Heating Homes: Disrupting homes & neighbourhoods on the route net zero

At the end of November, FLEXIS hosted an event and exhibition to engage the local citizens and community in Cardiff examining what kinds of behavioural changes are required to reach net zero. FLEXIS social scientists are centrally involved in an EPSRC project (NEUPA) that engages with the challenges of implementing new technologies needed to make heating climate-safe and how we may have to change the fabric of our homes.

The exhibition, hosted in the Grangetown Community Centre, brought together information about technical changes and challenges posed by infrastructure and network upgrades with quotes and images from social science research conducted as part of FLEXIS along with other projects concerning citizens’ views on heating and energy systems change. Members of the FLEXIS social science team were on hand for discussion and to guide visitors through a series of interactive activities.

Professor Karen Henwood of Cardiff University said ‘In net zero research, the question of what kinds of behavioural changes are needed is open to problems-centred and solutions-focused thinking…Net zero is often talked about as a technical challenge. Cardiff University, through the FLEXIS project, is well placed to develop engineering-social sciences collaborations to undertake fundamental research on wider socio-technical systems change and implications for ordinary citizens.’