Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards: Delivering for Tenants
What is needed from the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards to deliver the health, fuel poverty and comfort outcomes needed for renters?
Private renters are currently facing a perfect storm of cost increases with the price of food, rents, and energy bills all rising. Tenants have little power to build financial resilience.
On top of this, poor fabric efficiency means many tenants are living with damp, mould and excessive cold or extreme heat, putting their health and wellbeing at risk. Beyond the personal impacts poor quality housing can have on budgets, health and wellbeing, one in five social workers have seen children removed from their family due to unsafe housing conditions such as damp and mould.
Our new report sets out practical recommendations to help the Government’s proposed minimum energy efficiency regulations deliver real, lasting improvements for tenants in the private rented sector.
The report proposes a clear framework built around two priorities to ensure MEES delivers meaningful change:
1. Ambitious targets
The proposed minimum requirements may not be high enough to drive meaningful improvements across the sector. In addition, the number of exemptions currently proposed risks significantly reducing the overall impact of the policy.
2. Outcomes monitoring
At present, there are no systems in place to assess whether upgrades are delivering the intended results. Without some form of outcome monitoring, there is a risk that measures installed in homes may not lead to the anticipated improvements in energy efficiency, health, or wellbeing.
Please take a look at the report below to find out more.
Our report was produced in response to the MEES consultation for the private rented sector. The Government has since released a consultation for MEES in the social rented sector. The findings and recommendations in this report will also be useful to those developing policy for the social rented sector.
