Abstract for: Using system dynamics modelling to analyse the interplay of policies and societal motivation for promoting energetic renovation

Transforming the existing energy-intense building stock to an energy-efficient one represents a vital path to mitigate climate change. However, in most countries the dynamics of energetic reno-vation of buildings has so far been too slow to meet climate mitigation targets. Accordingly, a deep-er understanding is needed of what factors directly and indirectly influence the decision-making process for energetic renovation and how these are interconnected. For this purpose we devel-oped a system dynamics model to explain the low energetic renovation rate dynamics for the case of Germany focusing on societal motivation. The interplay of the six feedback loops identified can lead to different time courses of energetic renovation: rigid behavior at a low rate, oscillating be-havior around a desired rate, or significantly increasing energetic renovation rates, depending on the policies applied. A central outcome is that high investment in policies for a short duration seems to be much more effective to induce a sustaining societal driven transformation process than lower investments for a longer time span. The simple structure of the developed SD model might be transferable to other systems where societal motivation plays a vital role for the implementation of climate change mitigation or adaption.