Project: Looking back, moving forwards: a social and cultural history of home heating

Acronym	JUSTHEAT (Reference Number: CHANSE-807)
Duration	01/09/2022 - 01/03/2025
Project Topic	As we race to decarbonise and digitalise home heating in light of the climate emergency, this proposal seeks to look backwards in order to move forwards by using oral history techniques and the communicative power of the arts to support policy communities driving this transition to consider the justice implications of their policies. Technology-driven low carbon transitions are reorganising the way people use energy and triggering deeper transformations of societies, economies and cultures. They may resolve some inequalities created by fossil-fuel societies, yet deepen others and create new injustices. Conversely, they may enable more a just distribution of energy and empower marginalised groups. At higher latitudes, domestic heating is one of our most fundamental uses of energy and the way we heat our homes manifests societal, economic, cultural and political change at the heart of the home. We will assemble multi-media accounts of historic and more recent heating transitions, associated technological change and moves towards digitalisation (over the last 50-60 years), to illustrate how they have impacted unevenly and diversely yet profoundly on the conditions of life. Presently, every heating transition is treated as a new challenge and efforts to learn across time and place are rare. We will work with 400 people across eight case study communities in the UK, Finland, Sweden and Romania to revisit past transitions and reveal the complex consequences of heating transitions for our everyday lives, identifying benefits to replicate and adverse consequences to minimise. Policy makers will co-create data and analysis and come together with the public through online and in person events and exhibitions, to debate heating futures. Our interdisciplinary approach will overcome the siloes that narrow the study of energy and buildings and the introduction of oral history and arts-based techniques, will stretch the philosophical and methodological boundaries of the field.
Network	CHANSE
Call	Transformations: Social and Cultural Dynamics in the Digital Age

Project partner

Number	Name	Role	Country
1	Sheffield Hallam University	Coordinator	United Kingdom
2	Lund University	Partner	Sweden
3	Tampere University	Partner	Finland
4	Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania	Partner	Romania
5	Romanian Society of Energy Auditors and Energy Managers	Observer	Romania
6	Skane Energy Agency	Observer	Sweden
7	Green Parliamentary Group	Observer	Finland
8	Finnish Environment Institute	Observer	Finland
9	The Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, UK Government	Observer	United Kingdom
10	National Energy Action (Charity)	Observer	United Kingdom
11	Association for Nearly Zero Carbon Buildings	Observer	Romania
12	Solar Region Skane	Observer	Sweden
13	The International Energy Agency Technology Collaboration Programme	Observer	France
14	Eco Fellows Ltd	Observer	Germany
15	Ministry of the Environment, Finland	Observer	Finland