Challenges of renovating the Gothenburg multi-family building stock - An analysis of comprehensive building-specific information, including energy performance, ownership and affordability

Doctoral thesis, 2016

In Sweden and many European countries, the building stock increased at a rapid pace during the period of 1950-1975. This aging building stock is in need of renovation which is a challenge and an opportunity in reaching the energy performance targets as well as decreasing societal inequities. The contribution of this thesis is to demonstrate how economic, social and resource usage challenges of renovating the building stock can be analyzed and described using comprehensive building-specific data. In this thesis, building ownership types, area socio-economic characteristics, building energy performance, and investments in renovation, are analyzed for the Gothenburg multi-family dwelling stock. Measured energy usage from the Swedish Energy Performance Certificate was used in the analysis. The data quality of the Energy Performance Certificate was assessed for the purpose of analyzing the building stock. The Energy Performance Certificates were matched with official building information from the Swedish Land Survey and area socio-economic information from Statistics Sweden. Using this dataset, rent increases due to renovations are estimated and compared. To broaden the analysis, a case study in a renovation project of multi-family dwellings in an economically disadvantaged area is also presented. In the case study renovation, the implemented energy usage reducing measure of volumetric billing of water was found to increase rents. The case study is used to exemplify how energy usage reducing renovation projects, with little consideration for social city development targets, can aggravate economic segregation. There is positive progress towards the 2020 targets of greenhouse gas emission reduction and improved energy efficiency in the Swedish housing sector; while there is little progress toward the Gothenburg city target to reduce segregation. The Swedish housing sector is rather part of the economic and geographic segregation process in Gothenburg. Renovation will be needed to reduce differences in living standards. The upcoming renovation need is a challenge, for mainly municipally owned companies, in reaching greenhouse gas and energy usage reduction without raising rent and increasing economic segregation.