It is now widely accepted that the residential sector offers significant potential for carbon mitigation. This is true for both the overall magnitude of emissions reductions and the cost per tonne of CO2(eq) mitigated. However, both the scope and scale of potential carbon mitigation pathways remain controversial. The pace of decarbonisation is also openly debated. Examples of some of these contentions include: centralised versus decentralised energy supply; energy efficiency versus low carbon generation; demolition versus renovation of the existing building stock and behaviour change versus technological solutions. Incontrovertibly, any one of these seemingly apparent tensions is not mutually exclusive, and the ultimate decarbonisation pathway will likely consist of most if not all of these proposed solutions being implemented to some varying degree. Despite the significant potential for carbon mitigation in the built environment, deep cuts have not yet materialised. It is argued that this lack of progress stems from a poor understanding of the highly complex socio-economic, socio-dynamic and technical physical systems that underpin energy use in dwellings.Modelling this requires requires novel methods capable of capturing the complexities that arise from government policies...