Analysis of the Swedish market for energy efficient renovations

The building sector accounts for approximately 40% of EU:s energy consumption and 36% of energy related emissions. Member countries of the EU have therefore long worked to increase the energy efficiency of buildings through renovations. The latest revision of EPBD from 2024, as part of the new Renovation Wave strategy, aims at using new policy instruments to accelerate the renovation rate and reach the EU:s target of a climate neutral building sector by 2050. To evaluate the impact of this new policy in Sweden, Actor Network Theory and its translation process have been applied. The study was conducted through qualitative interviews and thematic analysis using QualCoder to capture the perspectives of human actants, alongside a document analysis to represent non-human actants. Results indicate that the network is highly complex, involving several principal actants that give rise to conflict of interests and hinders the mobilisation of the network. Real estate companies raise several concerns of EPBD’s feasibility and direction, which divide the network. A central concern is the focus on energy efficiency rather than overall climate impact, lack of systematic inscription of roles and responsibilities, and the misalignment between EPBD:s claims and Sweden's primary energy sources and circumstances of its building stock. While policy instruments in EPBD aim at addressing several of these conflicting interests, just the apprehensions of these issues challenge the implementation and effect of them. However, even with these concerns, several real estate companies are working to increase their rate of renovation and energy efficiency through optimization tools. It is therefore likely that the renovation rate will rise due to EPBD from 2024 but that the divided network might hinder a full implementation reaching the entire building stock in Sweden.