HOMEPEDS

The project tackles the critical challenge of decarbonising Europe's social housing sector, which comprises 20-30% of the housing stock in high-share countries, without triggering rent-driven displacement or worsening energy poverty for vulnerable residents. The specific research focus bridges the gap between engineering capabilities and social realities by making technical decarbonisation conditional on quantified equity constraints (a "Social Floor") to resolve the landlord-tenant split-incentive dilemma.

The project is expected to deliver deep decarbonisation by achieving a 70–85% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions across the pilot districts, coupled with a 30–40% reduction in household energy costs to enhance affordability. Crucially, it will guarantee a just transition with zero rent-driven displacement through the implementation of contractual benefit-sharing and rent-cap protocols. Beyond the immediate pilot sites, the project will build long-term institutional capacity by training over 300 housing and municipal professionals, enforcing a strict ≥40% female participation target and engaging more than 20 SMEs. Ultimately, these validated outputs will unlock a verified scaling pathway capable of driving the climate-neutral transition across more than 330,000 social housing dwellings within our established European partner networks.