Key words: energy renovation, housing and living methods, collective actions, experiments, energy transition, action research.

In order to meet the environmental challenges, a consensus has been reached on the need to improve the energy performance of the most energy-intensive existing buildings as a priority. Although thermal renovation decisions may be specific to households, responding to clean ways of living and supported by various types of funding, they remain insufficient in number and energy quality. This is why new organisational forms, of collective types, are being tested by public policies or residents’ collectives.

This thesis supports a reflection on the expertise deployed by a multitude of actors (human and non-human) on a multi-dimensional and complex subject: global, efficient and collective energy renovation. It questions the places and roles of actors in the design of collective and experimental actions that aim to achieve a massification of energy renovation of private individual housing. Four systems, supported by a regional programme, are analysed through the sociology of organisations and network actors. The careful study of the logic of actions, the articulation and the dynamics of the actors allows us to understand how the systems are constructed as “intermediaries” on their territory, or even as trusted third parties for their target public. The latter is made up of private owners. The thesis provides an understanding of their practices and representations, and their renovation paths. The joint study of private systems and uses provides an understanding of the advantages and limitations of collective operations.

Through its research-action dimension, the thesis provides recommendations resulting from a field of observation conducted over nearly three years in Lorraine. In this approach, the role of the sociologist, taken in the same way in the observations as any other actor, is the object of a reflexive work.

The thesis therefore has 3 main axes:
– Axe 1 : the conditions for the emergence of local energy renovation systems ;
– Axe 2 : the ways of living and inhabiting. From purchasing conditions to renovation: two practices
to understand the logic of action.
– Axe 3 : the place of actors within experimental and environmental projects with the implementation of
implementation of the transition project “Saulnes, towards the transition 2030” (implementation of the recommendations from the first 2 axes).

• PhD in sociology by Mrs Cyrielle CARLISI-RIDACKER at the University of Bourgogne Franche-Comté (UBFC), within the Laboratoire de Sociologie et Anthropologie (LASA)
• Thesis Director: Mrs Virginie VINEL, Professor at the University of Bourgogne – Franche-Comté, Director of LASA.
• Co-financier and sponsor: Région Grand-Est, under the supervision of David LEWANDOWSKI.
• Employer : EcoTransFaire.

The thesis presented and defended in Besançon on 24 May 2019 is available by clicking on this link.

For more information, contact Cyrielle CARLISI RIDACKER (cridacker@ecotransfaire.eu)