Thermal filters: Around 300,000 social housing units are F or G rated, according to research.

Around 300,000 social housing units, or 6% of the social housing stock, had an F or G energy label for thermal filters as of 1 January 2022, according to research by the National Agency for Social Housing Monitoring (Ancols) published on Tuesday. According to this study, 1% of the social housing stock, or about 50,000 housing units, was labeled G, the least efficient, and 5% was labeled F.

Social landlords are not exempt from the timetable set by the Climate and Sustainability Act 2021, which plans to ban the rental or re-letting of the most energy-intensive housing: G-labeled housing from 2025, followed by F in 2028 and E in 2034. According to this research, the E represents 15% of the social housing stock, consisting of approximately five million housing units.

More than two thirds of homes are labeled C (33%) or D (38%), while the most efficient energy classes are very underrepresented, with 1% of A homes and 5% of B homes respectively, the vast majority of which were built after 2010.

Thermal filters are less common in the southern and western departments.

Energy retrofitting of housing is essential to achieving France’s greenhouse gas emissions targets while delivering significant energy savings. Smaller social housing properties are more likely to be thermal sieves (8% of T1 homes classified as F or G), an energy efficiency diagnostic calculation method that penalizes small areas. Individual housing, which is rare in social housing, was also hit harder (11%), Ancols said.

Thermal filters are much less common in the southern and western departments of France. One reason is that social housing appeared later in these areas on average, but that is not enough to explain the difference, Ancols said, without elaborating on possible additional reasons.