Exploring Transitions Towards Sustainable Construction: The Case of Near-Zero Energy Buildings in the Netherlands

This paper examines the use of qualitative information in the construction of an agent- based model in order to study the growth of near-Zero Energy Buildings (nZEB’s) in the Netherlands through the innovation systems perspective. Drawing on desktop research and semi-structured interviews, this paper offers two major findings. First, we observed that the difficulties to the development of nZEB’s have been shaped by interaction and institutional barriers: the inner complexity of the building sector has decisively impacted on the growth of nZEB’s. Second, exploring interviewees’ understanding of the system via an agent-based model has brought fresh insights about the problem. Overall, this is a call for an interdisciplinary approach to understand the changes required for nZEB’s in their path for a successful adoption. Agent-based computational modelling, complemented with knowledge that was elicited from several stakeholders within the building sector, has helped to inspect the implication of common beliefs in the course of shaping possible futures toward a transition to nZEB’s.