Study 9.9.2025

Info sheet: Tenants Organising for Just Renovations

Across Europe, it‘s not only the temperatures dramatically rising, it’s the rents, too. Tenants often live in precarious conditions and spend a significant portion of their incomes on basic needs, such as housing. Many of their homes are in bad shape – due to heat waves, they’re almost impossible to live in during summer and winter, on the other hand, means high energy bills for heating. Decarbonisation of housing is a necessity in order to mitigate climate crisis and to improve the lives of tenants already living in precarious conditions. The goal is to achieve socially just housing renovations without the costs falling on the shoulders of the vulnerable. In 2024, four organisations got together and took a step towards strengthening already existing alliances while also creating new ones across housing and climate initiatives.

In the beginning of 2025, we kicked off our common project with a series of Tenants Organising for Just Renovations webinars. The aims of the webinars were to compare various national and local policies in the four European countries; inspire each other in different activist approaches towards socially just renovations; share our skills, challenges and lessons learned; emphasize the connection between climate justice and housing rights movements and call for further actions to achieve safe, dignified and affordable living conditions.

In France, Locataires Ensemble has been organising tenants for ten years, focusing on people living in the so-called “energy leaky homes”.

In Germany, Soziale Wärmewende facilitates interconnections between climate justice and tenants’ movements, developing communication tools to gain support from both sides and organise tenant initiatives with the help of climate activists.

In the Czech Republic, the platform Re-set explores the possibilities of community energy accessible to low income households and supports the collective Tenants Initiative in its efforts.

In Belgium, Carolocataires Ensemble gathers tenants to exercise their rights to live in healthy homes free of mould.

The output from the webinars is an info sheet summarizing the most important information and findings.
However, you can also watch recordings of the webinars on our YouTube channel!

Study

Info sheet: Tenants Organising for Just Renovations

9.9.2025 Across Europe, it‘s not only the temperatures dramatically rising, it’s the rents, too. Tenants often live in precarious conditions and spend a significant portion of their incomes on basic needs, such as housing. Many of their homes are in bad shape – due to heat waves, they’re almost impossible to live in during summer and winter, on the other hand, means high energy bills for heating. Decarbonisation of housing is a necessity in order to mitigate climate crisis and to improve the lives of tenants already living in precarious conditions. The goal is to achieve socially just housing renovations without the costs falling on the shoulders of the vulnerable. In 2024, four organisations got together and took a step towards strengthening already existing alliances while also creating new ones across housing and climate initiatives.

Event

Tenants Organising for Just Renovations - online skillshares

25.2.2025 All around Europe people are facing an unprecedented housing crisis. The rents are rising while the quality of housing is decaying. People already witness and feel the climate crisis, often living in apartments that are too hot for the first half of the year and too cold for the second. Heating and cooling of our homes constitutes a major part of overall energy consumption - it is pricey and it fastens the climate collapse, as most of the energy used still comes from burning fossil fuels. Mass scale energy efficient renovations are needed, but they often lead to rent increase and tenants losing their homes.

Event

We invite you to film screenings about housing crisis!

9.10.2023 Housing, as a basic human right, is increasingly unaffordable and treated as an investment. This significantly affects the quality of life of people in cities and impacts on all of us.