Making the housing stock more sustainable
Petra Eussen, who works as Manager Duurzaam Wonen (Sustainable Housing Manager) in Rabobank’s Mortgages department, explains how her role has evolved to focus on making the mortgage portfolio more sustainable. ‘Rabobank is the largest mortgage lender in the Netherlands, with over a million homes financed. That means we can have a huge impact on making the housing stock more sustainable. That’s why I started working in the mortgage sector, where I’m responsible for everything related to sustainability in mortgages: from engaging customers to providing clarity on our sustainability goals.’

Within her team Duurzaam Wonen (Sustainable Living), Eussen works with colleagues from across the organisation. ‘At Rabobank, we draw up an annual sector-by-region plan for all our sectors, in which we agree on the sustainability goals we will achieve. In this way, we link strategy to concrete actions.’

Reliable, tailor-made solutions
One of Rabobank’s initiatives is the Vooruit met je Huis programme, which launched in 2024 with a cooperative insulation budget of 125 million euros. ‘We’ve noticed that many customers do want to make their homes more sustainable, but don’t know where to start,’ explains Eussen.

‘Existing online scans offer little reassurance, as they often do not reflect the actual living situation, or because commercial installation firms are behind them. That is why we wanted to offer something more reliable: a genuine roadmap for the home, comparable to a structural survey, but focused on energy performance.’

Rabobank offers customers with a low energy rating free, bespoke advice and later extended the programme to all mortgage customers. Vooruit met je Huis is now Rabobank’s largest private initiative, offering a €500 grant to customers who take action following the advice.

In addition, Rabobank is focusing on pilot schemes for owners’ associations and investments in bio-based construction. ‘We want to reduce the cost difference between traditional and bio-based materials, so that sustainable construction becomes the new standard,’ says Eussen.

Understanding what drives people
To find out what motivates people and where the barriers lie, Rabobank is collaborating with TNO, the independent organisation for applied research. Luise Schlindwein, a behavioural scientist in TNO’s Energy & Materials Transition department, is researching the social aspects of the energy transition. ‘Within the Align4Energy project, we’re looking at how to encourage large groups of people to take that first step towards sustainability. Through Rabobank, we were given the opportunity to apply this in exploratory research within a concrete context: customers whom we want to encourage to request energy advice.’

TNO developed various communication strategies, ranging from financial to environmentally focused messages. ‘We wanted to know which message is most effective,’ says Schlindwein. 

‘Rabobank tested these texts via their internal research platform, Rabo Labs. Although the sample was small and not representative of the Dutch population, it provided valuable insights for Rabobank. For instance, 46% of participants did not know their own energy label, and we saw that people with strong environmental motivations were more likely to click on sustainability offers.’

That knowledge is now being used in follow-up research. ‘We are working with Rabobank partners Woninglabel and Klimaatroute to understand how communication actually prompts people to take action,’ says Schlindwein.

From advice to action
Eussen sees another challenge in practice. ‘Through Vooruit met je Huis, we reach around a quarter of a million homeowners. That is, of course, a huge number of people, but they are mainly those who are already open to making their homes more sustainable. The next step is to reach precisely those groups who are less receptive.’

Furthermore, it remains a challenge to get these homeowners to actually take action following the advice and to persuade them to invest in sustainability measures. The new joint study therefore focuses on the phase following the energy advice. ‘We want to know how customers can make the transition from advice to action. Such a report is often technical and complex, so the trick is to make it small and manageable again,’ says Eussen.