Household energy awareness as enabler of regeneration practices. Preliminary evidence from a Finnish case study

The lack of energy and environmental awareness among households has been demonstrated to be one of the main obstacle when it comes to the energy savings in residential buildings. The municipality of Helsinki has ambitious targets of becoming carbon neutral while simultaneously improving the liveability and attractiveness of the city. In the transition to a low carbon society, engaging citizens and stakeholders is a fundamental step. The paper presents the preliminary results of a Finnish case study, based on questionnaires that have been delivered to households living in selected buildings of Merihaka district in Helsinki, with the aim to understand the current situation in terms of household behaviour, attitudes towards domestic energy saving, and the willingness to implement new measures. The case study has been selected since it is part of the actions the City of Helsinki is developing in the framework of the H2020 mySMARTLife project.