Search Results (364)

Renovating existing buildings is a key strategy for achieving the EU’s climate targets, as over 75% of the current building stock is energy inefficient. This study evaluates the environmental impacts of three façade renovation scenarios for an office building at the Technical University in Zvolen (Slovakia) using a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach. The aim is to quantify and compare these impacts based on material selection and its influence on sustainable construction. The analysis focuses on key environmental indicators, including global warming potential (GWP), abiotic depletion (ADE, ADF), ozone depletion (ODP), toxicity, acidification (AP), eutrophication potential (EP), and primary energy use (PERT, PENRT). The scenarios vary in the use of insulation materials (glass wool, wood fibre, mineral wool), façade finishes (cladding vs. render), and window types (aluminium vs. wood–aluminium). Uncertainty analysis identified GWP, AP, and ODP as robust decision-making categories, while toxicity-related results showed lower reliability. To support integrated and transparent comparison, a composite environmental index (CEI) was developed, aggregating characterisation, normalisation, and mass-based results into a single score. Scenario C–2, featuring an ETICS system with mineral wool insulation and wood–aluminium windows, achieved the lowest environmental impact across all categories. In contrast, scenarios with traditional cladding and aluminium windows showed significantly higher impacts, particularly in fossil fuel use and ecotoxicity. The findings underscore the decisive role of material selection in sustainable renovation and the need for a multi-criteria, context-sensitive approach aligned with architectural, functional, and regional priorities. Full article

With the intensification of urbanization, resulting in the growing building stock, building operations have become the main contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. However, the relationship between urban form and carbon emissions remains unclear, which limits the sustainable development of cities. This study reviews the definition of carbon sources, data characteristics, and evaluation methods of carbon emissions. In addition, the impact of urban form on building carbon emissions at the macro, meso, and micro scales is reviewed, and low-carbon design strategies for urban form are discussed. Finally, the existing problems in this field are pointed out, and future research directions are proposed. Our review found that small and medium-sized compact cities tend to have less carbon emissions, while large cities and megacities with compact urban forms have more carbon emissions. The carbon reduction design of urban form at the meso scale is often achieved by improving the microclimate. Developing a research framework for the impact mechanism of building carbon emissions in a coordinated manner with multi-scale urban forms can effectively promote the development of low-carbon sustainable cities. This review can assist urban planners and energy policymakers in selecting appropriate methods to formulate and implement low-carbon city analysis and planning projects based on limited available resources. Full article

The architectural, engineering, construction, and operation (AECO) sector is one of the main contributors to energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in Europe, making the renovation of the existing building stock a priority. However, defining effective and economically sustainable interventions remains a challenge, partly due to the variability of building characteristics and the lack of digital tools to support data-driven decision making. This research aims to identify the main factors influencing the energy consumption of buildings by analyzing a large database of building characteristics using machine learning algorithms. Based on the parameters that the analysis shows to have the greatest impact, the average cost of energy retrofitting measures will be used to elaborate a cost–benefit analysis model and the economic payback time for each measure, individually or in combination. The expected result is the creation of a tool that will allow the operator to evaluate the choice of interventions based on the energy efficiency that can be achieved and/or the economic sustainability. The proposed methodology aims to provide a digital approach that is replicable and adaptable to different territorial realities and useful for strategic planning of energy transformation in the building sector. Full article

The seismic risk assessment of large building stocks is crucial for informed asset management in earthquake-prone regions, providing decision-support for retrofit intervention planning. Many existing methodologies focus on a single structural typology or asset class (e.g., ordinary buildings or industrial facilities), thus limiting their applicability to mixed portfolios. This study proposes a comprehensive and adaptable methodology for the seismic assessment of diverse building stocks—a cross-typology approach encompassing masonry, reinforced concrete (r.c.), precast r.c., and steel structures. The approach integrates deficiency-based qualitative evaluations with simplified mechanical models tailored for each building class. Where validated methodologies were unavailable, new assessment tools were developed. The proposed framework was applied to an industrial-oriented building stock comprising 79 structural units at regional scale, demonstrating its capability to identify priority structures for retrofitting interventions. By overcoming the constraints of typology- or asset-specific approaches, this methodology enables a more comprehensive and scalable assessment. This ultimately contributes to effective risk mitigation planning and seismic resilience enhancing. Full article

