Galway, a harbour city on Ireland’s west coast, is a mission-minded city with an ambition of becoming climate neutral by 2050. It is also a NetZeroCities Pilot City, with funding secured to test new ways of reducing emissions from residential buildings. With over 40% of the city’s emissions coming from this sector, action on housing is essential to achieving Galway’s climate goals.
Improving the energy efficiency of buildings is one of Galway’s top priorities on the road to net zero. While the local authority has made significant progress in retrofitting public buildings and social housing, decarbonising the private housing stock remains a major challenge. Therefore, the pilot aims to address the main obstacles homeowners face when thinking about retrofitting.
Many homeowners are unaware of retrofit options or daunted by the process. The Galway’s Pilot Activity tackles these systemic barriers and engages citizens more directly. Rather than focusing on climate targets or long-term returns, the initiative prioritises what matters most to residents: comfort, trust, and support at every step of the retrofit challenge.
A hands-on approach to citizen engagement
Despite a national target to retrofit 500,000 homes by 2030, Ireland is falling short of its ambitious goal. Among the reasons, we find limited awareness, high upfront costs, labour shortages, and a complex, bureaucratic process. Galway’s approach recognises that cities can play a key role in bridging this gap, not only by funding retrofits but also by empowering citizens to take ownership of the process.
The Galway’s Pilot Activity includes three interconnected components:
First, the creation of a Warm Home Hub, based in a local community centre in the neighbourhood of Shantalla, part of Galway’s Decarbonisation Zone. The hub acts as a neutral, accessible space where residents can receive custom support, from understanding what retrofitting involves to navigating grant applications and connecting with other homeowners. Crucially, the staff at the hub are not municipal employees, but independent advisors trained to build trust and offer impartial guidance. Their messaging focuses on everyday concerns: staying warm, feeling comfortable, and reducing energy bills. To date, the hub has engaged 480 people through surveys, events, and community outreach, with over 40 households progressing along a personalised retrofit journey.
Second, the pilot focused on strengthening the supply side of the retrofit ecosystem by connecting citizens, contractors and students with accredited training pathways. The aim was to bridge the gap between retrofit awareness and delivery capacity by supporting workforce entry and professional upskilling in tandem with demand generation. As one of the more successful activities, Galway hosted a week-long visit from the Mount Lucas LOETB Retrofit Rig, a mobile demonstration and training unit designed to raise awareness and build local capacity. Installed in the heart of the city’s Decarbonisation Zone, the rig was open to the public and attracted nearly 100 participants across its training sessions. Homeowners, contractors, students and community groups engaged directly with the materials and techniques involved in Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB), with around 40 participants receiving formal accreditation.
Finally, to ensure the pilot’s outcomes could be sustained and scaled, a Quadruple Helix Steering Group was established, bringing together representatives from local government, academia, industry and civil society. This body met regularly throughout the two-year pilot to align cross-sector priorities, shape engagement strategies, and co-develop future policy and business models for climate-neutral retrofit. The steering group also played a key role in exploring city-wide scaling options and system-level learning to embed retrofit into broader energy transition planning.
Collectively, these efforts mark a clear shift from one-way information campaigns to practical, community-based engagement and an integrated model of place-based transformation aiming to be grounded in trust, accessibility, and coordination across the retrofit value chain.
What were the key drivers of the initiative?
- Comfort-first messaging: The initiative focused its communication on improving comfort at home, a message that resonated with residents. By highlighting warmth, health, and ease of living, the city connected with people’s everyday concerns.
- Trust and community-rooted delivery: Located in a neighbourhood community centre and run by impartial advisors, the Warm Home Hub created a neutral and accessible space. It helped build trust and encouraged engagement, especially among residents unfamiliar with retrofit schemes.
- Strong stakeholder coordination and multilevel governance: Collaboration between local government, training bodies, community groups, and national agencies was key to success. A Quadruple Helix Steering Group helped align priorities and collectively address policy barriers.
- Targeted financing and practical demonstrations: Project-based funding enabled the use of the Retrofit Rig without overburdening local budgets. The rig’s hands-on approach supported both public engagement and workforce upskilling, adding value across sectors.
What were the challenges and barriers?
- Misinformation and scepticism: Many residents held misconceptions about retrofit technologies, particularly heat pumps (being regarded as costly or voluminous). Overcoming these narratives required sustained communication, repetition, and involvement of trusted intermediaries.
- Capacity and resource limitations: The Warm Home Hub could only support a limited number of residents. The demand for personalised consultations exceeded supply, and scaling this model would require significant investment in additional staff and infrastructure.
- Uncoordinated and fragmented demand: While retrofitting clusters of similar homes could reduce costs and improve efficiency, demand remains individualised and unpredictable. Encouraging collective action across streets or neighbourhoods proved difficult without stronger strategic frameworks or incentives.
- Workforce and training limitations: With very high employment levels in Ireland, especially in construction, it is difficult to encourage workers to take time off for training. Even when grants are available, small companies often can’t afford to release staff or see immediate benefits.
Potential for replication
Galway’s citizen-centred retrofit approach highlights the power of empathy, place-based engagement, and local collaboration. By reframing retrofit as a personal journey, the city has taken an important step towards a fairer and more inclusive transition. With the right tools and mindset, this model can inspire similar efforts across Europe.
Key lessons learned:
- Effective framing improves engagement: Positioning retrofit as a way to improve comfort, health, and daily life works better than focusing on climate goals or financial savings. Residents are more responsive when benefits are perceived as immediate and personal.
- Building trust: Delivering support through community spaces and non-municipal staff helped reduce scepticism and encouraged participation, especially among those less familiar with retrofit schemes.
- Hands-on activities increase understanding:Â Demonstrations, such as the Retrofit Rig, proved more effective than leaflets or campaigns. Seeing technologies in action and interacting with experts helped clarify doubts and counter misinformation.
- Reaching the right audiences: Not every household is ready to retrofit. Focusing on motivated or well-positioned groups, such as older adults or homeowners with resources, improves outcomes and ensures efficient use of support.
Galway’s model is replicable if supported by sufficient coordination, staffing and funding. Key success factors include embedding engagement in local communities, using practical tools, and aligning efforts across stakeholders from the start.