** Came to the weekend or want to take the next eco-renovation step in Oxfordshire? Please do our survey.**
The concept 
The background: Home Truths
Extracts from the Executive Summary of Home Truths - a low carbon strategy to reduce UK House emissions by 80% by 2050, by Brenda Boardman, University of Oxford's Environmental Change Institute
‘The scientific consensus is that for the UK to play its part in helping the world avoid a rise of more than 2°C, we must reduce our carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. The household sector represents 27 per cent of our total emissions and achieving deep cuts here is an imperative.'
‘Of the homes we will inhabit in 2050, around 80 per cent are already standing today and these have to be the main focus for carbon-reduction policies.'
What happened
18 house-holders across Oxfordshire opened up their homes to the public, The weekend attracted over 600 visitors, resulting in over 1,200 visits to houses.
The weekend was an overwhelming success that demonstrated a thirst for knowledge in this area, a clear market gap in the provision of eco-renovation advice and contractors, and a need to support eco-renovators to share resources, contacts, materials and experiences.
What the house-holders said:
"I'm delighted that people came and were interested in the houses. It was very productive, I was pleased to participate, felt shattered afterwards, but fantastic to be part of the eco-houses camaraderie" Elaine Steane.
"Our house is a work in progress. 85 people came, it was great to see people were interested" Sally Harper
‘We had 109 visitors over 5 hours. It was completely exhausting, very worthwhile and very inspiring' Gavin Killip
What the visitors learnt 
290 visitors completed a survey about their experiences. Of these 84% were home owners; additionally people also came in their professional capacities as architects, craftsmen or local authority representatives. The top three take home messages were:
- intriguingly people learnt as much about the importance of insulation and energy efficiency as the newer, more aspirational Low and Zero Carbon (LZC) technologies;
- learning through experience is a great way of finding solutions;
- the variety of houses meant that people could find something similar to their house.
What the visitors said:
What we learnt
The weekend demonstrated a clear interest in eco renovation, and the need for local information and experience sharing, with a third of the survey respondents saying that they would like to meet with others intending to eco-renovate their homes.
It also demonstrated a gap in the supply chain. Whilst there are many sources of information and advice, there seem to be no existing avenues for experience and information sharing between householders, nor of the need to match the increasing demand for eco-renovation in a proactive ‘one stop shop' way.
Eco-renovation Social Learning
Bandura's Social Learning theory suggests that people learn through observing others' behaviour, attitudes, and outcomes of those behaviours. Eco-renovation is a combination of behaviours and actions. Behaviours (e.g. switching lights off) can be significantly reinforced through one-off actions, such as insulating, or eco-renovating all or part of a house. Many eco-renovators say that their initial eco-renovation activities come about through a specific opportunity, e.g. moving house or replacing a bathroom. Given this opportunistic nature, it is important to provide access to a wide range of eco-renovation possibilities.
Follow up events to encourage experience-sharing can help ensure that, when the opportunity arises, people make the decision to eco-renovate or incorporate Low and Zero Carbon technology. As eco-renovation is increasingly aspirational, it is important to provide informal opportunities for reproduction through modelling the behaviour at future open days and informal events. Many of the eco-renovators who took part in the weekend mentioned that the weekend made them feel part of a ‘club', an important motivator.
The step we took for the Oxfordshire Open Eco-houses Weekend
1. Initial idea - ‘a weekend of eco-renovated houses open to the public in Oxfordshire'.
2. Contacting the eco-renovators we knew, getting a core group on board.
3. Securing sponsorship from local organisations.
4. Details - opening times, house details for publicity and case studies.
5. Publicity design and printing - a leaflet and poster, plus detailed website info (donwload it from here).
6. Getting volunteers to help with the weekend.
7. Publicity - press releases, media interviews, distributing printed materials.
8. Boxes of info and materials for householders - including light-bulbs, further resources, books, and info about LZC technology. Householders also created their own displays.
9. The weekend - being on hand for support, documenting with photos and interviews.
10. Evaluation with eco-renovators to capture experiences and get suggestions for future events, compiling visitors' feedback forms.
What happens next
A matchmaking and ‘talk to the suppliers' event to enable people interested in taking the next step in eco-renovation to meet each other and share experiences. We hope that the experiences of the weekend, and further networking activities can be rolled out nationally as part of a wider Open Eco-houses day / weekend. We are currently applying for further funding for creation of an Oxfordshire Eco-renovation Social Enterprise Network.
Like to know more?
Cae studies and a wealth of info on Eco-renovation is available on http://www.ecovation.org.uk/ .
See our Eco-renovation resources list and other links and info about the Eco-Houses weekend.
If you would like to run a similar event locally, please contact george@coinet.org.uk or jo@climatex.org / 01865 275 856.
