Housing renovation: the urgency of changing gear!

We are accelerating and amplifying our initiatives. By supporting, particularly financially, co-owners, owners of individual houses, in particular the most modest, social landlords, but also our businesses, our hoteliers, our VSE-SMEs... in ambitious building renovation programs, in supporting the use of biosourced and ecological materials, the use of renewable and local energies, thereby boosting economic activity and local employment, but also restoring purchasing power and greater value to real estate. By deploying renewable heat networks.

The solutions are known

We do it out of conviction, out of pragmatism, but also out of necessity. Out of conviction, out of pragmatism, but also out of necessity at a time when the building sector is the source of 25% of greenhouse gas emissions. Also at a time when more than 3 million households in our country, that is to say nearly 12% of the population, are in a situation of energy poverty, devoting more than 8% of their income to paying their energy bill. Also at a time when the deadlines for banning the sale or rental of thermal strainers are approaching.

Out of conviction, out of pragmatism, but also out of necessity at a time when all the studies commissioned by governments as well as the parliamentary reports devoted to the issue have concluded and recommended more or less the same things for years, namely:

• Massive funding for aid for overall renovation operations, prioritizing precarious households and the most ambitious works.
• Aim for zero or minimum out-of-pocket costs for the most modest and advance public aid in such a way as to facilitate ambitious renovations, accessible to all, without weighing on the daily budget of our fellow citizens. According to the Abbé Pierre Foundation, the remainder payable by the most modest would currently be around 39% for an overall renovation. Not all communities and intercommunalities are able to plug such a hole. At such a level, who can be surprised that at the current rate it would take more than 2000 years to renovate the country's thermal sieves?

The solutions are known:

• Stabilize aid over time.
• Promote a balanced and resilient energy mix, in particular by promoting the development of heating networks. In this sense, the Heat Fund is intended to be strengthened.
• Make the energy performance diagnosis (DPE) more reliable and the obligation to have one for any request for help while continuing the professionalization of diagnosticians.
• Restore the attractiveness of the construction professions, encourage recruitment in dedicated professional training, professionalize them even more while fighting further against fraud, so as to improve the image of a sector as a whole, to create the many jobs necessary for this sector which is struggling to recruit, and therefore to keep up with the pace of construction sites while demand is only increasing with the explosion in energy prices. Without enough craftsmen and professionals, there will be no acceleration of renovation!

“An imperative for the energy transition and social justice, an opportunity for employment and local economic dynamism”

• Strengthen the unfailing support, in urban as in rural or mountain environments, from France Rénov counters and guides, that is to say neutral, free and independent advice, while creating the conditions for articulation and close collaboration between these advisors and Ma Prime Rénov instructors.

All these solutions are known, said and repeated. We must activate them all, resolutely, without compromising. I support all of these solutions nationally and implement them locally in the Grenoble metropolis. Others need to be thought about, proposed, debated.

Tribune by Christophe Ferrari, President of Grenoble Alpes Métropole (LinkedIn).