The first handbook, the Introduction to the Energy Poverty Advisory Hub (EPAH) Handbooks: A Guide to Understanding and Addressing Energy Poverty, is aiming to "present the concept of energy poverty with the different approaches that can be useful for obtaining a general picture of energy poverty in your local government as well as the initial introduction to the methodology to tackle energy poverty".
The handbook introduces the reader to two main thematic sections:
The Handbook states there are three main causes of energy poverty:
Low income level: Low income can result from low salary, job insecurity, unemployment, low social protection or a combination of these. The most affected people here are the most vulnerable ones, such as single parents, people with disabilities, or people of older age.
Low household energy efficiency and energy performance of buildings: Poor quality houses and appliances, old heating systems, lack of insulation and many more are all factors influencing the quality of living and the price of energy. Moreover, many times it is hard for tenants/homeowners to improve these factors as their options are limited either financially or from the side of the landlord.
High energy prices: Prices of energy are easily influenced by external factors such as socio-political-technical systems, natural events, and climate change policies and measures, which can make certain groups of people more vulnerable than others.
The handbook lists vulnerability factors that refer to groups of people who are at higher risk of falling into the energy poverty trap:
In September 2022, the second edition of the Energy Poverty Handbook has been released. In the foreword, Keilani Farha, Former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing, stated that this year, the topic of housing has been challenged by the extreme heatwaves, COVID-19 pandemic, extreme increase not only in the cost of living but also construction materials, and lastly, the expected rise of energy costs by 30% as a response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. All these factors impact us all, but those suffering the most are low-income households and vulnerable groups of people. The increase in expanses “leaves many to choose between heating one’s home, turning on lights, or paying for rent or food” (p.6). Keilani calls governments and municipalities to action, noting that the energy poverty crisis is a crisis of human rights.
The handbook consists of 22 articles from organisations engaged in climate and social spheres, poverty, housing, clean energy transition, organisations working with municipalities and citizen cooperatives, and energy agencies, to name a few.
The handbook is divided into three thematic parts:
As one of the reactions, the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), one of the most influential advocacy NGOs at the EU level, provided its thoughts on how to speed up the enforcement of the EU Green Deal (driving the EU’s climate and energy actions) in a socially just manner.
EEB’s reactions addressing social justice are the followings:
In case these recommendations are being listened to, energy poverty through enhancing residential energy efficiency could be also mitigated.
Energy prices and energy poverty in Eastern Europe: Realities and Perspectives
Metropolitan Research Institute, Habitat for Humanity Hungary, FEANTSA and Habitat for Humanity International joined powers to organize a study visit and expert meeting in Budapest
to better understand the state of play of the possible adverse effects of energy efficiency measures and the energy poverty problems in Central and Eastern Europe in 2022,
and how likely it is to be impacted by current European legislation plans and energy prices increase.
The event started on July 6 with an extensive study visit mostly in the 8th district of Budapest city. The group first visited an EU-funded (Horizon 2020) RenoPont, a one-stop-shop service for residents planning energy renovation, further continued with a tour of a social housing building renovated by the 8th district of Budapest, and with a presentation and discussion at the Family and Child Welfare Service Debt Management and Housing Group of the 8th district of Budapest followed by the meeting with the housing manager from the 8th district. The program ended with another presentation and discussion led by Fanni Tóth and Gergely Schum on social housing and energy projects at the district level.
On July 7, the program continued in the format of an expert meeting consisting of two presentation sessions and one panel discussion:
Session 1: European perspectives
In session 1, Ludmila Perunska and Veronika Kiss presented the context of the residential building stock in Central and Eastern Europe and presented the two project, implemented by Habitat for Humanity International - Europe and the Middle East, tackling energy poverty in this region - REELIH and ComAct.
Session 2: The social impact of energy prices increases
Panel discussion: What policies to mitigate the social impact?
The event was concluded by a closing session on key takeaways, with a promising message that
Check out the full report with discussion summaries and event outcomes here.
The International Social Housing Festival (ISHF) 2022 took place in Helsinki, Finland, on June 14–17, and it was organized by The Housing Finance and Development Centre of Finland (ARA), the City of Helsinki and Housing Europe.
