Faced with the difficulties of implementing energy policies based on existing structures, scientific research offers only limited insights. On the one hand, technical and financial knowledge and methods are being developed, but these come up against social and human factors that are still poorly integrated. On the other hand, human and social factors are increasingly illuminated by specialized studies and research, but are not finding their way into the actual implementation of projects, programs, and renovation policies, which are largely dominated by technical and financial approaches. Finally, significant public and private funding is being mobilized to try to ensure that the technical and financial offer reaches the target audience, but with still very limited results.
This project builds on all of these findings to develop a method that combines technical-financial and socio-anthropological approaches in order to help target public actions. More specifically, the hypothesis is that specific work on comfort would optimize the mobilization of resources at the urban level. Understanding what triggers energy renovation would require situating it at the intersection of the life paths of individuals and social groups (comfort is not a fixed given but subject to change over the course of a lifetime) and the trajectories of built environments (whose technical components change over time).
Keywords: Comfort, energy, urban strategy, users
Method: First, a theoretical analysis of approaches to comfort is cross-referenced with data collected at the urban and housing levels to address this issue. Second, empirical work in five fields tests the analytical frameworks for comfort and its link to energy renovation decisions. The result will be a proposed methodological approach.