Housing retrofit subsidies in the Netherlands

Financial wellbeing is an emerging concept with valyrious definitions, many of which focus on the financial capabilities of individuals. A household's financial wellbeing encompasses its capacity to comfortably meet current and ongoing financial responsibilities, fostering a sense of security about future obligations while enjoying the ability to make life choices (Aubrey et al., 2022). Riitsalu et al. (2023) describe it as "feeling good about one's personal financial situation and being able to afford a desirable lifestyle both now and in the future" (p.2). Brüggen et al. (2017:229) frame it as "the perception of being able to sustain current and anticipated desired living standards and financial freedom." This perception highlights the robust link of financial wellbeing influencing human wellbeing, which is a combination of "feeling good and functioning well" (Ruggeri et al., 2020:1). Other terminologies are used interchangeably to describe financial wellbeing, including financial health, financial resilience, and financial freedom (Riitsalu et al., 2023).     In the UK, the public health sector cares to raise awareness of financial wellbeing due to its impact on households' health and populations' productivity. On their official website page on Financial Wellbeing, they used the definition by The Money and Pension Service (Gov.UK, 2022: online) as follows:   "Feeling secure and in control of your finances, both now and in the future. It's knowing that you can pay the bills today, can deal with the unexpected, and are on track for a healthy financial future."   These explanations and the terminology used, including "afford" and "sustain," underscore the interconnections between financial wellbeing and the vital components of household life. These components encompass mental health, productivity, and pursuing economic sustainability in the present and future. Therefore, a household's financial wellbeing is pressured by various housing-related factors, including the costs of renting or buying and non-housing costs like utility bills and repairs, all of which can affect the household's income.   The issue of rising housing costs directly undermines financial wellbeing. This trend can be attributed to several factors, including increased construction costs, labour shortages, and rising material prices (Brysch & Czischke, 2021). Furthermore, there is a notable shortage in affordable and social housing supply (Emekci, 2021; Gov.UK, 2022). This scarcity is partly due to decreased public investment in new dwellings (Housing Europe, 2021; OECD, 2020). This issue further burdens low-income households who face high private rental costs and a gradual reduction in housing benefits (Tinson & Clair, 2020).   This issue also leads many households to cut back on essential needs. For instance, interviews with social housing residents in Scotland with low to modest incomes revealed a tendency to prioritize rent payments over other necessities, such as food and heating (Garnham et al., 2022). Similarly, Adabre and Chan (2019), , citing Salvi del Pero et al. (2016), warned that:   "Households who are overburdened by housing cost may cut back on other important needs such as health care and diet. Besides, in the medium term, households may trade-off costs for lower quality housing such as smaller size of rooms and housing in poorer locations which lack better access to education and other social amenities. The latter has often been cited as the cause of residential segregation."   Another financial burden is non-housing costs involving energy costs for heating (AHC, 2019; Stone et al., 2011). According to Lee et al. (2022), this issue persists, contributing to financial strain and even excess winter deaths in the UK. Poor housing quality raises energy bills (AHC, 2019; Lameira et al., 2022). It presents the risk of considering dwellings as affordable due to local authority support focusing on housing costs alone (Granath Hansson & Lundgren, 2019), regardless of its quality impacting energy bills (OECD, 2020). Social housing residents, particularly the ageing population and those living in poverty are at increased risk of fuel poverty (Tu et al., 2022). Fuel poverty occurs when more than 10% of a household's income goes towards energy consumption for heating (Howden-Chapman et al., 2012).   Looking forward, two factors could continue burdening households’ financial wellbeing. One factor is the fluctuating energy prices that are often increasing, such as the case in the UK (Bolton, 2024). Another factor is the impact of climate change, leading to colder winters and the potential for overheating, increasing energy demand during extreme weather conditions, as warned by the Committee of Climate Change in the UK (Holmes et al., 2019).   