Winners all round as renters get the chance to go green

They found that tenancy periods grew 400 per cent when properties received an energy efficiency upgrade. There were other benefits: installing ceiling insulation cut respiratory-related illnesses in half.

With this in mind — and a desire to help people reduce their carbon footprint — six volunteers last year banded together under the banner Just Change to address what they saw as a gap in government energy efficiency programs.

The result is a pilot scheme that will help 10 low-income renting households make up to $2000 worth of energy efficiency improvements to their landlords' houses, cutting both electricity bills and greenhouse emissions.

Proposed upgrades include bringing in insulation and incandescent light globes and draught-proofing doors, windows and cracked walls. Owners get improvements for free. In return, they agree not to put up the rent for at least a year.

With estimated annual savings of about $350 per household, Just Change spokeswoman Michaela Long said she hoped the program — which is backed by Sustainability Victoria and the Real Estate Institute of Victoria — would eventually be expanded to include as many households that rely on health care cards as possible. Footscray resident Nick Ray will use the program to draught-proof and insulate the house his family has rented for five years. His family are a part of CRAG — a carbon-rationing action group in the western suburbs that sets itself emissions targets — and have cut their water usage by 40 litres a day, but their environmental plans had previously hit a ceiling because they did not own their house.

"These are things we had thought about but never thought would be able to do in a rental," he said.