The 2022 edition of ISHF explored housing as the foundation of good life, highlighted the role of social, public, and co-operative housing in achieving socially and ecologically sustainable living in our cities now and in the future. It welcomed the international housing community – housing practitioners, policymakers, architects, researchers, and tenants – to take part in this critical conversation, ask questions and find answers together. A wide range of international and Finnish partners came together to provide a variety of seminars, site visits and workshops exploring both policy and practice of putting people first.
The Festival had 3 main topics: People first: quality of housing as quality of living; Achieving affordability and sustainability in housing; The right to housing: getting rid of the excuses not to guarantee it. The session organized by Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI) focused on owner-occupied multi-apartment building stock in Central and Eastern Europe, as a special case for the second topic with some connection to the first topic too. Owner occupiers of multi-apartment buildings are very often at risk of energy poverty, due to rising energy prices and lacking home insulation, among other factors. For this reason, HFHI was proud to talk bring out this issue and open a conversation about this specific regional challenge.
On the 15th of June 2022, HFHI presented two sessions at the National Museum in Helsinki. These sessions aimed to bring together a network of practitioners from public, private, and NGO sectors to discuss energy poverty, EU policies and their implementation at the national level, community mobilization, and scaling up the financing for the renovation of multi-apartment buildings.
The event specifically addressed the question of tenure structure and renovation of multi-apartment building stock in Central and Eastern Europe, countries of the Eastern Neighborhood and the Western Balkans and Southern Europe in the EU. Being one of the very few regional affordable housing advocates focusing on this specific region, organizing this event helped HFHI to build a stronger voice for specific challenges this region shares when it comes to affordable housing and energy poverty. Moreover, HFHI aims to widen this dialogue network by including Southern Europe into discussion as this part of Europe also shares some of the challenges, like low level of social housing and high rates of owner-occupied multi-apartment buildings.
This session focused on best practices, followed by a moderated discussion on the wider applicability of the presented best practices and joint action towards influencing EU policy-making.
Present during the session were Elena Milanovska from the Terwilliger Center for Shelter and Innovation of Habitat for Humanity International who delivered a presentation about best practices in North Macedonia originally prepared by Liljana Alceva from HFH Macedonia, Vidas Lekavicius from the Lithuanian Energy Institute, Aniko Palffy from MEHI, the Hungarian Energy Efficiency Institute, and Petra Cakovska from the Consumer Protection Society in Slovakia.
Discussing the renovation without talking about the government’s role is impossible, which is why perhaps most speakers highlighted how there is a need for the national governments to support low-income households and the renovations, as they might be caught unaware by the incoming energy transition and its changes. Because both multi-apartment buildings and older houses are often occupied by families with mixed social status and backgrounds, it is imperative that a solution would not be one-size-fits-all, but rather directly tailored to specific needs. Likewise, as communicated by Aniko Palffy and Elena Milanovska, very often the associations or owners either do not know how, or do not care about the renovations, be it because of costs, limited technical skills, lacking bank financing, administrative requirements, or a simple lack of knowledge, which one-stop-shops can often help with.
The key takeaways from this session are that financial mechanisms are very important to support the renovations, with proper planning, implementation, and collective action to incentivize lower energy consumption required to tackle energy poverty on a full scale. Furthermore, mobilizing the homeowners and associations is perhaps the most relevant part of a successful solution to this particular challenge.
This moderated panel discussion dwelt on the similarities and differences between Southern Europe and CEE, seeking to discuss the key topics such as how to address bottlenecks in the regulation of home-owner associations, what kind of social facilitation is needed to support HOAs, who should do the social facilitation and how this should be funded.
This time, the array of speakers was also very interesting, as this session aimed to bring together the representatives from different regions. From the CEE part by Knut Hoeller from IWO – The Housing Initiative for Eastern Europe and Elena Szolgayova from #Housing2030 were sharing best practices from the Baltic states and Slovakia. The Southern ideas and solutions were presented by Alice Corovessi from INZEB in Greece and by Andoni Hidalgo from the Basque Urban Agenda of the Basque Autonomous Community in Spain.
Alice Corovessi highlighted that in Greece, the multi-apartment buildings face many issues, from a lack of funds to renovate (echoed by all participants), through considering even the smallest of buildings as multi-apartment, despite housing “only” four owners. This experience was also felt by Andoni Hidalgo from the Basque region in Spain, which also experiences bottlenecks in the administration of these buildings. However, they boast some good practices such as one-stop-shops and neighborhood renovations, something like the ideas of the EU’s New European Bauhaus initiative.
