluating client/occupant past experience and assessing existing building energy performance and ...

Current regulatory and other policy trends in housing refurbishment relating to low-carbon perfor... more Current regulatory and other policy trends in housing refurbishment relating to low-carbon performance standards tend to involve complex technologies and systems as well as innovative solutions to achieve 80p emissions reduction in line with the UK national target for 2050. Indicators of domestic energy performance tend to assume ideal performance of materials, complex systems and services, and that they are installed to high standards and under specific conditions, as well as rational occupant behaviour and interactions. Previous studies exploring the influence of socio-technical factors on the UK’s domestic energy use highlight that one of the main reasons for under-performance of individual projects is the lack of understanding of how people interact with domestic technology. Considering this, and given that there is still little evidence on deep refurbishments that implement low-carbon 'whole house' approaches in the UK, this research explored occupants' interaction ...

Pioneering case studies of housing renovation show that 80-90% emissions reductions are achievabl... more Pioneering case studies of housing renovation show that 80-90% emissions reductions are achievable using existing technology, but the task requires very high standards of design, installation and integration of energy system components. The often-observed design-performance gap is related to how the industry is structured and construction projects are managed, not because of a fundamental lack of products and technologies. Many disciplinary studies have investigated aspects of the problem: technical potential, management practice, estimates for ‘green’ jobs, policy appraisal. However, little work has been done to understand the construction sector as potential agents of change in delivering and maintaining a low-energy housing stock. An inter-disciplinary approach is needed to understand the practices and processes of the institutions and firms in the market for repair, maintenance and improvement (RMI) of housing. RMI firms are incumbents in the housing-energy system in the sense t...

Buildings and Cities

This paper examines whether current residential retrofit metrics are fit for purpose and if they ... more This paper examines whether current residential retrofit metrics are fit for purpose and if they can help deliver swift and significant cuts in carbon emissions. Information is presented on metrics used for a variety of UK and European Union building and building retrofit standards and evaluation and assessment tools. An analytical approach is developed that offers a simplified set of four key aspects of metrics: scope, headline measurement, normalisation factor and timescale. This helps to unpack the complexity of metric design. However, choice of metrics is not simply a technocratic issue, because their design is not value free. Two examples where metrics form the basis for policy-making for retrofit and energy use in buildings are described: UK Energy Performance Certificates and the Energiesprong approach to deep retrofit. Use of multiple metrics improves their fitness for purpose and is already established practice in some standards and policy. Metrics in common use omit many aspects of energy use in buildings. New metrics are required that can take account of the whole life of a building, the time profile of retrofit, or the ability of the building to be flexible as to when energy is used. Policy relevance • Existing and new metrics can contribute to the transformation of the building stock. They have real-world impacts on buildings, those retrofitting them and their occupants. • Retrofit metrics embody values and views about how retrofit should be undertaken. • Unpacking metric design and considering scope, headline measures, normalisation factors and timescale separately can help inform better policy decisions. • There is no one ideal metric for building retrofit-many policies and standards use multiple metrics. • A focus on carbon metrics only for retrofit can lead to missing opportunities for high-quality building fabric. Energy metrics remain important.

Buildings and Cities, 2021

The Australian policy approach, based on the NABERS energy performance benchmarking scheme for co... more The Australian policy approach, based on the NABERS energy performance benchmarking scheme for commercial offices, is promoted as a ‘success story’ and is of interest to governments internationally. This paper explores the evidence for the impacts of the Australian approach on energy use and carbon emissions, identifies the key elements of its conception, design and implementation, and investigates the role of government. It uses a mixture of literature review, re-analysis of quantitative data and analysis of 30 original stakeholder interviews. The literature suggests that NABERS’ appeal to multiple benefits of energy efficiency and its place in the wider policy mix should help deliver positive results. Analysis of publicly available data has highlighted data gaps. However, evidence suggests significant energy savings have been made, although the attribution to NABERS alone, given the policy mix, is uncertain. The interviews show high levels of agreement that the policy mix has tran...

Advancing Energy Policy, 2018

Good quality research depends on good quality data. In multidisciplinary projects with quantitati... more Good quality research depends on good quality data. In multidisciplinary projects with quantitative and qualitative data, it can be difficult to collect data and share it between partners with diverse backgrounds in a timely and useful way, limiting the ability of different disciplines to collaborate. This chapter will explore two examples of the impact of data collection and sharing on analysis in a recent Horizon 2020 project, RealValue. The main insight is that it is not only projects but also the processes within them such as data collection, sharing and analysis that are socio-technical. We shall examine two examples within the project—validating the models and triangulating the qualitative data—to examine data synergy across four dimensions: time (synchronising activities), people (managing and coordinating actors), technology (in this case focusing mainly on connectivity) and quality. Recommendations include developing a data protocol for the energy demand community built on ...

The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Feb 1, 2018

This is a repository copy of A co-evolutionary approach to understanding construction industry in... more This is a repository copy of A co-evolutionary approach to understanding construction industry innovation in renovation practices for low-carbon outcomes.


Over the past 20 years efforts have been made to bridge the performance gap by developing design ... more Over the past 20 years efforts have been made to bridge the performance gap by developing design guidance and reports to raise awareness and increase construction quality of the delivery and handover stages; as well as improving tools and prediction methods by validating them with real data comparing anticipated performance with achieved energy use. The complexity of the gap 'problem' increases in deep, low-carbon refurbishment processes. Both the scale and quality of construction work need to be increased if challenging emission reduction targets are to be met. Established professional work plan frameworks (e.g. RIBA and Soft Landings) have been designed mainly with new build in mind without explicitly capturing important stages of a retrofit project that close the loop from in-use to design and back to in-use. The Appraisal (or Strategic) stage misses important diagnostic actions for evaluating client/occupant past experience and assessing existing building energy performance and Indoor Environmental Quality. Similarly although Project roles are described, they do not include the skills/knowledge that individuals (or teams) need; or the tools/ methods that can be used to manage and reduce unforeseen risks related to the existing building condition. This paper presents a modified version of the RIBA Plan of Work, which shows existing and additional workstages for deep refurbishments in a continuous cycle, linking roles to skills, knowledge and tools. Drawing upon evidence from pioneering empirical studies in deep refurbishment in the UK, the notion of 'failures' and key lessons from previous 'horror' and 'learning' retrofitting stories are used here to highlight problems and risks in each of the proposed work stages; and to address the major changes needed in traditional processes to reduce the retrofit performance gap.