A toolkit to support retrofitting 

Retrofitting homes involves upgrading existing properties with energy-efficient or renewable energy measures. This can increase comfort, improve environmental sustainability and reduce issues with damp or mould.  

Supported by funding from The MCS Foundation, we’ve developed a persona-based toolkit to help organisations, especially Local and Combined Authorities and community energy groups, create effective place-based strategies and increase the uptake of retrofit technologies.  

This resource enables organisations to better understand the diverse needs and motivations of households and property owners. While primarily designed for authorities in England, most of its content is relevant across the UK. 

What are personas? 

Personas are fictional characters that represent groups of people with similar service needs, motivations, and behaviours. The toolkit presents ‘proto-personas’ — the building blocks of personas that support the development of targeted communication and engagement strategies. Organisations can expand these into fully developed personas using their own qualitative and quantitative research. This will add local detail and nuance to better target identified groups. The toolkit directs organisations on how they progress in this way.

Creating the toolkit 

Developed over three months (December 2024–March 2025), the toolkit builds on NEC Digital Studio’s previous work creating locally specific proto-personas for the Leeds Retrofit Accelerator. The team collated and synthesised information from existing retrofit guides and playbooks as well as locally specific personas shared with us by local authorities. We interviewed stakeholders from 7 different local and combined authorities and from 4 organisations supporting retrofit activities. 

The project resulted in a set of eight proto-persona groups and a supporting toolkit. The proto-personas reflect key differences in values, circumstances, and life stages that influence motivations and barriers in the customer retrofit journey. The toolkit provides strategies for tailoring messaging to each group, identifying engagement trigger points, and includes recommendations for further reading. 

Increasing retrofit adoption 

Guided by the toolkit, councils will be better able to design engagement strategies to increase retrofit adoption. They will be able to use the proto-personas in the toolkit as a basis for creating both their own personas and appropriate and timely messaging campaigns.  

View the toolkit 

Click the following link to access the toolkit for your own reference and use: Proto-Persona Retrofit Toolkit for Local Authorities v1.1

We’d love to hear how you’ve used this toolkit and if you have any feedback that will help us to improve it. You can get in touch at necdigitalstudio@necsws.com directing enquiries to Rowan Spear and Val Mitchell.