The main takeaways from this session are that without proper financing for a long-term period, supported by qualified administration, renovations will not happen. As Elena Szolgayova said, stable financing and correct conditions are what helped to renovate 75% of the multi-apartment stock in Slovakia. It is also imperative that the state sets a proper financial and policy environment for these renovations to happen so that even the local communities could take it upon themselves to partner up with potential investors to make the lives of their citizens more livable.
We thank the organizers for the opportunity to contribute to the festival with own session and for putting together a rich program encouraging for further actions in the housing sector.
Find more information about the ISHF here.
Find more information about The European Responsible Housing Initiative (ERHIN) and its awards here.
The REELIH Impact Workshop, titled "Sectorial approach to scale up residential energy efficiency in Central and Eastern Europe" and organised by HFHI, took place in Falkensteiner Hotel in Bratislava, Slovakia and included various speakers, panelists, and participants from different countries.
Andrew Popelka, Senior Energy Advisor at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), who partnered with HFHI and the local implementing partners - Habitat for Humanity Macedonia, Habitat for Humanity Armenia, and ENOVA (Bosnia and Herzegovina), opened the workshop with Zita Kakalejcikova, Manager of Residential Energy Projects at HFHI early in the morning.
REELIH team prepared a set of three sessions with refreshing breaks to keep participants fully engaged. The first session tackled financing models for residential energy efficiency by introducing good practices and discussing existing bottlenecks. This session, moderated by Elena Milanovska, Associate Director of Capital Markets & Financial Inclusion at HFHI EME and Africa Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter, included speakers such as:
The next session discussed how National Building Renovation Strategies impact the renovation of the multi-apartment buildings. Moderated by Kestutis Kupsys, Member of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and Vice-president of Lithuanian Consumers Alliance (LVOA-ALCO), the session provided experience from multiple countries from the region of Central and Eastern Europe and Western Balkans, such as North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Estonia, and Lithuania in developing National Building Renovation Strategies and the successes and failures in its implementation. The speakers were:
The last session of the REELIH Impact Workshop was a bit more interactive as it asked participants to split into three breakout sessions. This allowed the participants to learn about good practices from the three implementing countries of the REELIH project, namely Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia in an original setting, through story-telling of project contributors from the three implementing countries.
This in-person meeting was a great refreshment after all the online meetings and gatherings this group of people had attended over the last two years. Even though the REELIH project is ending, we hope this group of experts will continue the established practices and meetings and secure a continuation of REELIH's core aim and mission.
For more pictures, visit our resources photo gallery.
The Right to Energy Coalition unites a network of various groups such as anti-poverty groups, social housing providers, NGOs, environmental campaigners and more, in order to find an adequate solution to energy poverty, as nearly 50 million individuals in Europe suffer from it. It is necessary to highlight the issues of energy poverty and the multi-sectoral impact it has on people, especially groups that are already in a vulnerable state, so as to make affordable energy a possibility.
To this end we are happy to announce we have become partners and members of the Coalition, working together to end energy poverty once and for all!
The Coalition aims for an energy system that puts people and planet before profit. It was formed in 2017 to advocate for energy poverty in the 2030 EU Clean Energy package. Since then, coalition members have successfully campaigned to ban disconnections, implement free of charge renovations for energy poor households and include the energy poor as key players in the EU Green Deal.
Additionally Right to Energy members have provided essential research on Who’s to Pay for a fair transition and how to secure the Right to Energy for all Europeans. Current work includes ongoing input into the EU Green Deal and energy efficiency legislation, advocacy in member states as well as local community campaigns to secure the right to energy for energy poor households during the pandemic.
Energy poverty lies at the cross-section of different issues, as a world experiencing global warming that puts people and the planet itself at risk, increasing social inequality, and an unjust energy system, make it harder for regular citizens to live happier and healthier lives.
The Right to Energy Coalition's main motto is that access to clean, affordable energy is a human right. No one should have to choose between eating, lighting or warming his or her home.
The aim is to listen and make the voices of Europe's energy poor heard. A fair energy transition for all is just one side of creating a more affordable world.
Habitat for Humanity International's vision for affordable housing and elimination of poverty has for many years now included a focus on energy poverty and energy efficiency, especially in central-eastern Europe, where these issues are very prominent and a cause for concern.
