Too many citizens who desperately need to make their homes more sustainable are stuck. They have to wait for the landlord or do not have enough money themselves to continue. Help them, say Nadja Jungmann and Arjan Vliegenthart.
Europe wants to be climate neutral by 2050. A noble goal, but wrongly, the transition from fossil to renewable energy is largely an individual task. The transition cannot be financed for a substantial group of citizens.
Given the collective interest, there should be a collective approach that is the first to provide households living in energy poverty with the necessary sustainability.
In the discussion about the affordability of the energy transition, a number of figures stand out. First of all, around 600,000 households suffer from energy poverty. This group has a low income, high energy costs and lives in a house that is not well insulated. Between 2020 and 2022, their numbers increased by about 90,000. In addition, there are approximately 1.4 million households that cannot become more sustainable themselves. They are dependent on a landlord for sustainability or do not have the resources as homeowners.
Major interventions
Of the 244,000 households that live in homes that require major interventions, approximately half rent and the other half live in an owner-occupied home.
Corporations are committed to making all homes with an e-, f- or g-label more sustainable by 2028. To ensure that tenants benefit, they will not receive a rent increase after insulation measures. Homeowners are encouraged with subsidies to also focus on sustainability. These are useful tools that encourage movement in the right direction.
At the same time, many households will still be financially strapped in the coming years because their rental home is not yet ready for rent or because they do not have the financial space to make their owner-occupied home more sustainable. Anyone who rents and it is not yet their turn has no options to accelerate. And those who do not have the money to make sustainability cannot benefit from subsidies that reimburse part of the costs. In both cases, citizens are really in a financial pinch.
Not just for everyone to pay for
A year ago, the National Ombudsman also criticized this situation. In his report he notes that the energy transition is certainly not affordable for everyone and that structural solutions are needed quickly.
According to the Ombudsman, municipalities do their best to help people with a rental home or an owner-occupied home (but with a limited budget). Think of information campaigns, energy coaches and tools such as draft excluders and energy-efficient lamps. That is well intentioned, but not sufficient. Certainly not when you consider that municipalities often do not reach the citizens who need sustainability most.
Research by the Scientific Council for Government Policy shows that support for climate policy decreases if people who are already struggling with their social security are financially affected. Yet the current approach to the energy transition does not sufficiently take this into account. Too many people have to wait until landlords become more sustainable and homeowners without resources have little perspective. Not everyone has the financial space to wait for this.
It would therefore be good if there was a collective approach that provided all homes with the necessary measures, with those households that are currently financially strapped being the first to be addressed.
Nadja Jungmann is a lecturer and special professor of debt problems
Utrecht University of Applied Sciences and UvA;
Arjan Vliegenthart is director of Nibud