Building the Green Transition : EU’s Renovation Wave in Swedish Rental Housing through Four Scale Levels

Sammanfattning

The European Union has addressed energy waste within the housing and building sector through initiating the Renovation Wave, which aims to enhance renovations toward energy efficiency in housing. However, the directive raises questions about potential social costs in the rental housing market. Thus, this study aims to investigate the Renovation Wave from EU directive down to implementation level within the Swedish rental sector and understand how economic, environmental and social goals are interconnected and which trade-offs are inherent to interpretation across scale levels. Based on theoretical concepts like sustainability, financialisation, and eco-modernism, the study uses text analyses of documents from EU to Swedish national and municipal level to understand the translation process of goals and semi-structured interviews to understand how rental companies interpret and implement directives from said administrative levels. Findings indicate both similarities and misalignments between the goals across scale levels and their implementation. It is concluded that a revaluation of incompatible sustainability goals is needed across scale levels, alongside a shared view on where the responsibility for the green transition in housing is laid and a recognition of energy poverty as a problem in the Swedish rental housing context.