Non-housing costs associated with extensive housing repairs can also impact household financial wellbeing, which may arise from several factors. For instance, selecting low-quality construction materials, workforce or equipment to reduce construction costs might lead to increased repair costs over time (Emekci, 2021). Hopkin et al. (2017) highlighted a related issue in England, where new housing defects were believed to be partly attributed to the building industry's prioritization of profitability over customer satisfaction. Another factor could be improper periodic maintenance, potentially accelerating the physical deterioration of the dwelling (Kwon et al., 2020). Additionally, dwellings may fall into disrepair due to unresponsive maintenance services from housing providers, and residents may lack the financial means to cover repair costs themselves (Garnham et al., 2022).     Financial wellbeing is closely tied to household income. Low-income households are particularly vulnerable to being burdened by rising housing costs (Housing Europe, 2021; OECD, 2020), leading to financial insecurity (Hick et al., 2022). In addition, they might suffer housing deprivation due to the increasing housing and non-housing expenses coupled with their declining incomes (Emekci, 2021; Wilson & Barton, 2018). The financial pressure due to low income is further exacerbated if a household member has a disability or severe illness, potentially consuming up to 35% of their income (AHC, 2019). Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic period highlighted households' financial wellbeing vulnerability to housing-related financial challenges (Brandily et al., 2020; Hick et al., 2022; National Housing Federation, 2020). During this period, job losses led to difficulties covering housing and non-housing costs, with a third of low-income social housing residents burdened by housing costs (OECD, 2020).   The issues discussed above on dwellings being of poor quality or unaffordable harm financial wellbeing, leading to residential segregation (Adabre & Chan, 2019; Salvi del Pero et al., 2016) as well as intensifying gaps of social injustice, health injustice, poverty, and fuel poverty (Barker, 2020; Garnham et al., 2022). Without addressing those housing-related issues, many households' financial wellbeing would remain vulnerable to economic insecurity even if they live in housing considered to be "affordable" in terms of rent-to-income ratio.

As a response to the regressiveness of housing taxation and the subsidisation model of housing renovation, (Muellbauer, 2018) has introduced the idea of a Green Land Value Tax (GLVT). The GLVT is composed of two elements, one based on built-up surface and another on unoccupied land. Energy-efficient buildings would pay the same tax as unoccupied land while energy-inefficient ones would pay a proportional increase by energy use. Such tax would create incentives to retrofit and improve the financial viability of increasing densities as the tax burden on built-up surface could be shared by different households in multiple occupation buildings but concentrated on one owner in the case of single-family dwellings. In this regard, the study of policies such as mortgage interest deduction has pointed out how the lack of adequate taxation leads to the overconsumption of owner-occupied housing and increases in house prices (Fatica & Prammer, 2018; Poterba, 1984).   On the one hand, targeting grants at households could incentivise retrofit among low-income homeowners for whom the impact of increased costs could pose affordability problems. On the other hand, increased taxation of energy-inefficient homes could help redistribute housing wealth toward younger homeowners in the most energy-efficient proportions of the stock and incentivise retrofit through increasing housing costs for house- wealthy households. However, the political feasibility of these drastic policy changes remains questionable. Although there is no land value taxation in the Netherlands, the Dutch case remains particularly apposite to test green taxation proposals through imputed rent as done in Fernandez et. al (2024). The Netherlands lacks tax neutrality across tenures and imposes regressive taxes on energy consumption. These renovation incentivising policies result from a consumption interpretation of housing renovation as a one-off expense, not as an investment resulting in the appreciation of a financial asset (Copiello & Donati, 2021). Albeit under-taxing it according to the literature presented before, Dutch fiscal policy treats owner-occupied housing as an asset (Haffner, 2003). Aligning incentives for renovation with the asset interpretation of housing present in fiscal policy opens up paths for a set of green tax tools (Fernandez et. al, 2024). This concept is an excerpt from the article Fernández, A., Haffner, M. & Elsinga, M. Subsidies or green taxes? Evaluating the distributional effects of housing renovation policies among Dutch households. J Hous and the Built Environ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-024-10118-5

