Green Landlords Project

BC Sustainable Energy's Green Landlords Project is developing ways of enabling residential landlords and tenants to invest in energy and water efficiency upgrades and encourage more sustainable behaviour.

Phase I of the Green Landlords Project involved researching and identifying ways to improve energy efficiency and conservation behaviour. Several intertwined issues that make addressing energy in rental housing is a complex problem: Market barriers, split-incentives, multiple government authorities, jurisdictions and interests, ...

Rental housing is also under-served by funding programs for energy efficiency.

Solutions to these challenges are tackled in the body of the Phase I report, Green Landlords: Solving the Rubik's Cube of Energy Efficiency in Rental Housing (below).

Split-incentives run through the core of the landlord/tenant relationship, making savings are hard to capture. There are two predominant forms of the split incentive, both of which may deter investment in energy efficiency:

1. The tenants pay the energy costs directly, and building owners have no financial interest in reducing energy costs;
2. The landlords pay the energy bills, so tenants have no financial incentive to conserve, which undermines investments in energy efficiency.

The Green Landlords Project offers a holistic approach that champions all rental housing. We propose an integrated approach – the Green Landlords Model – that would co-ordinate energy efficiency programs and initiatives for rental homes through one dedicated agency, and enable greater market investment in energy efficiency upgrades in rental homes.