Meeting the UK’s carbon reduction target – the perspective of the domestic housing sector

Information on this PhD research area can be found further down this page under the details about the Widening Participation Scholarship given immediately below.

Applications for this PhD research are welcomed from anyone worldwide but there is an opportunity for UK candidates (or eligible for UK fees) to apply for a widening participation scholarship.

Widening Participation Scholarship: Any UK candidates (or eligible for UK fees) is invited to apply. Our scholarships seek to increase participation from groups currently under-represented within research. A priority will be given to students that meet the widening participation criteria and to graduates of the University of Salford. For more information about widening participation, follow this link: https://www.salford.ac.uk/postgraduate-research/fees. [Scroll down the page until you reach the heading “PhD widening participation scholarships”.] Please note: we accept applications all year but the deadline for applying for the widening participation scholarships in 2024 is 28th March 2024. All candidates who wish to apply for the MPhil or PhD widening participation scholarship will first need to apply for and be accepted onto a research degree programme. As long as you have submitted your completed application for September/October 2024 intake by 28 February 2024 and you qualify for UK fees, you will be sent a very short scholarship application. This form must be returned by 28 March 2024. Applications received after this date must either wait until the next round or opt for the self-funded PhD route.

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Project description: As a legally binding international treaty on climate change, the Paris Agreement, adopted by 196 Countries/Parties at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris in 2015, sets out a worldwide framework to mitigate global warming with the preferred target of limiting the average earth surface temperature elevation below 1.5 °C. Following this agreement, many countries have set their own carbon reduction targets to either achieve zero carbon or significant amount of reduction by 2050 to 2060. In 2021 the UK government released its sixth Carbon Budget following the recommendation from the independent Climate Change Committee. This effectively sets the world’s most stringent climate change mitigation target into law to reach net zero by 2050 with ambitious intermediate target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 78% by 2035 compared to the 1990s level.

The residential housing sector in the UK is responsible about 16% of the total emissions among the national communication (NC) sectors. As of 2021, this emission figure accounts 69.4 MtCO₂e. Emissions from residential sectors are primarily from residential combustion which is directly associated with consumptions of various type of fuels in meeting occupants’ needs, or put simply, the energy consumption from domestic homes collectively. UK as a country has made significant efforts in the past decades in improving domestic housing sector energy efficiency to cut down energy consumptions via various initiatives, legislations, and schemes. Such efforts have let significant improvement in energy efficiency for the new build as well as the existing housing stock. However, the overall emissions from housing sector are still significant and poses challenges in meeting the national carbon reduction targets. The aim of this research is to explore the possible pathways of reducing carbon emissions from housing sectors collectively through technology applications, efficiency improvement and occupancy behaviours. Housing sector, as one of the energy intensive sectors in the UK, bears huge responsibilities in meeting the nation’s carbon reduction targets.