Definition: Housing policy Housing policies are usually understood in a narrow manner as social policies targeting housing prices through housing allowances, tax deduction or social housing allocation. This definition takes a different approach and draws from a larger body of economic literature to identify the wider array of policies that impact housing markets. Broadly speaking, housing markets are influenced through fiscal, macroeconomic, prudential and structural policies (Hilbers et al., 2008). This wide range of public policies have clear impacts on housing demand and supply and also usually create synergies between each other. Fiscal policies have a stronger impact on income and costs through taxation and subsidies. One of the main fiscal policies with regard to housing is the mortgage interest deduction which reduces user costs and can produce increases in property prices (Poterba, 1984). Macroeconomic policy regulates the money supply through interest rates. Housing has usually been perceived as a conveyor belt for macroeconomic policy as the expansion of the money supply through low interest rates or quantitative easing has the potential to increase demand during recessions counteracting the procyclical behaviour of financial markets (Muellbauer, 1992). Prudential policies determine the level of risk associated with lending through Loan-to-Value (LTV) and Debt-to-Income (DTI) ratios. The Great Financial Crisis is usually seen as the failure of prudential policy that resulted in the tightening of loans  (Whitehead & Williams, 2017) and  drew renewed attention to housing policy from central banks, policymakers, and economists (Piazzesi et al., 2016). Structural policies regulate housing supply, this includes planning regulations and environmental standards. For example, research from the US has shown that zoning laws can have a relevant impact on housing affordability by constraining supply (Glaeser & Gyourko, 2002). While most research is conducted selectively on each of these policy interventions, there are relevant synergies between policy domains that can be identified. These policies usually work in conjunction with each other: lax prudential policies and favourable home ownership taxation together with low interest rates and tight planning controls can lead to higher property prices. Conversely, constrained lending, brick-and-mortar subsidies and higher interests rates are known to mitigate rising house prices.

Environmental Retrofit Buildings are responsible for approximately 40% of energy consumption and 36% of carbon emissions in the EU (European Commission, 2021). Environmental retrofit, green retrofit or low carbon retrofits of existing homes ais to upgrade housing infrastructure, increase energy efficiency, reduce carbon emissions, tackle fuel poverty, and improve comfort, convenience and aesthetics (Karvonen, 2013). It is widely acknowledged that environmental retrofit should result in a reduction of carbon emissions by at least 60% in order to stabilise atmospheric carbon concentration and mitigate climate change (Fawcett, 2014; Johnston et al., 2005). Worldwide retrofit schemes such as RetrofitWorks, EnerPHit and the EU’s Renovation Wave, use varying metrics to define low carbon retrofit, but their universally adopted focus has been on end-point performance targets (Fawcett, 2014). This fabric-first approach to retrofit prioritises improvements to the building fabric through: increased thermal insulation and airtightness; improving the efficiency of systems such as heating, lighting and electrical appliances; and the installation of renewables such as photovoltaics (Institute for Sustainability & UCL Energy Institute, 2012). The whole-house systems approach to retrofit further considers the interaction between the occupant, the building site, climate, and other elements or components of a building (Institute for Sustainability & UCL Energy Institute, 2012). In this way, the building becomes an energy system with interdependent parts that strongly affect one another, and energy performance is considered a result of the whole system activity. Economic Retrofit From an economic perspective, retrofit costs are one-off expenses that negatively impact homeowners and landlords, but reduce energy costs for occupants over the long run. Investment in housing retrofit, ultimately a form of asset enhancing, produces an energy premium attached to the property. In the case of the rental market, retrofit expenses create a split incentive whereby the landlord incurs the costs but the energy savings are enjoyed by the tenant (Fuerst et al., 2020). The existence of energy premiums has been widely researched across various housing markets following Rosen’s hedonic pricing model. In the UK, the findings of Fuerst et al. (2015) showed the positive effect of energy efficiency over price among home-buyers, with a price increase of about 5% for dwellings rated A/B compared to those rated D. Cerin et al. (2014) offered similar results for Sweden. In the Netherlands, Brounen and Kok (2011), also identified a 3.7% premium for dwellings with A, B or C ratings using a similar technique. Property premiums offer landlords and owners the possibility to capitalise on their  