The issues of sustainability, climate protection and social justice are inextricably linked. But whether it's the phase-out of the Rhenish mining area, the heat transition’s impacts on the rental sector or carbon pricing mechanisms, the transformation to a carbon-neutral society must not exert an undue burden on low-income households. Instead, the load must be fairly distributed: new prospects and opportunities to participate created by the transformation must be made accessible to all, thereby fostering social acceptance of the necessary chance processes. The Wuppertal Institute's research confirms that implementing carbon pricing without social compensation mechanisms – such as climate and transformation grants or subsidies – would result in regressive distribution effects. Such policies would exert a greater burden on people with low incomes, relative to their financial means, than on the wealthy.

Short-term relief measures implemented to mitigate high energy prices – such as energy price caps and petrol price discounts – fall short and frequently fail to relieve the burden on those most in need of support.

Long-term reductions in mobility poverty and energy poverty will require long-term, structural solutions. This is why the Wuppertal Institute examines issues including socially equitable planning of municipal heating systems; improving German government support for energy-efficient retrofitting measures; and innovative approaches such as fair, all-inclusive rental models, convenient and affordable local public transport systems and socially equitable pricing models for basic energy supplies. If local authorities' plans for energy supply systems and mobility networks are to avoid leaving financially vulnerable households and low-income neighbourhoods behind, while simultaneously improving participation, they must integrate social criteria and targeted, tailored measures from the outset.

However, social aspects must also be considered in relation to climate change adaptation, not least because low-income households often live in areas most impacted by climate change. In urban areas, it is particularly important to protect children and elderly people during periods of extremely high temperatures – which raises the need for climate-resilient urban development.

The ideal choice is to implement measures that deliver positive effects at different levels. The Wuppertal Institute explicitly seeks to identify synergy effects and develop co-benefits of climate protection and climate adaptation measures. For example, thermal insulation in buildings links climate protection (avoiding greenhouse gas emissions) with climate adaptation, because effective insulation protects against heat in summer while reducing energy demand – and, by extension, carbon emissions – in winter. In this era of climate change, however, protecting critical infrastructure and particularly vulnerable groups (i.e. hospital patients and nursing home residents) is also a high priority.