Energy Efficiency and Circular Economy in Sustainable Net-Zero Retrofitting of Buildings

Dear Colleagues,

Retrofitting buildings to net-zero is urgent and challenging. It is urgent because existing buildings form much of the building stock and contribute to significant carbon emissions worldwide. Due to accelerated climate change, where we saw the average global temperature rise 1.6 °C above the preindustrial level in 2024 and surpass the 1.5 °C limit set at the Paris Agreement, we now need to accelerate and scale up the retrofit process. Retrofitting is challenging, due to technical and financial complexities coming together in retrofit projects. The main technical complexity arises from designing and evaluating the best options for retrofitting while the financial complexity arises from deciding how to pay for it. These complexities are scaled up considerably by national carbon targets across the world, resulting in millions of buildings that need to be retrofitted per year. This Special Issue explores how we might automate retrofit design and deploy circular economy and complementary currencies to unlock the potential of local communities. Modelling and simulation are already used for retrofit design, and the automation might include AI applications that work with the models. Circular economy can facilitate informed decision-making processes about the end of life of building systems and components, and their associated value chains and complementary currency models can use natural resources, such as solar energy, as value generators.

The scope of this Special Issue is therefore wide-ranging, and it welcomes contributions from multiple disciplines, such as engineering, architecture, computer science, and others, all coming together to address the complexity and urgency of retrofit of buildings to net-zero performance.

The scope of this Special Issue, titled ‘Energy Efficiency and Circular Economy in Sustainable Net-Zero Retrofitting of Buildings’, is wide-ranging, and it welcomes contributions from multiple disciplines, such as engineering, architecture, computer science, and others, all coming together to address the retrofitting of buildings for net-zero performance.

The overall focus is to address the urgency and complexity of net-zero retrofitting of buildings. Due to accelerated climate change, where we saw the average global temperature to rise 1.6 °C above the preindustrial level in 2024 and surpass the 1.5 °C limit set at the Paris Agreement, and considering that millions of buildings need to be retrofitted to bring climate change under control, we now need to accelerate and scale up the retrofit process. The scope includes automation of retrofit design, including simulation and IA, and deployment of circular economy and complementary currencies to create the conditions for scaling up the volume of retrofit across the globe. The purpose of this Special Issue is to provide an increased understanding of how retrofit projects can be accelerated and scaled up. Whilst case studies of bespoke retrofit projects exist in the literature, the ambition for this Special Issue is in providing new insights into the ways of taking retrofitting to another level.

Prof. Dr. Ljubomir Jankovic
Dr. Juan Ferriz-Papi
Guest Editors

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• net-zero retrofit
• circular economy
• modelling and simulation
• AI