Explore the basics of the EU ETS
About the Social Climate Fund
The Social Climate Fund (SCF) was created alongside the ETS2, the EU s emissions trading system covering fuel combustion in buildings, road transport and additional sectors. The primary goal of the SCF is to alleviate the social and economic impacts arising from the ETS2, ensuring a fair transition to climate neutrality. To achieve this, the SCF will provide EU Member States with dedicated funding to directly support the most affected vulnerable groups, notably households in energy or transport poverty, making sure they are not left behind in the transition to a cleaner economy. The SCF will support people all around the EU. Member States may use the SCF to support structural measures and investments in energy efficiency and renovation of buildings, clean heating and cooling and integration of renewable energy, as well as for zero- and low-emission mobility solutions. Member States will also have the option of spending part of the resources on temporary direct income support. To access funding, Member States will draft national Social Climate Plans that list and explain all planned measures and investments in support of vulnerable households, transport users, and micro-enterprises. The plans should be based on a country-wide consultation of local and regional authorities, representatives of economic and social partners, civil society, and youth organisations, as well as other stakeholders. This is to ensure that the measures and investments mentioned in the plans will adequately target and effectively support the most vulnerable groups. Member States are to submit their plans to the European Commission by June 2025.
The Commission will assess them and disburse payments to Member States only if the milestones and targets set in the plans are achieved. To finance these measures and investments in support of the most vulnerable groups, the SCF will pool revenues from the auctioning of allowances from the ETS2 as well as 50 million allowances from the existing EU ETS. Together with a mandatory 25% contribution of the Member States to their Social Climate Plans, the SCF should mobilise at least EUR 86.7 billion of public funding over the 2026-2032 period. Implementation of the Social Climate Fund
To enable the implementation of the Social Climate Fund (SCF), Member States have identified the authorities responsible for the preparation of their Social Climate Plans. To facilitate process, the Commission launched a dedicated initiative to help Member States develop their plans under the Technical Support Instrument. 10 Member States (Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Greece, Finland, Croatia, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, and Slovakia) are being supported through this instrument over the 2024-2025 period. Through a dedicated formation for the SCF of the Commission Expert Group on Climate Change Policy (CCEG-SCF), the Commission enables a regular exchange of views with Member States on the preparation of the Fund. The Commission has published guidance documents on the SCF:
Good practices for the Social Climate Plans
To facilitate this exchange of views and mobilise all stakeholders, the Commission has published several documents on good practices for drafting Social Climate Plans and for the general preparation of the Fund. Find out more about these good practices. Public consultation on the DNSH technical guidance to the Social Climate Fund
Have your say on the application of the Do No Significant Harm (DNSH) principle to the Social Climate Fund (SCF) check out our targeted public consultation on the topic! Documentation
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