High-resolution mapping of residential wood burning heat sources using Energy Performance Certificates: A case study of England and Wales

Abstract

Background: Particulate matter emissions from residential wood burning are rising in many countries. Long-term exposure to fine particulate matter is strongly linked with adverse health effects including cardiovascular and respiratory disease. Policymakers and scientists need accurate tools to identify residential wood burning hotspots. However, current methods rely on spatially-misaligned, out-of-date data sources, reducing their practical utility and portability to other contexts. Furthermore, the socio-economic characteristics of residential wood burning in high income countries are poorly understood. Methods: We used open data from 26 million Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) for properties in England and Wales from 2009–2025 to map the concentration and prevalence of wood burners within small areas. We evaluated our method against the UK national wood burning emissions inventory using national air pollution monitoring networks. We used novel open data linkages to characterise associations between area-level prevalence of wood burners and socio-economic factors including deprivation, ethnicity, and age. Findings: We identified substantial spatial heterogeneity in the concentration of wood burners, with the highest concentrations in affluent urban areas. Our concentration metric was more strongly correlated with peaks in winter PM2.5 at urban monitoring sites than estimates from the UK national emissions inventory. Prevalence of wood burners was positively correlated with age and negatively correlated with measures of social deprivation. Prevalence of wood burners in EPCs has increased since 2009. Conclusions: EPCs are a valuable data source which policymakers can use to target local interventions or extend existing restrictions on solid fuel burning. Our method is transparent, up-to-date, and portable to other countries where similar EPC data is available. The relationship between social deprivation and prevalence of wood burning heat sources highlights important issues of environmental justice. Epidemiological analyses of wood smoke exposures and health should carefully account for the confounding effects of age, deprivation, and ethnicity.