Properly allocating CO₂ costs

Since January 2023, landlords have been required to bear a portion of the CO₂ costs associated with fossil fuels. But how are the landlord's and tenant's shares calculated? And how will this affect heating bills? Minol has the answers.

Leinfelden-Echterdingen, April 2023: The German government introduced the CO₂ tax in January 2021 as part of the Fuel Emissions Trading Act, applying to fuels such as heating oil and natural gas. The tax affects companies that market these fuels. Germany aims to incentivize greater climate protection with this tax, as the fewer climate-damaging technologies companies use, the lower their CO₂ tax burden. Affected companies pass the tax on to end consumers. This has increased the price of products like heating oil and natural gas. All households that heat with heating oil, natural gas, and the district heating generated from these fuels are affected. Previously, landlords could pass on the resulting costs to tenants entirely through the utility bill. However, since January 1, 2023, the Carbon Dioxide Cost Allocation Act (CO₂KostAufG) has been in effect. This law regulates the distribution of CO₂ costs between landlords and tenants and applies to heating bills whose billing period begins on or after this date. Minol assists its customers in calculating costs, determines the tenant's share and shows this accordingly on the heating bill.

Determining the landlord's and tenant's share

The distribution of CO₂ costs between landlords and tenants depends on the building's energy efficiency. With the new regulations, the legislature has introduced a 10-tier model that governs the cost sharing between landlords and tenants: the better the building's energy efficiency, the lower the landlord's share of the CO₂ costs. Until 2022, tenants had to bear the entire cost alone, even if CO₂ costs were high due to poor building insulation. With this new system, the German government aims to incentivize climate-friendly renovations and make landlords more accountable. So far, this model only applies to residential buildings. For non-residential buildings, the costs must initially be shared equally by both parties. A tiered model is also planned for non-residential buildings in the future. According to the German Association for Energy and Water Data Management (bved, formerly the Working Group on Heating and Water Cost Distribution – ARGE HeiWaKo), the law does not yet apply to homeowners' associations. In the event that owners of a community nevertheless rent out apartments, Minol offers the option of printing the landlord's share on the individual statements in text form.

Showing the costs in the heating bill

Even though the building owner is responsible for the CO₂ classification, it can sometimes be difficult for them to perform the classification themselves. That's why Minol supports its customers: During the annual cost calculation for the heating bill, the service provider now also requests the information necessary for cost allocation. This includes the CO₂ emissions and CO₂ costs from the energy supplier's bill, as well as the building's living area (one-time only). The area used in the heating bill is not always identical to the building's living area, but this is needed to determine the energy efficiency. Minol uses this data to determine the CO₂ classification and the share that all tenants share. Finally, the costs are distributed to the individual households via a separate line item in the heating bill.

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