Scenarios for effective climate change adaptation in
Dutch social housing
Martin Roders m.j.roders@tudelft.nl
Ad Straub a.straub@tudelft.nl
Delft University of Technology – Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment
Abstract
Housing managers are constantly confronted with the changing demands that their building stock has to comply with. One of the change agents is the changing climate, caused primarily by human induced greenhouse gases. Though, even if the emissions of all these gases could now be put to a hold, the process of climate change would not completely cease. Furthermore, the impacts of climate change would most probably be felt for many more years. In urban areas, the impacts are drought, flooding caused by extreme precipitation and heat stress caused by the urban heat island effect. Besides threatening the building stock, climate change is also threatening the quality of life of people in urban environments. In the Netherlands, housing associations are responsible for managing the social housing stock and maintaining their quality of life. Research has proven they are not yet aware of the challenge that lies ahead to adapt their dwellings to a changing climate. Considering the focus on the physical adaptations of the building stock, it was chosen to discuss in this paper the effectiveness of three types of governance strategies that housing associations can directly apply in their maintenance processes. The governance strategies are hypothesised based on research results of earlier studies on the implementation of climate change adaptations in social housing. The strategies are: S1. Take up climate adaptation in the policy developments that guide the overall management of the stock; S2. Involving actors that traditionally stand aside the construction process, such as insurance companies and water boards; S3. Emphasising performance-based procurement stimulating the execution of the projects in a partnering approach.
The effectiveness of the strategies was tested by means of a SWOT analysis per strategy with practitioners. Results are five scenarios, based on the combinations of strategies that are potentially feasible for the implementation of climate change adaptation measures in the Dutch social housing stock. A crucial factor in the scenarios is collaboration, because nowadays a housing association is not (financially) capable of assuming the responsibility of climate proofing its housing stock all by itself. Keywords: Adaptation, Climate Change, Construction Process, Policy Development, Social Housing
1. Introduction
There is clear evidence that the climate is changing globally (Füssel, 2009; Smith et al., 2009). Impacts such as the urban heat island (Salcedo Rahola, 2009) and flooding caused by intense precipitation and increased river run off are expected to become more frequent (Bessembinder, 2008) forming a threat to the living quality in cities. With more knowledge on the impacts, both behavioural and physical adaptation measures have been developed to address these impacts, resulting in respectively guidelines for citizens on how to behave during heat waves (see for example: MinHWS, 2007; Oakman et al., 2010; Department of Health, 2012) as well as design recommendations for the urban environment such as green roofs for temporary water retention (see for example: GLA, 2005).
In 2012 the Dutch Delta Programme New Urban Developments and Restructuring published a ‘Measure matrix’ containing 155 adaptation measures for the built environment (MWH, 2012). Important actors for the application of adaptation measures in housing are housing associations. A relatively small number of organizations (389) own and maintain approximately one third (2.4 million) of the total housing stock in the Netherlands (CFV, 2012). So, if they start adapting their dwellings a large part of the stock will be climate resilient. However, a recent study among housing associations demonstrated that they show limited awareness of applying climate change adaptation measures in their policy documents (Roders et al., 2012). Moreover, policy makers of housing associations showed in interviews that even if they were aware of adaptation measures, implementation was not likely, because of financial constraints, lack of policy, or measures were found too complex to implement (Roders et al., 2013). This implies that they are not planning alterations to their dwellings that can reduce the harmful effects of climate change. There are various reasons why they should start adapting their dwellings. First of all, housing associations can be considered ‘social entrepreneurs’, applying their resources and business gains to achieve the societal aims they pursue (Van Overmeeren, 2014). Moreover, housing associations have legal obligations to provide housing with future quality for their tenants according to the Social Rented Sector Management Order (MinIKR, 2005). These societal and legal conditions housing associations operate in, imply that it can be expected from the housing associations that they will commit themselves to adapt their dwellings timely to changing circumstances that can threaten the quality of life of their dwellings. Climate change is one of those threats. In addition, not taking adaptation measures may even jeopardise the future value of their dwellings, as in the Netherlands dwellings in areas with risk of flooding statistically have a lower value compared with dwellings in a non-risk area (Bosker et al., 2013).
