How can landlords be motivated to invest in energy efficiency if?
How can landlords be motivated to invest in energy efficiency if their tenants pay the utility bills? To be brutally honest, you can't. My Tenants are more than welcome to take advantage of rebates and discounts on replacing incandescent bulbs with LEDs. Let them enjoy a lower electric bill (with caveats). I salute them. They can even take the LEDs with them when the move on, as long as they replace them with something comparable to the original bulb. Ya wanna know how those appartment LEDs will affect the Tennant's electric bill? Probably a few bucks $USD. In the long run their virtue signaling will actually cost them. I own a typical largish middle class house with an outbuilding. When I bought it, every single light fixture used incandescent bulbs. I replaced all of them with LED bulbs. Utility bill changed not one iota. Not only that but many of the high priced LED bulbs lasted a only a few months before they died and needed yet another expensive replacement LED bulb. Note that I have completely automated my house and outbuilding with smart switches and thermostats. I set the thermostats to the lowest possible energy usage level. Computer software and Alexa controls EVERYTHING and yet LED bulbs do next to nothing to my bottom line in the real world. Did I mention that we also replaced one of our HVAC systems with a so-called high efficiency system? Same deal, no noticable change in energy consumption. So to answer the question, landlords are not inclined to spend money where there is only virtue signaling and no actual payback on our already costly investment. Landlording is a job, not a charity.