Publicly accessible data retrofit social housing

This research paper examines the potential of using publicly accessible property data, street-level imagery, and machine learning to overcome data fragmentation and gaps that hinder systematic social housing retrofit planning in the UK.

• Incomplete and fragmented data currently obstructs systematic retrofit planning in the UK, where nearly 60% of buildings have poor energy performance ratings.
• The use of publicly accessible data, such as Energy Performance Certificates and Google Street View, combined with computer vision models, shows promise for large-scale urban retrofit planning. These models performed well in testing for categorizing architectural style (a proxy for building age) and wall construction classification, which is critical for fabric-first retrofit work.
• A workshop with retrofit organizations, consultancies, architectural practices, and local government officials identified that retrofit planning is hindered by a lack of hybrid data gathering approaches, limited inter-organizational data sharing, and inconsistent data formats.
• While publicly accessible data and computer vision can provide evidence during early planning stages when building information is lacking or difficult to integrate, practical application requires continued human oversight, greater standardization, and improved datasets.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (2026). Publicly accessible data retrofit social housing. https://www.sei.org/publications/publicly-accessible-data-retrofit-social-housing/

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Publicly accessible data retrofit social housing. 2026. https://www.sei.org/publications/publicly-accessible-data-retrofit-social-housing/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Publicly accessible data retrofit social housing |date=30 June 2026 |url=https://www.sei.org/publications/publicly-accessible-data-retrofit-social-housing/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitute2026publicly, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Publicly accessible data retrofit social housing}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2026}, month = jun, url = {https://www.sei.org/publications/publicly-accessible-data-retrofit-social-housing/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }