Building Expertise: A System of Professions Approach to Low-Carbon Housing Refurbishment

现有住房的能源使用是所有发达国家温室气体排放的主要来源。这些排放需要在未来40年内迅速大幅减少，以实现国际目标并帮助稳定气候，因此，现有住房的低碳翻新需要发挥关键作用。可能使用的技术被广泛理解，但与其未来潜力相比，许多技术的部署水平非常低，而且这些技术对建筑相关专业并不像它们需要成为的那样熟悉。这些专业人士对做什么工作的决策有很强的影响力，因此他们在应对气候变化方面发挥着重要作用。社会科学在这一能源研究领域的作用迄今主要集中在住房所有者和居住者的行为上。然而，大量与房屋有关的行业和专业都发挥了作用，无论是在实施技术变革方面，还是在影响业主和占用人方面。我们的研究将探讨低碳翻新对相关行业(建筑师、测量师、工程师、房地产经纪人、建筑商等)的影响，以及他们在促进和/或抵制变革方面的作用。我们将调查的问题包括：不同的职业可能如何应对低碳翻新所带来的威胁和机遇？低碳翻新的需求可能会如何改变职业的角色和互动？现有的专业如何发展以迎接挑战？哪些行业将获得对低碳翻新所涉及的新活动的控制权？或者需要新的职业来扮演新的角色？如果是这样的话，这些角色是什么？这种转变将如何影响其他职业？所需的技能和知识水平是否意味着目前被视为行业的某些角色的职业化？相关机构(行业协会、培训组织、专业团体)如何看待这一问题，以及他们如何为此做准备？为了解决这些问题，我们将利用现有知识的两个广泛领域--社会技术系统研究(技术创新的过程和相关的社会变革)和职业系统理论(研究职业之间的相互作用)。我们的目标是将这两种方法的见解结合在一起，以解决在应对低碳翻新挑战时的专业互动问题。我们将对该领域过去和现在的创新者进行采访，并调查更广泛的主流住房专业人士。我们将研究正在进行的创新项目中的决策，以了解决策过程。我们将采访更广泛的利益相关者，包括政策制定者、专业组织和培训人员，以了解他们的态度和可能发生变化的制度框架。我们将在英国和法国开展这项工作，以便进行比较，了解它们的相似和不同之处，从而有助于得出关于现有文化和制度的作用的结论。我们的主要发现将是学术报告、论文和会议报告。然而，我们预计结果将对政策制定者和建筑环境专业人员都直接有用。我们将在研究过程中与这些小组接触，并传播最终结果。因此，我们将在会议、活动和行业期刊上展示我们的研究成果，并维持一个专门的网站，使人们能够访问我们的研究。我们将为政策制定者组织最后的研讨会，以突出从研究中吸取的教训。

Energy use in existing housing is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions in all developed countries. These emissions need to be reduced significantly and rapidly over the next 40 years to meet international targets and to help stabilise the climate, and therefore low carbon refurbishment of existing housing needs to play a key role. The technologies that might be used are broadly understood, but many are only deployed at very low levels compared to their future potential, and the technologies are not as familiar to building-related professions as they will need to become. These professionals have a strong influence over decisions about what work gets done, and so they have a major role in tackling climate change.The role of social science in this area of energy research has focussed largely to date on the behaviour of owners and occupiers of housing. Yet, the large number of housing-related trades and professions all play a role, both in implementing technical change and influencing owners and occupiers. Our research will address the implications of low carbon refurbishment for the relevant professions (architects, surveyors, engineers, estate agents, builders etc.), and their role in promoting and/or resisting change. The questions we will be investigating include: How might different professions react to the threats and opportunities implied by low carbon refurbishment? How might the need for low carbon refurbishment change the roles and interactions of professions? How are existing professions developing to meet the challenge? Which professions will gain control over the new activities involved in low carbon refurbishment? Or will new professions be needed to carry out new roles? If so, what are these roles and how will this shift influence other professions? Does the level of skills and knowledge required imply the professionalization of some roles currently seen as trades? How do the relevant institutions (trade associations, training organizations, professional bodies) view this issue and how are they preparing for it?To address these questions we will draw on two broad areas of existing knowledge - research in socio-technical systems (the process of technical innovation and associated social change) and the theory of systems of professions (which has studied the interaction of professions). Our goal is to bring the insights of the two approaches together to address the issues of professional interaction in meeting the challenge of low carbon refurbishment.We will conduct interviews with past and current innovators in this field, as well as surveying a broader range of 'mainstream' housing professionals. We will study decisions in ongoing innovative projects to understand decision making processes. And we will interview a broader range of stakeholders, including policy makers, professional organisations and trainers, to get an understanding of their attitudes and the institutional framework within which change might occur. We will do this work in both the UK and France, in order to draw comparisons and to understand the similarities and differences, and therefore help inform conclusions about the role of existing cultures and institutions.Our main findings will be academic reports, papers and conference presentations. However, we expect the results will be directly useful to both policy-makers and built environment professionals. We will engage with these groups both in the course of the research and to disseminate the final results. We will therefore present our research findings at conferences, events and in trade journals, and maintain a dedicated website to make our research accessible. We will organize final seminars for policy-makers to highlight the lessons learned from the research.