retrofit investment through rent increases or the sale of the property. While property premiums are a way to reconcile          split incentives between landlord and renter, value increases pose questions about long-term affordability of retrofitted units, particularly, as real an expected energy savings post-retrofit have been challenging to reconcile (van den Brom et al., 2019). Social Retrofit A socio-technical approach to retrofit elaborates on the importance of the occupant. To meet the current needs of inhabitants, retrofit must be socially contextualized and comprehended as a result of cultural practices, collective evolution of know-how, regulations, institutionalized procedures, social norms, technologies and products (Bartiaux et al., 2014). This perspective argues that housing is not a technical construction that can be improved in an economically profitable manner without acknowledging that it’s an entity intertwined in people’s lives, in which social and personal meaning are embedded. Consequently, energy efficiency and carbon reduction cannot be seen as a merely technical issue. We should understand and consider the relationship that people have developed in their dwellings, through their everyday routines and habits and their long-term domestic activities (Tjørring & Gausset, 2018). Retrofit strategies and initiatives tend to adhere to a ‘rational choice’ consultation model that encourages individuals to reduce their energy consumption by focusing on the economic savings and environmental benefits through incentive programs, voluntary action and market mechanisms (Karvonen, 2013). This is often criticized as an insufficient and individualist approach, which fails to achieve more widespread systemic changes needed to address the environmental and social challenges of our times (Maller et al., 2012). However, it is important to acknowledge the housing stock as a cultural asset that is embedded in the fabric of everyday lifestyles, communities, and livelihoods (Ravetz, 2008). The rational choice perspective does not consider the different ways that occupants inhabit their homes, how they perceive their consumption, in what ways they interact with the built environment, for what reasons they want to retrofit their houses and which ways make more sense for them, concerning the local context. A community-based approach to domestic retrofit emphasizes the importance of a recursive learning process among experts and occupants to facilitate the co-evolution of the built environment and the communities (Karvonen, 2013). Involving the occupants in the retrofit process and understanding them as “carriers” of social norms, of established routines and know-how, new forms of intervention  can emerge that are experimental, flexible and customized to particular locales (Bartiaux et al., 2014). There is an understanding that reconfiguring socio-technical systems on a broad scale will require the participation of occupants to foment empowerment, ownership, and the collective control of the domestic retrofit (Moloney et al., 2010).

Traditionally the viability of renovation has been assessed through a Discounted Cash-Flow (DCF) analysis of saved energy, which is highly contingent on the discount rate (Copiello & Donati, 2021). However, these authors propose an alternative method that capitalises energy savings into housing value, thereby circumventing the limitations of discounted predicted energy savings, which are already reflected in the property value. They employ an asset-based approach to analyse renovation viability by evaluating costs and benefits in terms of value increases.The value increase of energy-efficient improvements in real estate markets usually takes the form of a green premium identified through different econometric techniques, see for example  Aydin et al. (2020)  for a recent study of property premiums in the Netherlands. To increase the financial viability of renovation, the EU proposes three approaches that have been incorporated differently by Member States (Bertoldi, 2022). First, on the one hand, grants and loans rely on the reduction or complete elimination of upfront costs –“carrot” approach– to encourage renovations (see Eryzhenskiy et al., 2022, for example). Second, the “stick” side of housing renovation incentives draws on mandatory Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPSs), which preclude the renting or selling of properties that fall below a certain Energy performance Certificate (EPC) level (Economidou et al., 2020). Third, the European Commission also plans to expand the Emissions Trading Systems (ETS) to encompass buildings before the end of the decade (2003/87/EC). This will likely impact energy costs and increase the viability of energy-efficient renovations (Backe et al., 2023). Fernández, A., Haffner, M. & Elsinga, M. Subsidies or green taxes? Evaluating the distributional effects of housing renovation policies among Dutch households. J Hous and the Built Environ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-024-10118-5