Our expertise stemming from years of working on said issue within the region through the REELIH or ComAct projects for example, together with our NOs, of whom Habitat for Humanity Bulgaria is also a partner to the Coalition, means that we firmly believe that we could hep the Right to Energy Coalition achieve its objective, by providing examples of best practice, networking opportunities and most of all, collaboration to make access to affordable energy a human right.
The New European Bauhaus initiative (the NEB initiative) connects the European Green Deal to our daily lives and living spaces. It calls on all Europeans to imagine and build together a sustainable and inclusive future that is beautiful for our eyes, minds, and souls.
We are very excited to announce that we have become partners to the NEB initiative, and cannot wait to provide our know-how and ideas for the betterment of everyone's future in the question of energy poverty.
But what is it exactly?
By creating connections, cutting across subjects and building on participation at all levels of society, the New European Bauhaus facilitates a movement to steer the transformation of our societies along three value systems:
The New European Bauhaus brings citizens, experts, businesses, and institutions together to reimagine sustainable living in Europe and beyond. Additionally, by creating a platform for experimentation and connection, the initiative supports change by also providing access to EU funding for a variety of sustainable, inclusive and most of all green projects, that can transform whole areas.
Perhaps the most important part of keeping the NEB going are partnerships. The NEB's members act as sounding boards and key actors, whose actions within their respective communities address core values and dimensions of the NEB.
The partners usually have a large capacity for outreach, with the ability to:
Nonetheless, being a partner is more than just a title, as it should be fully committed to making the NEB a reality.
Through the organization of trans-disciplinary conferences, workshops, by identifying or starting projects that enact NEB principles in real life, as well as by co-creating new sustainable living situations with communities and institutions, the New European Bauhaus can become a real experience.
Habitat for Humanity International will be committed to engaging in mutually beneficial exchanges and inputs of the initiative, sharing information, as well as managing our projects in line with NEBs values and ideas, including improving the sustainability of the residential building stock in the region, aesthetics by making buildings look nicer and more comfortable for the life of its inhabitants, taking into account the specific and complex social structures of the inhabitants living in these buildings.
With our projects, we represent Central and Eastern part of Europe, where not all countries are EU Member States, however, their historical context and building stock does not differ that much. We seek conversation between the EU and non-EU members to learn from each other and ensure the knowledge transfer to better identify the missing pieces in the process of renovating this building stock and making sure it is changed. For our work, connecting the NEB initiative to non-EU countries is essential and can be a key convening aspect for relevance of our work.
Between January 24-28, 2022, the annual Right to Energy Forum took place, an event organized by the Right to Energy Coalition.
This year's event took place online, which meant that it was very accessible and reached a lot of interested parties. The focus was on the issues of energy poverty, from the present state of affairs, with people paying disproportionally high sums for energy, to the green prospects of the future, the main message being that clean and affordable energy is a human right.
Right to Energy Coalition unites relevant stakeholders such as social housing providers, NGOs, environmental campaigners, energy cooperatives and others across Europe. They campaign to tackle energy poverty at an EU, national and local level.
The Coalition aims for an energy system that puts people and planet first. The Coalition was formed in 2017 to advocate for energy poverty in the 2030 EU Clean Energy package. Since then, coalition members have successfully campaigned to ban disconnections, implement free of charge renovations for energy poor households and include the energy poor as key players in the EU Green Deal
Current work includes working with the EU Green Deal and other energy efficiency legislation, as well as advocacy in member states, like local community campaigns to secure the right to energy for energy poor households during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Forum took place during five days, each day dealing with a different aspect of how energy related issues should be tackled. We could here from number of speakers from all sorts of institutions, not just the members of The Coalition, but also from MEPs from the European Parliament, national decision-makers, European Commission representatives and others, showcasing how relevant both the event and the discussions taking place within it were.
We would like to highlight some sessions that really pushed the envelope.
Clotilde Clark-Foulquier from FEANTSA, hosted this panel with Julien Dijol from Housing Europe, Social housing sector, Eva Suba representing ENPOR, Energy poor households in the private rented sector, Louise Sunderland speaking on behalf of the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP), Mincho Benov from our national office Habitat for Humanity Bulgaria, Sarah Coupechoux of the Abbe Pierre Foundation, and lastly Martha Myers from Friends of the Earth Europe.
This session dealt with the specific definitions of energy poverty and indecent housing, highlighting the best practices as well as new ideas in tackling energy poverty and indecent housing, such as FEANTSA’s publications “50 out of the box solutions” and “Staying on top of the wave”, both of which feature the REELIH project as a good example.
