Making houses more sustainable can and must be faster than before, writes the TNO research institute in an appeal to politicians, housing associations, and construction and energy companies. It should be a top priority, especially now that high energy prices are making it cheaper and cheaper to reduce energy consumption.

TNO advises the parties to work out a master plan together, starting with the 1.5 million poorly insulated houses in the Netherlands, those with the energy labels E, F and G. “This kills three birds with one stone: you fight energy poverty, save a lot CO2 emissions and money that would otherwise flow to Russia and other undemocratic countries to buy gas,” says TNO researcher André Faaij.

The government has already said that the approach to this must be accelerated. According to TNO, almost half of the population currently lives in a poorly or moderately insulated home. These are the houses with the lowest energy labels and some of the houses with the C label. Around 30,000 houses are made gas-free every year and around 100,000 are insulated. To meet its own target – 2.5 million insulated homes by 2030 – the cabinet would need to make 300,000 homes a year more sustainable/insulated.

The government is not on schedule with this. And there’s little movement, especially in the least well-insulated homes, according to figures from ratings firm Calcasa. The number of houses with the energy label A is steadily increasing and is now at just over 30 percent, but the number of houses with the labels E, F and G is only slowly decreasing. The number of apartments with the lowest label G has even been the same for six years.

How to accelerate sustainability has been a pressing question for some time. A lot is happening, the funding pots are getting bigger, the national insulation plans and municipal heat visions longer, but according to TNO that is not enough. There are still too many restrictive laws. Many projects are still in the pilot phase, such as the gas-free quarters. The Dutch environmental auditing agency PBL wrote this week that the lessons learned are being taken up too slowly.

TNO advocates better management in the sustainability approach. Based on the knowledge of the housing stock, the government could make long-term plans, which in turn offer security for the executing and planning companies.

Faaij: “We know which houses are in the worst condition, who lives there, what needs to be done technically and how much energy savings result from this.” Similar apartments can be tackled in contingents, which also reduces costs through joint purchasing and efficiency.

payback period

According to Faaij, such a long-term plan also helps with one of the biggest stumbling blocks to sustainability at the moment: the shortage of staff. “If construction companies have the guarantee that they have more than enough work for the next 30 years and know what needs to be done, they can offer employees more security and a better salary.” In the short term, the central government should provide money for retraining older people and provide status holders.

Money is one of the biggest stumbling blocks. Making a house with a low-energy label more sustainable to label B costs an average of 20,000 euros, TNO calculated. But with the currently high energy prices, according to Faaij, it pays for itself much more quickly.

A renovation saves a household around 2,000 to 4,000 euros per year, so the payback period is five to ten years. Add that to 300,000 homes and you save almost a billion annually. “And then, of course, we also have the climate benefit. By making 1.5 million homes more sustainable, you also save 10 megatons of CO2 emissions.”

save energy

For many people on low incomes, the advance or borrowing the amount remains too high a threshold. The state simply has to finance the renovations there, says Faaij: “We now spend billions abroad to buy gas every year.

Professor of Sustainable Building Andy van den Dobbelsteen (TU Delft) points out: “In the current energy crisis, government attention seems to be mainly focused on importing gas and LNG from countries other than Russia, further on coal-fired power plants and even domestically on gas drill.”

He calls it a stupid strategy. “You forget the core: saving energy. The money you spend on large-scale home renovations returns immediately in the form of saved energy bills.”

Minister De Jonge for Housing says in a response that the cabinet also wants sustainability to be accelerated: “We need to move much faster in the coming period to ensure we are ready in time.” According to de Jonge, TNO, like him, makes the analysis that we will not make it at this rate: “This acceleration is exactly the policy that we have.”