The UK introduced carbon budgets in 2008, with an aim to reduce greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050 compared with the 1990 levels. It has been argued that the 2015 Paris Agreement on limiting the global average temperature rise to ‘well below 2° C’ requires deeper and more rapid emission reductions than the current UK targets. Household energy consumption accounts for almost a third of total UK CO₂ emissions in recent years. This paper explores drivers of high energy consumption in domestic buildings from a sociological practice perspective and through a lens of dominant meanings of ‘home’. Whilst the practice approach and meanings of home have been explored separately in the literature to understand household energy consumption, this paper adds new findings on the interaction between the meanings of home and the elements of practices. Results show the dominant meaning of home differs between householders; this in turn affects the materials and procedures of energy-consuming practices. For instance, if ‘home’ means ‘hospitality’, this changes the standard of comfort and convenience people perceive at home. Understanding how practices and meanings of the home intersect, provides new, much needed insights that could support policy change commensurate with more rapidly reducing CO₂ emissions from domestic energy consumption.

英国于2008年推出了碳预算，旨在到2050年将温室气体排放量与1990年的水平相比减少80％。有人争辩说，2015年关于将全球平均气温上升限制在“远低于2°C”的巴黎协议要求比当前英国目标更深刻，更迅速地减少排放。家庭能源消费占英国总二氧化碳的近三分之一₂近年来的排放量。本文从社会学实践的角度以及“家”的主要含义的角度探讨了住宅建筑中高能耗的驱动因素。尽管在文献中分别探讨了家庭的实践方法和含义以了解家庭能源消耗，但本文还是对家庭的含义与实践要素之间的相互作用进行了新的发现。结果表明，家庭的主要含义在不同家庭之间有所不同。这反过来会影响耗能实践的材料和程序。例如，如果“家”的意思是“好客”，这将改变人们在家中所感觉到的舒适和便利的标准。了解家庭的习俗和意义如何相交，提供了新的，₂家庭能源消耗产生的排放量。