REfurbishment Frameworks for Residential Energy efficiency in Swiss Housing (REFRESH)

Description

Switzerland must reduce CO2 emissions from the building sector by 82% by 2040, yet current renovation rates remain too low. This chal-lenge intensifies as regulatory changes – including reduced refur-bishment subsidies and the abolition of imputed rental value tax de-ductions – jeopardise renovation incentives.

This project identifies and evaluates new policy measures to accelerate energy-efficient and low-carbon renovations within this transformed regulatory land-scape. Through five integrated work packages, we will:

1. define differentiated policy measures;
2. analyse building owners’ percep-tions and valuations of renovation investments via a representative survey and interviews with institutional actors;
3. test specific measures to foster renovation investments in a field experiment;
4. model the economic and emissions impacts of the identified policy measures, and
5. formulate specific policy recommendations.

Our evidence-based approach combines stated preferences, revealed behaviour, and techno-economic modelling to deliver concrete guid-ance for federal and cantonal decision-makers to meet Switzerland's climate targets.

Key data