BUILDING POWER ACROSS BORDERS
Transforming homes, protecting lives: tenants everywhere are rising for renovations that are just, affordable, and democratic
Why tenants are fighting for just renovations
Across multiple countries, organizations are building a tenants’ movement that connects the struggle for safe, affordable housing with the urgency of the climate crisis. Energy-leaky, unhealthy homes are both a social injustice today and a climate threat tomorrow.
To make renovation truly beneficial for the people who live in these buildings, four conditions are essential: security, affordability, health, and democracy.
Security against evictions
No tenant should lose their home because of renovation. Fighting renovictions and green gentrification is the first defense line of a just transition.
Affordability and fair rents
Renovations must be treated as maintenance, not a pretext for rent hikes. In places like Germany, tenant unions challenge legal frameworks that let landlords profit from “energy modernisation.”
Health and habitability first
In cities like Charleroi, tenants cannot talk about insulation without addressing mold, dampness, or structural hazards. Energy upgrades must be embedded in a broader demand for safe, healthy homes.
Democratic control over the works
From Lyon to Toronto, tenants demand oversight and decision-making power to prevent inadequate, incomplete, or cosmetic renovations that fail to meet their actual needs.
Fighting for renovations that protect people, improve daily life, and reduce carbon emissions, without sacrificing tenants’ rights.
How tenant unions build power to win just renovations
A strategic vision only becomes real through day-to-day organising: building tenant groups, targeting the worst buildings, and escalating pressure until renovations are won on just terms. ACORN affiliates are already experimenting with concrete methods that turn abstract demands into victories.
Mapping and targeting leaky homes
Using tools like DPE data (France), energy contract analysis (Germany), or manually built micro-databases, organisers identify priority buildings and reveal systemic energy injustice.
Door-to-door organising
Six key questions to surface issues, build commitment, and recruit leaders—tenant unions create collective power at the scale of each building.
Forming tenant groups and collective bargaining Units
Organised groups submit united demands to landlords, shifting negotiations from individual complaints to collective pressure.
Combining technical and legal expertise
Thermal engineers, energy experts, and lawyers strengthen campaigns, providing credibility and counter-expertise when landlords hide behind technical arguments.
Escalating collective action
Petitions, banners, public meetings, media pressure, office occupations, and, when necessary, rent strike threats all help force landlords and authorities to deliver just renovations.
Tenants' stories
Members of Tenants4Climate
CaroLocataires Ensemble
Locataires Ensemble
Re-Set in Czech Republic
RWDH in Belgium
Soziale Wärmwende in Berlin
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Tenants4Climate est un programme d’échange et de formation soutenu par Erasmus+