The sociotechnical barriers to the decarbonization of buildings

The sociotechnical barriers to the decarbonization of buildings | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article The sociotechnical barriers to the decarbonization of buildings Erin Heinz, Benjamin Sovacool, Thomas Kwan, Vincent Petit This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-5926332/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 13 Nov, 2025 Read the published version in Nature Communications → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Building decarbonization is critical for meeting long-term climate goals, given the embodied energy, material and resource flows involved in making buildings, operational energy use, and the need to both build new facilities to meet growing populations and to retrofit older, less efficient homes and businesses. In this review, the authors examine ninety-five sociotechnical barriers that inhibit progress on the decarbonization of the building sector that can be categorized by economic, political, social, behavioral, and technical dimensions. Economic barriers are the most prevalent globally, followed by political barriers. The building sector’s slowness in adopting strategies of decarbonization can be explained by the sector’s distinct complexity as demonstrated by differences among top barriers by building stage, stakeholders of interest, geography, and even the forum of discussion. Use of the “carbon lock-in” framework validates the intersectional nature of barriers to decarbonization of the building sector, and infers that interventions will need to be dynamic, local, and engaged with multiple themes simultaneously to make change. Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental social sciences/Climate-change mitigation Scientific community and society/Energy and society/Political economy of energy Scientific community and society/Social sciences/Climate change/Climate-change mitigation smart buildings sociotechnical systems carbon lock-in building decarbonization Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files HeinzetalSOM112062024.xlsx Supplementary Dataset 1 Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 13 Nov, 2025 Read the published version in Nature Communications → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. 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