Overseas retrofit policies

The built environment offers opportunities to reduce New Zealand’s carbon footprint and contribute to reducing total emissions. The research will identify international examples of initiatives that promote renovations and retrofitting, with the objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from existing buildings. The focus of this work will be on reviewing initiatives for existing homes, and not commercial buildings. These will be viewed through a New Zealand lens to present cost-effective solutions for New Zealand that will be readily implementable now, or in the immediate future. The focus of this research will not be ?deep retrofit? as it is an extremely time consuming and costly exercise to value each aspect of this, considering the different housing typologies and weather. Rather the focus will be on evaluating international policies, and specific measures such as insulation and heating efficiency, in the New Zealand context. The research will identify areas for collaboration between different agencies and organisations to implement the shortlisted initiatives that are most likely to succeed in New Zealand.