The aim of this paper is to find strategies to implement climate change adaptations, in order to end up with a climate resilient dwelling. Therefore the study takes housing associations, being large property owners, as main actor and the underlying question is what could be an effective way to implement measures. As such, we are not focusing on governmental governance schemes that inform, stimulate or
force housing associations to take action, as these schemes are still under development. In addition, the disadvantage of a government informing, stimulating or forcing action by the housing associations is that they themselves have to develop internal governance schemes to eventually start adapting dwellings. By focusing directly on this internal governance process, we expect to be more effective towards the factual implementation and it is possible to distinguish the knowledge gaps where the government should focus its national governance strategies on. To do so, we have to take a closer look at the maintenance and improvement cycle of existing dwellings to find opportunities for implementation of measures.
In the following sections we describe the methodology that was followed to carry out the research. Next we present and discuss the results, after which this paper will be finalised with concluding remarks and recommendations for further study.
2. Methodology
Potentially successful strategies were hypothesised based on and inspired by the outcomes and experiences of earlier studies (Roders et al., 2012; Roders et al., 2013), conference visits and research project meetings by the researchers1. The basis for the strategies was that a governance intervention on several phases in the maintenance and construction cycle of a dwelling should lead to the implementation of measures. The first strategy (S1) was hypothesised as follows: housing associations should take up climate change adaptation in their policy developments, as such they will allocate resources to the topic and they will take up adaptation in their projects. In earlier interviews (Roders et al., 2013) employees of housing associations stated that the lack of policy was one of the reasons why they did not implement measures. The second strategy (S2) was hypothesised as follows: housing associations should seek collaboration with actors that also benefit from the application of climate adaptation measures. Those actors are for example: municipalities or insurance companies. In the case of municipalities; if a housing association applies water-retention or infiltration measures, the municipality may not need to change the sewage system. The third strategy (S3) was hypothesised as follows: housing associations should aim for a partnering approach with construction companies that carry out the construction works. Partnering is promised to be a more cost-effective way of working (CII, 1991), which makes financial room for investing in adaptation measures.
The strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOTs) of these measures were verified in face-to-face interviews with practitioners active in each strategy field. The practitioners that were consulted to test the strategies are listed in table 1. The outcomes of the SWOT analysis were used to develop scenarios on the effective implementation of climate change adaptation measures.
1 This study is part of a PhD project taking part in the Knowledge for Climate Program in the Netherlands (http://knowledgeforclimate. climateresearchnetherlands.nl)
Table 1: Interviewed practitioners
Practitioner function Stategy Organisation
Senior advisor property
management S1. Policy development Housing association (56.000 dwellings) Director property
management S1. Policy development Housing association (77.000 dwellings) Director property
management S1. Policy development Housing association (30.000 dwellings)
Director S2. External actor involvement Centre of expertise sewer management and urban drainage
Strategic advisor S2. External actor involvement Water company Senior advisor water
systems S2. External actor involvement Water board Strategic advisor long term
policy S2. External actor involvement Federation for health insurers Senior advisor risk
management and reinsurance
S2. External actor involvement Insurance company
Policy advisor S2. External actor involvement Insurance company Employee Development
and Maintenance Sewage systems
S2. External actor involvement Municipality
Director S3. Partnering approach Construction company (300 employees) Director S3. Partnering approach Construction company (45 employees)
3. Effectiveness on climate change adaptation
S1. Policy Development. In an earlier study by the researchers, it was concluded that awareness of the need for climate change adaptation was lacking in the policy documents of Dutch housing associations (Roders et al., 2012). As a consequence, there is no policy that guides implementation of adaptations. Following the definition of policymaking used by several scholars (see Dankert, 2011), stating that in a policy strategy goals are established and the respective resources to reach those goals are allocated, this inversely means that a lack of policy strategy implies that there are no financial resources available for adaptation. However, even if housing associations were aware of the need for climate change adaptations and developing policy strategies for their implementation, the current situation is that there is little money available (Nieboer and Gruis, 2013). So if the government would have drawn up governance arrangements in the regulation and information field targeting action by housing associations, leaving them no other choice than implementing measures, the housing associations will start allocating resources from other policy fields to the adaptation policy. This could result in quality decrease on the other policy fields which is not desirable either. Moreover, financial stimulation by the government is not possible because of a lack of resources. Nevertheless, the power of policy development to allocate resources to the adaptation policy field and its decision framework for action makes this strategy worthwhile to investigate.