Timber and other biobased materials store carbon that has been captured from the atmosphere during photosynthesis and plant growth. The estimation of these biogenic carbon stocks in the harvested wood products (HWP) pool has received increasing attention since its inclusion in greenhouse gas reporting by the IPCC. It is of particular interest for long service life products such as timber in buildings; however, some aspects require further thought—in particular the handling of service lives as opposed to half-lives. The most commonly used model for calculating changes in the HWP pool uses first order decay based on half-lives. However other approaches are based on average service lives and estimates of residence times in the product pool, enabling different mathematical functions to be used. This paper considers the evolution of the two concepts and draws together data from a wide range of sources to consider service life estimation, which can be either related to design life or practical observations such as local environmental conditions, decay risk or consumer behaviour. As an increasing number of methods emerge for calculating HWP pool dynamics, it is timely to consider how these numerical inputs from disparate sources vary in their assumptions, calculation types, accuracy and results. Two groups are considered: half-lives for first order decay models, and service life and residence time population distributions within models based on other functions. A selection of examples are drawn from the literature to highlight emerging trends and discuss numerical constraints, data availability and areas for further study. The review indicated that issues exist with inconsistent use of nomenclature for half-life, average service life and peak flow from the pool. To ensure better sharing of data between studies, greater clarity in reporting function types used is required. Full article

The urgent need for affordable and scalable building retrofit solutions has intensified due to stringent clean energy targets. Traditional building energy audits, which are essential in assessing energy performance, are often time-consuming and costly because of the extensive field analysis required. There has been a gradual shift towards the public use of drones, which present opportunities for effective remote procedures that could disrupt a variety of built environment disciplines. Drone-based approaches to data collection offer a great opportunity for the analysis and inspection of existing building stocks, enabling architects, engineers, energy auditors, and owners to document building performance, visualize heat transfer using infrared thermography, and create digital models using 3D photogrammetry. This study provides a review of the potential of a drone-based approach to integrated building envelope assessment, aiming to streamline the process. By evaluating various scanning techniques and their integration with drones, this research explores how drones can enhance data collection for defect identification, as well as digital model creation. A proposed drone-based workflow is tested through a case study in Syracuse, New York, demonstrating its feasibility and effectiveness in creating 3D models and conducting energy simulations. The study also discusses various challenges associated with drone-based approaches, including data accuracy, environmental conditions, operator training, and regulatory compliance, offering practical solutions and highlighting areas for further research. A discussion of the findings underscores the potential of drone technology to revolutionize building inspections, making them more efficient, accurate, and scalable, thus supporting the development of sustainable and energy-efficient buildings. Full article

The present research aims to assess, from both ecological and economic perspectives, a strategic solution applied to the building sector that can contribute to mitigating the planetary tragedy of the overconsumption of global fossil energy (coal, oil, and gas) and, thus, climate change, along with its dramatic negative impacts on the planet, humanity, and the world’s economy. Buildings are the largest consumers of fossil fuel energy, significantly contributing to Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and, consequently, to climate change. Reducing their environmental impact is therefore crucial for achieving global sustainability goals. Existing buildings, mostly the historical ones, represent a significant part of the global building stocks, which, for the most part, consist of buildings built more than 70 years ago, which are aged, in a state of deterioration, and in need of intervention. Recovering, renovating, and redeveloping existing and historical buildings could be a formidable instrument for improving the energy quality of the international and national building stocks. When selecting the type of possible interventions to be applied, there are two choices: simple and unsustainable ordinary maintenance versus ecological retrofitting, i.e., a quality increase in the indoor environment and building energy savings using local bio-natural materials. The success of the “Ecological Retrofitting” Strategy strongly relies on its economic and financial sustainability; therefore, the goal of this research is to underline and demonstrate the economic and ecological benefits of the ecological transition at the building level through an integrated valuation applied in a case study, located in Southern Italy. First, in order to demonstrate the ecological benefits of the proposed strategy, the latter was tested through a new energy assessment tool in an updated BIM platform; subsequently, an economic valuation was conducted, clearly demonstrating the cost-effectiveness of the building’s ecological transition. The real-world experiment through the proposed case study achieved important results and reached the goals of the “Ecological Retrofitting” Strategy in existing (but not preserved) liberty-style constructions. First of all, a significant improvement in the buildings’ thermal performance was achieved after some targeted interventions, resulting in energy savings; most importantly, the economic feasibility of the proposed strategy was demonstrated. Full article

