Nearly half of the social landlords inspected lack the resources for energy renovation

According to a report published Tuesday, Ancols also found that only 12 of the 30 landlords inspected had "satisfactory knowledge" of the energy label of their properties.

On the other hand, two thirds of the social landlords inspected have "satisfactory financial capacity" to absorb the cost of the work.

This finding is based on checks carried out in 2024 on 30 landlords, representing a total of 750.000 homes, "selected because they own a significant number of energy-intensive homes," explains Ancols, defending a "prudential approach" without any desire to extrapolate to the entire sector.

The aim of these inspections was to examine the ability of social landlords to renovate their properties to comply with the deadlines of the Climate and Resilience Act, which will gradually ban the rental of the most energy-intensive housing by 2034.

"Operational capacity is the most problematic because putting together a project management team takes time," pointed out Serge Bossini, CEO of Ancols, during a press conference.

This operational capacity depends on "knowledge of the park, skills in heritage programming and, above all, project management, namely the assembly and monitoring of operations," explains Ancols.

In addition to improving knowledge of the performance of the fleet and deploying tools dedicated to renovation, the control body recommends "prioritizing targeted aid for operators whose need for financial support is identified, instead of aid for the operation."

In a right of reply addressed to Ancols, the federations of public housing offices (OPH), social housing enterprises (ESH) and the Social Union for Housing (USH) criticize the methodology of the report and its small and non-representative sample.

USH believes that the parameters used to examine financial capacity do not take into account the increase in the cost of the work and the long-term dimension of the renovation plans.

The recommendation to share project management activities between lessors "cannot be the only solution, and even less so a solution that justifies avoiding financing the renovation of social housing," the USH judges.

The most energy-intensive housing, with an F or G label, represents 7,4% of the social housing stock, half as much as in the private sector, and 16% of housing is classified E, considered indecent from 2034.