Home heating is responsible for about 15% of the UK’s total emissions. One way we could bring down harmful pollution is to encourage UK homeowners to replace gas-fuelled boilers with low-carbon heat pumps. But there are many barriers to this approach – heat pumps are expensive and installation can be lengthy and disruptive.

We'll also need to better insulate homes, shift energy use away from peak times and generate and store energy throughout the day.

What if there were novel ways to access these green home improvements so they’re cheaper, less disruptive to install, and are easier to set up? These new business models could allow many more homes across the UK to take up home heating solutions that are significantly better for the climate.

There are many new ideas being developed about how to heat our homes in a greener way. One business is selling a battery that can store the energy created by solar panels, which can be used when the sun isn’t shining. An energy think tank has trialled the idea of ‘heat as a service’, where people paid a fixed amount to keep their homes warm for a certain number of hours each day.

We believe there are more business models out there that have the potential to transform the way green home improvements are marketed, delivered and paid for.

We sought to:

• understand current business and financing models for household heating
• imagine possible future business models, using tools called futures techniques that help us identify and analyse the long-term trends and issues that are shaping the future, as well as speculative design to help bring these ideas to life
• reflect on our ideal future, making sure we have a holistic view of all the systems in play
• investigate the actions that Nesta and other organisations could take to realise these opportunities and mitigate risks.

If you’d like to speak to us about this work, get in touch by emailing [email protected] and [email protected].