The building and construction sector significantly impacts CO₂ emissions and atmospheric pollutants, contributing to climate change. Improving energy efficiency in buildings is essential to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, as outlined in the European Green Deal. This study presents a decision-support tool for energy retrofit interventions in existing residential buildings. The methodological approach begins with the identification and classification of common roof and wall types in the national residential building stock, segmented by construction period, followed by defining optimized, pre-calculated standardized solutions. The performance evaluations of proposed solutions resulted in a matrix designed to guide practitioners in selecting pre-calculated, efficient, and sustainable prefabricated solutions based on energy performance criteria. The tool developed from this matrix enables preliminary energy assessment, offering an overview of potential retrofit interventions. It assists designers in identifying specific cases based on construction period, building type, and climate zone, allowing for the selection of standardized solutions, energy pre-analyses, energy and cost-saving simulations, and access to detailed performance sheets. Unlike other tools requiring extensive input on opaque envelope components and thermo-physical calculations, this tool streamlines the selection process of vertical and roof closures based on construction age and building type. Additionally, the tool estimates potential economic savings and the Net Present Value (NPV) of proposed insulation solutions, identifying available incentives for the intervention. Full article

In the context of global warming, building transformation takes on a dual responsibility to be more energy-efficient and sustainable for climate change mitigation and to be more climate-resilient for occupants’ comfort. The building energy retrofitting is an urgent need due to the large amount of existing building stock. Especially in high-rise and high-density cities under a subtropical climate, like Hong Kong, existing buildings with large glazed façades face the challenges of high energy consumption and overheating risks. An advanced glazing system, namely the vacuum insulating glazing (VIG), shows the potential for effective building envelope retrofitting due to its excellent thermal insulation ability. Yet, its performance for practical applications in the subtropical region has not been investigated. To enhance the energy performance and thermal comfort of existing high-rise buildings, this study proposed a novel retrofitting approach by integrating the VIG into the existing window system as secondary glazing. Field experiments were conducted in a commercial building in Hong Kong to investigate the thermal performance of the VIG retrofit application under real-world conditions. Furthermore, the energy-saving potential and thermal comfort performance of the VIG retrofit were evaluated by building energy simulations. The experimental results indicate that the VIG retrofit can effectively stabilize the fluctuation of the inside glass surface temperature and significantly reduce the heat gain by up to 85.3%. The simulation work shows the significant energy-saving potential of the VIG retrofit in Hong Kong. For the VIG retrofit cases under different scenarios, the energy-saving potential varies from 12.5% to 29.7%. In terms of occupants’ thermal comfort, the VIG retrofit can significantly reduce the overheating risk and improve thermal satisfaction by 9.2%. Due to the thermal comfort improvement, the cooling setpoint could be reset to 1 °C higher without compromising the overall thermal comfort. The average payback period for the VIG application is 5.8 years and 8.6 years for the clear glass retrofit and the coated glass retrofit, respectively. Therefore, the VIG retrofit approach provides a promising solution for building envelope retrofits under subtropical climate conditions. It not only benefits building owners and occupants but also contributes to achieving long-term climate resilience and the carbon neutrality of urban areas. Full article

