Making residential energy retrofits work: How local intermediaries connect municipal policy and household-level action to advance the energy transition in Madrid

Abstract

Municipalities play a central role in driving urban sustainability transitions but often struggle to engage critical actors necessary for implementing local climate policy objectives. These challenges are especially visible in the slow uptake of household energy retrofit policies, a key measure to accelerate EU cities' transition toward climate-neutrality by 2050. This research examines how a local ecology of actors engaged in residential energy retrofitting— intermediating between municipal policy and household decision-making—helps bridge the retrofit implementation gap, using Madrid as a case study. Findings show that actors in Madrid's local retrofit system operate at different spatial levels and through distinct mechanisms: some are spatially anchored, engaging households through local trust and place-specific knowledge within particular districts and neighborhoods, while others operate city-wide, offering scale and access to granular, spatialized data. Policy outcomes could benefit from greater collaboration between these intermediation activities, supporting more spatially targeted interventions delivered through neighborhood-level actors and responsive to the pressing everyday needs of these areas. Household energy retrofits thus provide a valuable lens for identifying pathways through which cities can translate climate ambition into material change and ultimately advance the energy transition.