There were many ideas also on how to renovate the housing stock. The Regulatory Assistance Project for example, recommends renovating the worst performing buildings first.
Mincho Benov from Habitat for Humanity Bulgaria argued that the main issues in Bulgaria, highly corresponding with those of whole region of Central and Eastern Europe, are the high numbers of prefabricated multi-apartment buildings, extreme energy poverty and low incomes. The challenges have solutions in combining access to interest-free microfinancing for home improvements with life-skills training deliveries, tech advice and housing mediation and community support, advocacy work and campaigning to raise the awareness of the need of differentiated support focused on the poor households and secure the proper design of the residential energy efficiency programs, among others.
This panel dealt with a policy package that has been thoroughly discussed across Europe, Fit for 55, which is a part of the EU Green Deal.
This session was moderated by Clotidle Clark-Foulquier (FEANTSA) with 3 distinguished Members of the European Parliament, namely Michael Bloss (Greens, Germany) Radan Kanev (EPP, Bulgaria) and Cornelia Ernst (The Left, Germany), who brought their breadth of experience and idea onto the table.
Some of the key takeaways:
As always, it is important to know what direction the EU wants to go when it comes to policy-making, which is why this particular session was relevant.
This session was moderated by Colin Roche from Friends of the Earth Europe, a partner to the Right to Energy Coalition. Present was the EU Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, Nicolas Schmit, who welcomed all attendees and said that the green transition should be fair for all.
Present were also the president of the Transport, Energy and infrastructure of the European Economic and Cocial Committee, Baiba Miltovica, Jeppe Jansen from the Energy Poverty Advsory Hub, and representing DG ENER, one of the top EU DGs that directly deals with energy related issues, Serena Pontoglio, a team leader of the Renovation Wave implementation from DG ENER and Nikolaos Kontinakis, a policy officer at DG ENER dealing with energy efficiency, bringing their accrued experience and ideas to the panel.
The key topic discussed in this panel was how energy poverty is no longer an issue concerning only the poorest ones as even the average consumers suffer a lot in paying bills for energy heating, fuel and more.
The European Green Deal is not only about economic but also about social and environmental impact. We need to figure out how to use these tools for the people to really live better, by committing to improving isolation of their homes, finding alternative sources of energy, and becoming less dependent on fossil fuels.
Many tools within the legislative framework of Fit for 55 (such as Social Climate Fund) can really help the consumers. Many of these funds are not close to the citizens, and do not reflect the fact how difficult it is to renovate for example the multi-apartment buildings. At the same time, you must go through many formalities which slow down the process of opening up the market, understanding its importance and technical aspects for renovation of multi-apartment buildings.
Local level actions tailored to the citizens are the most important when it comes to tackling energy poverty.
Energy poverty is more than just a buzzword, it is a reality for many people living in Europe and around the world, a reality which should not be tolerated in the developed world.
This reality has now been heavily acknowledged by the European Union, and it, together with partners, is trying to tackle energy poverty head-on with new policy packages and initiatives.
However, it is all easier said than done. As written before, there are still many dimensions of the new policies, and further technical difficulties that need concentrated effort to solve them, especially within the context of multi-family apartment buildings and their renovations.
The conference organised by the European Commission took place between November 15-17, 2021, as a hybrid event with an in-person part in Brussels. Zita Kakalejcikova, Manager of Residential Energy Efficiency programs, spoke about the ComAct project and energy performance in residential buildings in the context of the New European Bauhaus initiative.
The New European Bauhaus (NEB) is an initiative targeting the incorporation of the core principles of the new European Green Deal into the construction sector while focusing on three main criteria: sustainability, aesthetics, and inclusion. The NEB's High-level Roundtable consists of 18 experts in architecture, design, engineering, but also activists who believe Europeans should live in connection with the surroundings.
Fueled by the vision of response to climate change, the NEB initiative decided to reframe the original European Bauhaus from the 1920s so that the new one is based on the restoration of connection between humans and nature, the healthy relationship with our planet and focus on communities. As the NEB's slogan says, they aim to build a beautiful, sustainable, and inclusive society.
ComAct (Community Tailored Actions for Energy Poverty Mitigation) is Habitat for Humanity's led project of all together 10 organization financed by the European Commission's Horizon2020 funding program targeting Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the regions of the former Soviet Union republics (CIS). As these regions have the most energy-poor people, ComAct is, in fact, extending the work on the issues that are already tackled by the REELIH project.
