As the world races toward ambitious net-zero carbon targets, the role of housing sustainability is critical. In the UK, it is estimated that housing contributes to over 30% of national energy consumption and a significant share of carbon emissions.
Achieving net zero emissions in the housing sector demands a fundamental shift, not just in how buildings are designed and constructed, but in how they are used and maintained.
Housing providers are looking to monitor tenant behaviour to enable them to analyse how tenants use their homes. The data obtained will allow providers to ensure that new homes are designed to use new technologies in ways that will maximise the chances of improved energy efficiency across housing stock and reduced carbon footprints in the long term. However, data collection and processing must comply with data protection law to ensure tenant trust and maximise sustainability gains.
Housing and net-zero
The global commitment to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 requires significant cuts in carbon emissions. Housing, as a major consumer of energy (including heating, cooling and electricity) plays a key role in this transformation. Social housing providers are working towards EPC Band C for all homes by 2030. Housing providers are therefore striving to provide both affordable energy-efficient new build homes, whilst also retrofitting their existing stock to improve energy efficiency and improve environmental outputs.
Heating homes accounts for a third of emissions, and therefore, using renewable technologies such as air-source and ground-source heat pumps is essential for progress to be made. However, technical upgrades, such as improved insulation, energy-efficient appliances, or renewable energy installations, cannot achieve net zero without also addressing how homes are used.
Tenant behaviour plays an important role, and housing providers and tenants need to work together to ensure homes are used sustainably in the long term. If tenants continue to consume energy inefficiently, the benefits of new technologies will not be maximised, and net-zero goals will be more difficult to achieve.
How monitoring tenant behaviour drives net-zero
How can monitoring tenant behaviour produce data that enables housing providers and tenants to align day-to-day living with net-zero targets?
· Identifying High-Impact Behaviour Patterns: Data from smart meters and sensors can reveal excessive energy use during peak hours, unnecessary heating or cooling, or wasteful appliance operation. By understanding these patterns, bespoke interventions can be made to encourage behaviour changes that directly reduce carbon emissions. For example, personalised energy-saving tips or dynamic pricing incentives.
· Optimising Building Performance: Real-time monitoring allows building management systems to adjust heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) based on occupancy patterns, ensuring energy is not wasted heating empty rooms. This not only reduces emissions but also cuts costs.
· Supporting Renewable Integration: As more homes install solar panels and batteries, monitoring energy consumption and production helps balance supply and demand, maximising the use of clean energy and minimising reliance on fossil-fuel-based grid power.
· Facilitating Retrofits and Upgrades: Data on usage and inefficiencies can guide targeted retrofits, ensuring investments focus on the most impactful improvements, accelerating progress toward net zero.
· Engaging Tenants in Net Zero Goals: Visibility into their own energy use can motivate tenants to adopt greener habits, fostering a culture of sustainability and shared responsibility.
Examples of tenant behaviour monitoring for net-zero
Several pioneering projects around the world demonstrate how tenant behaviour monitoring can accelerate net zero outcomes:
· The Smart Energy City Project, Amsterdam: This initiative uses IoT sensors and smart meters across thousands of homes to track energy consumption patterns. Data analytics identify opportunities for behaviour change, optimise heating schedules, and integrate solar energy use. Participating tenants receive tailored feedback via mobile apps, helping reduce energy consumption by up to 20%. Privacy protections include strict anonymisation and tenant consent protocols.
· The UK’s Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund: Funded by the government, this program supports retrofits combined with smart monitoring technology in social housing. Housing providers collect usage data (with tenant consent) to inform interventions, detect faults early, and engage tenants through energy dashboards, thereby contributing to measurable emission reductions aligned with the UK's net-zero targets.
· Singapore’s Smart Nation Initiative: Singapore integrates smart home technology in public housing to monitor water and energy consumption. This data helps tenants understand their environmental impact and supports nationwide energy efficiency goals. Transparent data policies and strong regulatory frameworks ensure privacy compliance.
Ensuring compliance: Balancing data and privacy
While the benefits of monitoring tenant behaviour are clear, the collection and processing of personal data come with ethical and legal responsibilities. Privacy concerns, if not adequately addressed, can lead to resistance, undermining sustainability efforts.
To comply with the UK GDPR, housing providers must adopt stringent data governance practices, including:
1. Effective Privacy Notices: Tenants must be fully informed about what data is collected, how it will be used to support net zero initiatives, and their rights regarding that data.
2. Data Minimisation: Businesses should only collect data essential for net zero monitoring and sustainability goals and avoid excessive or unrelated personal data collection.
3. Robust Security Measures: Employ encryption, access controls, and secure storage to protect data from breaches that could compromise tenant information.
4. Data Protection Impact Assessments: Proactively identify and mitigate privacy risks before deploying monitoring technologies.
Conclusion
Achieving net zero emissions in the housing sector will no doubt be a challenge. Changing the way in which housing providers engage with tenants and consequently how new technologies are implemented in new homes and in retrofitting is one way to help providers reduce carbon emissions and ensure sustainable homes.
However, this can only be realised by placing privacy and compliance at the core of data practices. Engagement with tenants is essential, and they are more likely to participate in sustainability initiatives if they trust the housing provider, understand the goals and can clearly see the benefit to them directly, through cost savings or otherwise. Respecting tenant rights, ensuring transparent data use, and safeguarding personal information are prerequisites for building the trust and cooperation necessary to meet net-zero goals.
As housing providers seek to achieve carbon neutrality, integrating tenant behaviour monitoring into housing sustainability strategies offers a powerful and responsible way to improve the energy efficiency of new and existing housing stock, ensuring homes are not just places to live, but are sustainable in the long term.
