Green renovations: Intersections of daily routines, housing aspirations and narratives of environmental sustainability

Undertaking home renovation is complex and traumatic, but remains a ubiquitous phenomenon. Home renovators wishing to reduce their environmental impact encounter added layers of complexity. Increasingly, opportunities to improve a dwelling's performance present hemselves in the course of home renovations, giving rise to 'green renovations'. Policy makers encourage green renovations through market mechanisms and rational response incentives. Yet we argue this approach could be better informed by understanding the lived experience of households, their housing aspirations and daily routines. To this end, this paper presents the findings from a qualitative, in-depth study of self-identified green renovators in Melbourne, Australia. Adopting an insider approach we explore green renovations from the perspective of householders. In doing so, our focus is on the social practices occurring in and enabled by rooms subject to renovation, rather than the renovation process itself. During interviews and walk-through tours of dwellings, renovators discussed their concerns about energy and water use, planned or recent renovations and their daily routines. We find green renovations aimed at reducing household consumption in response to narratives of environmental sustainability appear to be ineffective in achieving this aim because they intersect with aspirations of the ideal home and the accommodation of existing and future daily routines.