S2. Involvement of External Actors in the construction process. A second arrangement is an innovation of the plan development process to generate financial resources for adaptation. This arrangement focuses on actors that could benefit financially from adapted dwellings. Considering that for example a water resilient dwelling has less chance to get damaged because of flooding, insurance companies have a lower risk of claims. They save money that can be invested in adaptation measures. The money can be paid directly to the owner of the dwelling or the insurance premium can be lowered so that the house owner can use that money for adaptations. (McEvoy, 2010; CEA, 2007). Other beneficiaries of adaptation measures in the flooding field can be municipalities, as they do not need to change their sewage systems and water boards, as they do not need to change their drainage systems, water cleaning plants and pumping stations. The water volume that they deal with now will remain the same; the increase caused by climate change should be annihilated by adaptation measures in the urban environment.
S3. Carrying out projects in a Partnering Approach. In the third type of arrangements, focus lies on removing the barrier of finance that is impeding the implementation of measures. The solutions can be found in increasing the effectiveness of current ‘traditional’ construction processes. Increasing effectiveness implies less costs for the same product, so there will be financial room for investments in adaptation measures. In this paper we use the definition of partnering developed by of the Construction Industry Institute (1991): “A long-term commitment by two or more organizations for the purpose of achieving specific business objectives by maximizing the effectiveness of each participant’s resources. This requires changing traditional relationships to a shared culture without regard to organization boundaries. The relationship is based upon trust, dedication to common goals, and an understanding of each other’s individual expectations and values. Expected benefits include improved efficiency and
cost-effectiveness, increased opportunity for innovation, and the continuous improvement of quality products and services.’’ (CII, 1991.) Following this definition, partnering is can be considered a solution to obtain among others a more efficient construction process.
4. SWOT Analysis
In the following section the results of the SWOT analysis with the practitioners will be presented, categorised according to the three strategies Policy Development, involvement of External Actors and carrying out the projects by using a Partnering Approach.
S1. Policy Development. The strategy was tested by the following question: What are the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of taking up adaptation as a specific topic in (any kind of) policy documents? The respective arguments given by the respondents are listed below:
Strengths: Adaptation has to be a topic in the policy strategy to take it up in plan developments. A policy plan legitimises investments and sets project boundaries, indicating what should be done. A policy plan puts a marker on the horizon and describes the way to get to this marker, guiding decision making on product and process level.
Weaknesses: A policy strategy can be perceived as a restraining, top down management instrument. Climate change adaptation has low priority and a poor marketing among the housing association’s employees and renters. At the moment insufficient resources are available to develop a stand-alone strategy for the implementation of adaptation measures, they have to be combined with other projects. Opportunities: Policy strategies of the housing association can be matched with the policy strategy of the municipality, therewith creating a base for collaboration. Regarding heat, guidelines for a higher comfort level of the dwellings could be defined as a policy topic. Policy on topics such as adaptation, mitigation, sustainability gives insight in the possibilities to combine measures to reach synergies.
Threats: Even if the housing association has adaptation in its policy strategy, support of the tenants is necessary to implement the measures. Taking up measures in policy documents does not necessarily mean immediate implementation as risk management and ad hoc measures to solve unexpected urgent issues can have higher priorities. The dwelling or plot level may not be the right level of taking measures, as it can be more efficient and effective to provide one large scale measure in the public space.