The project manager of ComAct, Zita Kakalejcikova, spoke during an event organized by the EC called LIFE in the New European Bauhaus. Zita stressed the need to focus on energy poor households in multi apartment buildings in CEE and CIS region. Her session tackled the energy performance in buildings emphasizing the need to decarbonize the building stock, which is essential to reduce emissions and meet 2030 and 2050 climate targets. As the event states, this session focused on how to scale up renovation rates while protecting cultural heritage, fighting energy poverty and harnessing the power of the community.
Speakers of the panel were:
You can watch the fruitful discussion recorded and shared on YouTube (session time: 1:32:44 – 3:04:42).
Find out more about the New European Bauhaus here and the event here.
More information about ComAct can be found on this link.
The current trend of rising energy prices is a worrying one. Not only because it means that people will have to devote more of their salaries to simply pay for energy in their homes, but also because it exacerbates the already negative trend of energy poverty.
Energy poverty as phenomenon is not a universal one. It has many definitions and sources, but one people can agree on is that it is influenced by energy prices in a rather major way, as people paying exorbitant sums for energy, leaving them less and less money for themselves each month is problematic. As a way to ameliorate his, renovations and adherence to modern energy performance standards of buildings should be a priority, at least according to organizations and projects such as ENPOR.
ENPOR is a project that aims to tackle two challenges: energy poverty in the private rental sector (PRS), and testing energy efficiency support schemes, identifying energy poor tenants and homeowners.
ENPOR plans to tackle said challenges through three main objectives, them being:
To ensure ENPOR's success, a wide variety of partners and groups have been mobilized, ranging from homeowner associations through utilities companies, to NGOs or policymakers. Among the policymakers, the EU has been a key actor, especially after the inception of the EU Green Deal, the Renovation Wave Strategy and other schemes, among which we can count the Fit for 55 legislative package, new policies and regulations to steer the EU towards a more climate aware future. This was also the key topic at ENPOR's latest Lunch Talk.
Fit for 55 presents the beginning of a new legislative direction for the EU for the upcoming years. It represents the basics of the EU Green Deal, New European Bauhaus as well as the Renovation Wave Strategy among others, all of which contribute to the larger idea. As per the EU definition:
Fit for 55 refers to the at least 55% emission reduction target which the EU has set for 2030. The proposed package aims to bring the EU’s climate and energy legislation in line with the 2030 goal.
Reducing emissions is the overall goal, and the legislative package is quite complex, as it targets many diverse sectors, such as energy, climate, transport, and housing. Obviously, energy and housing are very closely connected, which ENPOR itself picks out as the main area of interest.
To highlight a few relevant parts of the Fit for 55 package:
And these are just some of the important changes brought by the package.
At the Lunch Talk, the panel included representatives of different key stakeholders: Helene Sibileau (BPIE) Emmanuelle Causse and Emil Martini (UIPI), Louise Sunderland (RAP) as well as Gyorgy Sumeghy from Habitat for Humanity EMEA and Ina Karova from the Energy Agency of Plovdiv.
Energy efficient renovation of the existing housing stock is one of the main solutions to reduce energy poverty.
The above written was one of the main talking points of the Lunch Talk that the majority of the guests agreed on. In ENPOR's case, privately rented housing requires renovating those homes that need to overcome several existing conflicts and problems.
Fit for 55 is a very useful legislative package, however, it is also one that can have some seriously damaging consequences if not finetuned properly. According to the Commission, the Social Climate Fund, for example, will help lower the costs for those exposed to fossil fuel price increases during the transition to greener developments, but the issue is that the amount of proposed funding will be insufficient to deliver wide-spread renovations and renewables for energy poor households. As well as this the new emission trading system might also negatively impact energy pricing, making bills even pricier.
Gyorgy Sumeghy from Habitat for Humanity also contributed to the conversation, highlighting work in both REELIH and the ComAct project and saying that owner occupied multi-apartment buildings should be given the same attention as social housing in Western Europe. He proposed that it is the homeowner communities, who need to be convinced first to make the renovation happen, and that requires complex technical assistance and community facilitation. He suggested going for a lower, more sustainable subsidy schemes to incentivize people to also invest into renovation themselves, making it possible for programs to run longer.
For more information on the Lunch Talk and additional resources, please visit this site.
To see the recording of the session, please click here.