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Germany aims to achieve climate neutrality in its residential building stock by 2050. It is on track for this with newbuilds, through mandating tight energy efficiency standards. However, it lags more than 50 % behind its climate goals for energy-efficiency upgrading of existing buildings. Further, the costs of upgrading often fall on tenants, through legally permitted post-upgrade rent increases that are too high to be offset by energy savings. This paper reports on a set of interviews and discussions with a panel of experts/stakeholders, exploring how these climate goals can be met without economically disadvantaging low-income tenants. A key finding is that the governance of this transition is weak, including both “hard” governance, through laws, regulations and sanctions, and “soft” governance, through corporate and cultural drivers of energy efficiency renovation. A hybrid between these two, corporate social …