S2. External Actors. The strategy was tested by the following question: What are the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of involving External Actors in the plan developments? The respective arguments as stated by the interviewees are listed below:
Strengths: Collaboration with external actors such as municipalities and water boards can lead to more efficiency in the development process, because these actors can notify the housing association in an early stage if a project does not fulfil the legal requirements. Housing associations and municipalities both benefit from a healthy living environment resulting from adaptation measures. Housing associations and insurance companies both profit from the prevention of damage by implementing adaptation measures. Weaknesses: If a housing association collaborates with a water board, the housing association becomes partially responsible for water-related issues that are unknown to it. There is no market for a rain insurance for housing associations, as they do not feel the need to cover the risk of damage to the structure of the dwelling (they do have their properties insured against fire and storm). There is no urgent need for health insurers to engage in the implementation of climate change adaptations as their main focus lies on delivering good care once a person gets ill, not on the prevention of getting ill. Moreover, the direct relationship between people not getting ill and applying measures to dwellings is difficult to prove, whereas other measures such as assuring that elderly people drink enough could be much more effective. Opportunities: Implementing adaptation measures that lower the impact on the sewage system can result in a lower sewage tax. Adaptation measures can be mainstreamed at a neighbourhood level with initiatives such as a circular economy and the implementation of mitigation measures, therewith engaging more stakeholders in the project who can generate support among the inhabitants of a neighbourhood. The different actors have to collaborate to divide tasks and responsibilities because the measures at the building and neighbourhood level need to be matched.
Threats: Many measures do cost extra money whereas the revenues are uncertain in many cases. Water boards and municipalities only have public money which they cannot easily spend on private properties of housing associations. Municipalities cannot fully apply their knowledge in projects of housing associations as they feel they are perceived more as controlling authorities than as partners. Insurance contracts with housing associations are relatively short (1-3 years), causing the risk for an insurance company to not profit from its contribution to adaptation measures, because the housing association switches from insurance company.
S3. Partnering Approach. The strategy was tested by the following question: What are the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of working in a partnering approach? The following arguments were given by the interviewees:
Strengths: Practical knowledge about technology can be applied early in the plan developments. The housing association allocates construction risks during the execution of the works to its partners in the supply chain. Repeating processes with the same partners can reduce costs and can improve quality. Weaknesses: The ‘ultimate’ market test by selecting from competitive alternatives with respect to price and/or quality is not possible. It is uncertain if the best solution offered by the partnering consortium is
the best solution in general. The current partnering models focus on relationships between housing associations and construction companies whereas most innovation potential lies with manufacturers. Strategies and processes of housing associations are a blind spot for construction companies, as they are used to work in a solution-driven environment.
Opportunities: Sub-optimal solutions are prevented by synchronization of the goals of the partners and parties from outside the partnership. Within the supply chain knowledge is freely available for all parties. Partnering can prevent spilling of societal money, as partners have a more long-term view, whereas in money-driven environments many times the short-term solution prevails.
Threats: In a partnering setting the spread of risks is lower because much of the work is done by one (or few) consortia. The dependence on the partnering consortium can be too big and the control of the housing association can decrease. Once they have been awarded a long term contract, the partners in the consortium can become less motivated to continuously improve their service.
5. Discussion: Evaluation of scenarios based on SWOTs
The next step in this study was to develop scenarios that appeared to be feasible for the implementation of climate change adaptation measures to dwellings. The researchers have evaluated the feasibility by questioning if the scenario was likely to lead to the implementation of measures. The likelihood was based on the outcomes of the SWOTs.
One scenario was based on the strategy of policy development (S1):
The housing association takes up the implementation of adaptation measures in its policy, allocates resources for adaptation and prescribes exactly what has to be done by the construction company.
The positive argument in this scenario is the fact that policy development takes place, therewith profiting from the strengths and opportunities of policy making as listed above. However, the weaknesses and threats are not avoided. Especially the financing of measures is a weakness that should be avoided to implement the measures. This could be done for example by teaming up with external actors who financially contribute to measures because they profit from the measures as well. The barrier of finance could also be removed by working in a partnering approach challenging the supply chain to deliver adaptation measures for a lower price, taking into consideration the benefits of a more efficient planning process. However, as this scenario only deals with policy making and neither the external actors nor partners are involved, the weaknesses are too strong to consider the scenario feasible. Likewise, the scenarios solely based on involving new actors (S2) and on a partnering approach (S3) are not feasible, because the weaknesses are not or not sufficiently avoided.
