“Is individual metering socially sustainable? The case of multifamily housing in France”

Suite aux travaux qu’il a menés ces-dernières années — notamment au sein du projet EAU&3E — Bernard Barraqué a publié en juin 2011 un article dans la revue Water Alternatives, volume 4, issue 2. A l’heure où le comptage individuel des consommations d’eau et la tarification par blocs croissants sont sur toutes les lèvres, peut-être est-il nécessaire de considérer de manière précise l’impact de ces “innovations” sur l’ensemble des ménages et sur la durabilité sociale des services d’eau…

Abstract: Before generalising water metering and billing at the apartment level for consumer equity reasons, and alleviating the burden of water bills for poor families through increasing block tariffs (IBTs), Paris Council asked for some expert advice. The pros and cons of two separate issues – IBTs efficiency and justice; and individual household metering – were mixed. Our research first summarises various studies of the redistributive effects of tariff changes, first from flat rates to metering, and then from uniform prices to IBTs. We address the particular case of multifamily housing, where it is possible to retain collective billing, while relying on sub-metering to allocate the bill. The limitations of classical econometric surveys on large samples (in terms of understanding households’ strategies with tap water) support the need for supplementary detailed sociological surveys at neighbourhood or building levels, if only to check the unexpected redistributive effects of tariff changes in practice. We review the specific French situation, peculiarly in Paris, to show that individual apartment billing is more costly and tends to have regressive effects. Like other cities in France, Paris abandoned the implementation of Art. 93 of the 2000 law, which encouraged individual billing; and we explain why.

KEYWORDS: Water tariffs, metering, increasing block tariffs, multifamily housing, redistributive effects, France, Paris.

L’article est disponible en intégralité sur le site de la revue Water Alternatives, et peut-être téléchargé gratuitement.