Retrofit Reimagined: designing policy that works for people and place
Bringing people, place and policy together to make retrofit work.
Getting upstream: designing policy that works for people
At Lighthouse, we believe effective policy begins with listening to the right voices, as early as possible. It means recognising that context, people and place aren't background factors; they are the material of policy itself. When they’re ignored or misunderstood, policy can drift off course before it even begins.
And when interventions are rigidly defined without user insight, they can lock in untested assumptions that are hard to challenge. This not only limits adaptability but also forces delivery teams to work around a solution that may never have been right in the first place.
This is exactly why we’re excited about our partnership with the Relational Energy Group (REG), a team of sociologists and energy researchers who are helping to reframe the retrofit challenge in the UK. Together, we are advancing a new model: retrofit, reimagined. Precision policy designed for how people actually live, decide and act.
What’s going wrong with retrofit policy
The UK’s retrofit landscape is facing a major challenge. Millions of homes need energy upgrades if we’re to meet our net zero targets. But progress is slow, and many schemes simply aren’t landing. Current policy often takes a one-size-fits-all approach that isn’t working and isn’t scalable. A blanket grant-led model may have been a logical starting point, but it now struggles to respond to the diversity of contexts, housing types and life stages across the country.
Grants frequently miss those most in need, favouring digitally confident homeowners with time, resources and existing networks. Meanwhile, people in the greatest need, such as those facing fuel poverty, poor quality housing, or low trust are often left behind. Alongside this, there is now a proliferation of grants, bursaries and incentives, each with different eligibility criteria, application processes and delivery models, creating a daunting landscape of schemes, eligibility rules, and application processes that are hard to navigate.
The framing that current policy uses assumes people make decisions about retrofit like rational financial actors. If the savings add up, people will act. But this isn’t what the evidence shows.
We believe precision policy, grounded in empathy and real-world behaviour, will outperform blanket subsidies on uptake, equity, and cost-effectiveness.
A more accurate model: retrofit as relational
REG’s research points to a different story. People retrofit based on relationships, not spreadsheets. They decide to upgrade their homes in response to life events, like a new baby, retirement or the death of a parent. They trust friends, neighbours and family more than official advice. And the money they use isn’t always seen as interchangeable. Households often assign different purposes to different pots of money, with some mentally set aside for things like holidays, education or helping others, making them unavailable for retrofit decisions.
This relational model is a better reflection of how decisions are really made. It’s not about nudging individuals toward a pre-set financial outcome. It’s about understanding the context people live in, the moments that shape their choices, and the people they turn to for support.
That’s the foundation of this new project, which brings together the N8 Research Partnership and several of the northern combined authorities. It’s a strong signal of how the North is stepping up to tackle climate and housing together. And it creates a rare opportunity to apply user-centred policy design from the ground up.
The size of the prize
Getting retrofit right isn’t just a policy challenge. It’s a huge opportunity. The potential benefits span economic growth, skilled green jobs, healthier homes, reduced pressure on the NHS, and long-term energy resilience. Retrofitting at scale opens up new markets for commercial partnerships, drives innovation in materials and services, and contributes to regional regeneration.
The North is uniquely positioned to lead this transition, with over 1.3 million solid wall homes, 600,000 fuel-poor households and the highest proportion of private rented housing in the UK. This gives us the opportunity to engage with many of the different cohorts who are not being affected by the current policy approach.
With the right approach, retrofit can be a driver of inclusive economic renewal, not just a climate response. And by aligning with the £25 billion already spent annually on home improvements, it can tap into what people already value: comfort, pride, and place.
The N8 Research Partnership is a collaboration of the eight most research intensive Universities in the North of England: Durham, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield and York.
What we’re doing
To begin with, we’re supporting the development of the coalition behind this work. That includes helping to secure the N8 Research Partnership involvement and shaping a clear, strategic funding pathway that reflects the scale and ambition of the project. Our role is to build momentum and make the case for deeper investment in user-centred, real-world policy design.
We will begin by developing a series of proto-personas, informed by lived experience and qualitative research, to reflect the diverse motivations, needs and barriers faced by different household types. These personas will provide a foundation for structured co-design workshops with households, community groups, delivery partners and commercial actors. Together, we will surface key behaviours, opportunities and constraints, shaping the ideas we want to test.
From there, we will run lightweight, real-world experiments to explore which messages, interventions and delivery models resonate with different cohorts. These tests will help identify what works, where, and for whom, before scaling into targeted pilots. This process ensures that policy ideas are shaped by evidence, grounded in real contexts and ready for national relevance.
Early proto-personas that will be continually developed via our research
Why this matters
This is a rare and valuable project. It brings together researchers who want to create real-world impact and a design team focused on making policy that sticks.
For Lighthouse, it’s exactly the kind of work we believe in, using design to help shape regional and national policy that is practical, inclusive and grounded in the way people actually live.
Stay tuned…
