HOUSING RETROFITS IN JUST TRANSITIONS ? Emerging Contradictions in Catalonia, Spain

Source abstract

Abstract Efforts to decarbonize residential housing are growing globally. Following ambitious targets set by the European Commission's Renovation Wave and subsidized through Covid‐19 recovery funds, Spain's housing retrofit programme deployed EUR 3.4 billion in European grants to retrofit half a million homes between 2022 and 2026. This article uncovers emerging political, economic, environmental and social contradictions around expanding housing retrofits in Spain, with a focus on Catalonia, to explore how funds were disbursed and who stands to benefit. In considering the political economy of housing in just transitions, I draw from two dozen interviews in 2023 with a range of actors, meeting observations and grey literature to highlight contradictions emerging across five domains. These include the territorial distribution of funds, the universal nature of retrofit grants, the treatment of vulnerable populations, the scale of intervention and the nature of the housing retrofit sector. Together the contradictions largely illustrate how public retrofit funding has favoured increased capital circulation alongside reinforced social relations and ideologies of private property ownership and wealth accumulation. While the overall push is towards what I term a Spanish growth economy of housing repair, some contradictions in the five domains point to possibilities for a more transformative just housing transition.