Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

Incentives and who pays the bills

• Landlords often have little reason to invest: they don’t pay the utilities, tax credits only cover a fraction of materials, and some work requires empty units or rehousing tenants.
• Tenants usually pay utilities but lack authority, capital, or tenure certainty to justify big upgrades to someone else’s asset.
• Many upgrades (insulation, windows) are only practical between tenancies, which further weakens incentives.

Costs, ROI, and practicality of efficiency work

• Anecdotes show major savings from upgrades: e.g., a failed fridge replaced halved electric bills; a DIY basement insulation project roughly cut bills in half.
• When realistic labor is included, payback periods stretch to ~7+ years; many renters don’t stay that long.
• Insulation and structural work are disruptive and expensive; appliance swaps are cheap and standardized, so those are far more likely.

Market structure, rent control, and regulation

• One camp blames constrained housing supply and regulation (including rent control) for landlords’ lack of competitive pressure to upgrade.
• Others argue markets alone don’t deliver efficiency (citing fuel economy and EVs) and point to the need for standards and enforcement.
• Rent control is seen as both:
  • A reason landlords let units degrade or resist improvements.
  • A mechanism that lets long-term tenants justify self-funded upgrades.
• Examples from EU/UK/NZ: mandatory energy certificates and minimum ratings, though old housing stock and “no partial credit” rules make higher standards hard to reach.

Renter constraints and information problems

• Many renters prioritize making rent and food over efficiency concerns, even though they pay utilities.
• Shared utilities and limited control over major loads (heating, hot water, appliances) restrict how much they can save through behavior alone.
• It’s hard to know energy costs before signing; some places allow requesting past utility bills, but this is not universal. Several commenters favor mandatory disclosure.

Tenant-side workarounds and broader politics

• Some long-term or rent-controlled tenants do DIY upgrades or negotiate “materials-only” deals with landlords.
• Plug-in “balcony solar” is discussed as a renter-friendly option: common in Germany, emerging in a few US jurisdictions, but constrained by sun exposure, wiring limits, and code.
• A political thread frames landlordism as structurally adversarial and advocates large-scale public housing to set standards and discipline the private market.