20150422 jenni cauvain
TRANSCRIPT
Jenni Cauvain
Leverhulme Fellow in Urban Sustainability
Laboratory of Urban Sustainability and Complexity, The University of Nottingham
With acknowledgements to Andrew Karvonen and Saska Petrova
Centre for Urban Resilience and Energy, The University of Manchester
LUCAS seminar 22 April 2015, Nottingham
“Carbon’s a big figure, there’s
millions and millions of pounds
being made every day from
carbon” (interview, 2014)
The purpose of this research is to understand
social landlords’ agency in market-based low
carbon retrofit, under a climate of austerity and
localism
The institutions and political economy of low
carbon retrofit
The relationship between social landlords
and the city-region carbon geography
Low carbon retrofit practices in the
communities, and their progressive potential
Structure
Introduction: social housing, austerity and localism
Key literature and theoretical insights: carbon control (and geographies), neoliberal regulatory reforms, the housing stock
Carbon control in Greater Manchester
Retrofit practices in social housing
Discussion and emerging conclusions
Reflections for the LUCAS project
Methods
CHARISMA - Community Approaches to
Retrofit in Manchester, Greater
Manchester case study
12 interviews with low carbon policy
elites and social landlords in the city
region
Workshop with social landlords and
contractors
Participant observation
Social housing, austerity and
localism
The human story of social tenants in austerity popularised by media (from both left and right) – “undeserving poor”
Bourdieusian idea of cultural and symbolic capital (dominance/ control)
Institutional impacts for social landlords: the Welfare Reform Bill 2012 poses significant
operational risks in rental income and sustainability of tenancies
The Localism Act 2011 targets council-owned social housing stock to introduce fiscal constraints (borrowing cap, self financing)
Sustainability, carbon control and
eco-state restructuring
Sustainability is deemed to have failed, and carbon control has emerged as first order policy concern in urban and regional development (While et al 2010)
Especially social sustainability brushed aside in “sustainable development” (Raco 2014)
Spatiality of carbon control (While et al) and ‘carbon geographies’ (Bridge et al 2013)
Local government ‘owns the problem’ (but owns fewer material assets and resources)
Institutions and manoeuvres in
the political economy
Post-Fordist structural reforms since 1980s
“demunicipalisation” (Pawson 2006)
Social housing left with unsustainable backlog of
maintenance (Smyth 2013)
Privatisation of energy supply (Eyre 1998)
→ Market failures
New Labour reforms: Decent Homes (by 2010) a
Trojan Horse (Ginsburg 2005), no-choice options
and a missed opportunity in low carbon retrofit
The emergence of the market-based “carbon
gaze” on social housing estates: CESP, CERT and
ECO/Green Deal
Waves of “roll back” and “roll out” neoliberalism
(Peck and Tickell 2002)
Manchester city-region
Cities and climate change: “eco-competitive race”,
risks and assets (Hodson and Marvin 2010)
Geographies of carbon control – alignment with
“the Northern Powerhouse” (for economic
decentralisation, see Rodriquez-Pose & Sandall
2008): the Low Carbon Hub
‘Hollowed out’ local authorities need partners with
capacity to act: city-region governance and
partnerships (nb local, regional, national
international)
Social landlords possess ‘collectivities’ historically
associated with local government and seen to be
able to influence the sub-regional retrofit market
Retrofit market – “cash for
carbon”
Retrofit market: “cash for carbon” (nb who gains what)
Funded and often conceived by the utility industry (the ‘big six’)
Market-based mechanisms (the ‘carbon gaze’) see communities as carbon banks
Social landlords ‘leaders’ in retrofit and broker access to communities – does their agency have progressive potential?
Retrofit practices
Dressed as ‘carbon control’ to access funding, but
motivations more closely aligned with ethos and
business model of the landlord
Stock sustainability, fit for purpose
Tenancy sustainability (rent affordability)
Revenue stream (RHI, feed-in-tariff)
Fuel/food poverty, wellbeing, debt management
Leaders and laggards: proactive future-proofing,
strategic response to austerity and operational
risks, long term asset plans, or reacting to
business propositions by utility companies
Deterrents for landlords (Ofgem regulation, policy
landscape, skills/ knowhow, risks)
Conflicts and contradictions in
the ‘community’
Uneven distribution of benefits from retrofit within the community
Perverse incentives in the carbon market
Uninterested, disengaged or hostile communities, opposing historic and cultural practices
The lack of actual carbon savings (poor evidence/evaluation, low income tenants)
Discussion
The social housing stock is used as a pawn in
successive policy reforms
Localism intensifies the ‘demunicipalisation’ of
social housing at a time when capacity to act is
central to carbon governance at the local level
Manchester city-region ‘carbon geography’ – a
construct based on an economic argument but
materially weak and dependent on Whitehall
‘deals’, external finance, and partners
Community/neighbourhood lens more salient
analytically and materially – the ‘carbon gaze’
works at this level
Emerging conclusions
Austerity undermines the social housing sector, and localism is used to shrink the council-owned stock
The sub-regional carbon geography foregrounds the housing sector, and its’ ‘collective potential’
Broadly defined retrofit practices (inc debt advice, food banks) used to mitigate risks in social housing (rental income, tenancy sustainability) arising from austerity
Progressive potential? Social landlords respond to risks and pressures by using retrofit practices and ‘carbon control’ agenda to pursue a multitude of aims
Community benefits and interests are not easily defined or aligned under carbon control
The business case for low carbon retrofit is unclear, and the carbon market holds future risks and opportunities for social landlords (and tenants)
Reflections for the LUCAS project
Environmental sustainability has been reduced to an instrumentalist idea of “carbon control”, which is operationalised through the “market” – but often co-opted with other political agendas
Lack of thought about the sustainability of the “carbon market” and its ramifications on people and businesses who “trade” in this market – especially when outcomes and performance uncertain
The social dimension reveals conflicts and contradictions, issues that are normative – e.g. fuel poverty vs energy efficiency, equity
The urban (city) focus reveals layers of interests and actors, rarely neatly aligned with that geography
References
Eyre, N. (1998) A golden age of a false dawn? Energy efficiency in UK competitive energy markets. Energy Policy 26.12, 963-972
Ginsburg, N (2005) ‘The Privatization of Council Housing’. Critical Social Policy 25, no. 1, 115–35
Pawson, H (2006) ‘Restructuring England’s Social Housing Sector Since 1989: Undermining or Underpinning the Fundamentals of Public Housing?’. Housing Studies 21, no. 5, 767–83
Peck, J. and Tickell, A. (2002) Neoliberalizing space. Antipode 34.3, 380–404
Raco, M (2014) "Privatisation, managerialism and the changing politics of sustainability planning in London." Sustainable London?: The future of a global city: 91-110
Rodriguez-Pose, A. & Sandall, R. (2008) 'From identity to the economy: analysing the evolution of the decentralisation discourse', Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, vol. 26, pp. 54-72
While, A., Jonas, A.E.G., Gibbs, D. (2010) From sustainable development to carbon control: eco-state restructuring and the politics of urban and regional development. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 35.1, 76-93