Why Grand Designs-style eco-homes aren’t a good blueprint for sustainable living

By Alan Collins, Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Nottingham Trent University

A family builds an off-grid home in rural Wales. TV celebrates it as a blueprint for net-zero living. But what if this vision of sustainability simply doesn’t scale up?

Television shows such as Channel 4’s Grand Designs have long celebrated ambitious one-off homebuilding projects. These programmes often frame bespoke rural housing as a model of sustainable living.

With large audiences, they wield real influence over what viewers imagine an environmentally sustainable lifestyle looks like. But the reality behind many of these supposedly “eco” homes is far more complicated.…

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