Potentially more feasible are the scenarios that are based on combining two strategies:
Scenario A (S1+S2): The housing association takes up the implementation of adaptation measures in its policy, allocates money for carrying out the measures and looks for collaboration with an external actor (e.g. municipality / water board / insurance company) to develop and realize the project together with this actor based on unifying their goals.
Scenario B (S1+S3): The housing association takes up the implementation of adaptation measures in its policy, allocates money for carrying out the measures and starts a partnership with one or more construction supply chains for all renovation works on its building stock. The delivery of climate resilient dwellings is set as performance indicator. The supply chains have to develop knowledge on adaptation measures and apply this knowledge in the design of the project.
Scenario C (S2+S3): A construction company collaborates with an external actor (e.g. municipality / water board / insurance company) and proactively takes up adaptation measures in a project of a housing association, without the housing association having requested adaptation measures. The construction company looks together with supply chain partners and external actors for solutions that fit in the project boundaries that are set up by the housing association.
The combination of two strategies makes the scenarios more feasible. For example, in scenario A, the financing weakness of policy making by the housing association is still there, but in the scenario the strengths regarding collaboration with municipalities and insurance companies; and the opportunity of saving money on sewage tax can be utilized, resulting in more investment capacity. In addition, the weakness of policy being perceived as restraining and top down will be less important, as there is the pressure from the external actors to work on adaptation. In other words, the weakness is not decisive any more. The same type of benefits can be distinguished for scenarios B and C.
Even more feasible is the combination of all three strategies:
Scenario D (S1+S2+S3): The housing association takes up the implementation of adaptation measures in its policy, allocates money for carrying out the measures and looks for collaboration with an external actor (e.g. municipality / water board / insurance company) to develop and realize the project together with this actor based on unifying their goals. The project is handed over to a consortium with which the housing association has a partnering agreement. The delivery of a climate resilient dwelling is set as a performance indicator.
In this scenario the challenge of implementing climate change adaptations is taken up from three sides, and there is much flexibility to work around the weaknesses and threats. However, as both the second and third strategy imply the involvement of extra parties the risk of developing a project with both external
actors and a partnering consortium can cause again ineffectiveness (Provan and Kenis, 2007) because of too much communication, too much goals to be aligned etc.
In the SWOT-interviews with the practitioners from the housing associations, an argument was raised that did not really belong to one of the strategies stated in the beginning of this study. The interviewees stated that tenants are the most important stakeholders a housing association works for, and it is the societal task of the housing association to fulfill their needs in the best possible way. Accordingly, housing associations are sensible for tenant requests. Moreover, if tenants are really in need of a measure, it is likely that they are accepting a slight increase in rent that covers the costs for the investment of the adaptation measure. Therefore, a fifth scenario was developed, putting the occupants of the dwelling in a central position.
Scenario E: The housing association and/or an external actor (e.g. municipality / water board / insurance company) inform tenants and make them aware of the benefits (more comfort, less risk of nuisance) of an adapted dwelling. The tenant requests the housing association to take action, resulting in the housing association making policy on the implementation of climate change adaptation measures on request.
6. Conclusion
In this paper we have elaborated three strategies to enhance the implementation of climate change adaptation measures in social housing. The three strategies regard policy development, collaboration with external actors and using a partnering approach in the construction process. The feasibility of the strategies was verified with practitioners by means of a SWOT analysis. The outcomes of the SWOTs made clear that the single strategies are not likely to be successful because their weaknesses or threats cannot be avoided by using another strategy. This means that housing associations are at the moment not in the position to adapt their building stock all by themselves. It has become clear that a combination of strategies has much more potential to be feasible. A closer look on the feasible scenarios shows that collaboration plays an important role, as every scenario has a collaboration component included. Scenario A, C and D deal with collaboration with the external actors, and Scenario B and D deal with enhancing collaboration among the partners that are responsible for the execution of the works. When further developing the scenarios the literature on network governance will be a valuable source of reference.
Acknowledgments
This study was carried out within the Dutch Knowledge for Climate Program, Consortium Climate Proof Cities. Further information is available at: http://knowledgeforclimate.climateresearchnetherlands.nl.
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