Home Environment Solutions through Technology and Innovation for All: HESTIA

Start date: 1 November 2025
End date: 31 October 2027
Funder: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
Value: £600,000
Partners and collaborators: Bradford Institute for Health Research, UK Indoor Environments Group, Sustainable Development Foundation, The Alliance for Sustainable Building Products, Energy Saving Trust, Healthy Homes Hub, Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants, City of Edinburgh Council, Public Health Scotland, Oxfordshire County Council, The London Borough of Waltham Forest, The Building Engineering Services Association
Primary investigator: Dr Douglas Booker
Co-investigators: Professor Catherine Noakes
External co-investigators: Professor Helen Fisher, Professor Rajat Gupta, Professor Anna Mavrogianni, Dr Suzanne Bartington, Professor Ruth Doherty, Dr Alejandro Moreno-Rangel, Dr Amber Yeoman

HESTIA logo

The UK housing stock is undergoing an unprecedented transformation to improve energy efficiency, reduce carbon emissions, and meet Net Zero targets. However, minimal attention is being paid to the impact of such a radical change on indoor environmental quality, physical and mental health and wellbeing, and equity.

Delivering low-carbon, healthy, and equitable homes through design and retrofit will need multiple different technologies; current efforts focus primarily on building fabric or system upgrades, yet there are significant opportunities through replacement technologies, smart devices, and consumer products.

The Home Environment Solutions through Technology and Innovation for All (HESTIA) Network aims to understand the combined impact of existing and emerging technologies, and their interactions with social and behavioural factors to deliver healthy and sustainable homes for the future. HESTIA has brought together a transdisciplinary community spanning engineering, the built and natural environmental sciences, health, and social sciences, industry, local authorities, healthcare professionals, building engineers, architects, and end users.

HESTIA will lay the foundation to address the challenge of how to most effectively implement technologies to design and retrofit housing to maximise human and environmental health co-benefits and reduce health inequalities. Our ultimate goal is to accelerate the creation of indoor home environments that meet Net Zero targets while promoting physical and mental health and wellbeing for all, considering the interface of technologies and social factors.

Working with researchers, project partners, and stakeholders we will co-design and deliver equitable housing research and innovative solutions, while also developing future research leaders equipped to work across disciplines and sectors. HESTIA will create a new health-equity-centred engineering approach to home design and retrofit, integrating existing and emerging building technologies to maximise human and environmental health co-benefits, and minimise health inequalities.

Publications and outputs

Home Environment Solutions for All (HESTIA) | School of Civil Engineering | University of Leeds