A group of Dutch housing associations that came up with a brilliant idea for retrofitting older homes has won the Gold Medal in this year’s World Habitat Awards. 

Energiesprong retrofits usually take less than 10 days and achieve a 70-80% reduction in the building’s energy use. Since 2011, more than 10,000 projects have been completed in seven countries across Europe and North America, and thousands more are planned.

The Netherlands-based Global Energiesprong Alliance (GEA) is the umbrella body that coordinates the approach. GEA wants to eliminate the use of fossil fuels to power buildings and many of its 10,000 retrofits to date have achieved ‘net-zero’ energy performance so all the energy the building needs is generated by renewable sources on-site.

Energiesprong shows that it is possible to quickly and cost-effectively retrofit very large numbers of homes to carbon neutral standards. As the number of renovations increases from tens of thousands to millions of homes, many more tenants will benefit from increased comfort and reduced energy bills, and the planet will gain from Energiesprong’s potential to dramatically reduce global carbon emissions.

This story is adapted from the World Habitat Organization’s article about how they developed their strategy and about its potential for making retrofitting older homes much cheaper and more sustainable.