Using conflicts to uncover injustices in energy transitions: The case of social impacts of energy efficiency policies in the housing sector in Germany

Energy efficiency in the housing stock has been praised as a win-win strategy reducing end energy use for heating and alleviating energy poverty. However, policies to foster energy efficiency improvements have led to rising protests and conflicts because investments made into retrofitting became a means of speculation and displacement of low-income residents. Conflict theory emphasises the role of conflicts as drivers of social change; they open a window into how and by whom the legitimacy of existing rules and government is challenged. The paper uses social conflict theory to interpret the conflicting interests and issues at stake here. It concludes that what seemed to be a conflict between social and ecological goals, turns out to be a distributional conflict around affordable housing and against unjust distributions of cost burdens of energy transitions. The manifest conflicts between tenants and the housing industries were caused – or enabled – through the specific policy context. The state had imposed new norms for energy standards of buildings and left their economic consequences to be solved in the conflicts between housing companies and tenants. The legitimacy of these policies was challenged, especially the actual ecological effects – and thus the intention to reach the climate mitigation goals of the German government – are disputed. The conflicts described here stimulated the formation of interest groups, contributed to social movements and raised awareness to the social impacts of energy efficiency policies. Thus, the paper shows how much a clearer engagement of sustainability transition literature with conflicts and conflict theory is needed to better address justice issues in energy transitions. •The legitimacy of housing energy efficiency policies is challenged through emerging conflicts.•Conflicts are valuable for research on justice within sustainability transitions as they are a window into conflicting goals. within sustainability transitions as they are a window into conflicting goals.•Housing energy efficiency policies in Germany caused a distributional conflict on injust cost burdens of energy transitions. a distributional conflict on unjust cost burdens of energy transitions.