Labile organic carbon (OC), a dynamic component of soil organic carbon (SOC), is essential for improving soil health, fertility, and crop productivity, particularly when organic and inorganic amendments are combined. However, limited research exists on the best amendment strategies for restoring degraded gleyic solonetz soggy sodic (GSSS) soils in West Africa’s coastal zones. A three-year field study (2017–2019) assessed the effects of various combinations of organic (mature or composted cow dung, with or without biochar) and inorganic inputs on soil organic carbon fractions, total carbon stocks, and the Carbon Management Index (CMI) in GSSS soils of Sege, Ada West District, Ghana. The results showed that organic and inorganic combinations outperformed the sole inorganic NPK treatment and the control, particularly in the topsoil. Composted cow dung with mineral fertilizer (CCfert) was especially effective, significantly increasing labile OC, SOC stock, and CMI by 35.3%, 140.5%, and 26% in the topsoil compared to the control and by 28%, 77.8%, and 4.3% compared to NPK alone. In the subsoil, mature cow dung-based treatments performed better. These findings highlight the potential of integrated organic and inorganic strategies, especially those based on composted manure, to rehabilitate degraded sodic soils, build carbon stocks, and improve soil quality for sustainable agriculture in coastal West Africa. Full article

The growth in the adoption of circular economy principles in the construction industry has given rise to material passports as a critical implementation tool. Given the existing problems of high resource use and high waste generation in the construction industry, there is a pressing need to adopt novel strategies and tools to mitigate the adverse impacts of the built environment. However, research on the application of material passports in the context of construction waste management remains limited. The aim of this paper is to identify the contextual uses, stakeholders, requirements, and challenges in the application of material passports for managing waste generated from building construction and demolition processes through a systematic review approach. Comprehensive searches in Scopus and the Web of Science databases are used to identify relevant papers and reduce the risk of selection bias. Thirty-five (35) papers are identified and included in the review. The identified key contexts of use included buildings and cities as material banks, waste management and trading, and integrated digital technologies. Asset owners, waste management operators, construction and deconstruction teams, technology providers, and regulatory and sustainability teams are identified as key stakeholders. Data requirements related to material, components, building stock data, lifecycle, environmental impact data, and deconstruction and handling data are critical. Moreover, the key infrastructure requirements include modeling and analytical tools, collaborative information exchange systems, sensory tracking tools, and digital and physical storage hubs. However, challenges with data management, costs, process standardization, technology, stakeholder collaboration, market demand, and supply chain logistics still limit the implementation. Therefore, it is recommended that future research be directed towards certification and standardization protocols, automation, artificial intelligence tools, economic viability, market trading, and innovative end-use products. Full article

Municipal decision-makers must define and quantitatively analyze full-renovation scenarios adapted to specific districts and buildings to achieve the European Union (EU) target of saving 60% to 90% of energy by renovating 75% of building stock. However, poor open-data quality presents a tenacious challenge, especially for automatic calculations or decision-making. This study addresses the challenge of enriching Estonian Building Registry (EBR) data by predicting the actual external wall type from existing registry information. To achieve this, both domain expert rules and machine learning models were employed. The study used a training dataset of 416 buildings and a test dataset of 66 buildings. While previous research comparing expert-based and machine learning approaches has been limited and yielded mixed results, our findings demonstrate that both methods perform similarly, improving the initial wall type classification accuracy from 54% to 89%. Full article

The European building sector significantly contributes to the EU’s greenhouse gas reduction goals, with the 2024 Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) aiming to achieve a decarbonised building stock by 2050. By focusing on an existing office building representative of the Italian building stock, this research evaluates various energy efficiency measures and integrates renewable energy systems to transform the building into a Zero-emission Building (ZeB). Moreover, it also utilises future weather data to address the effects of climate change. Results highlight the actions needed for an empirical ZeB transition, offering insights into challenges and key performance indicators across different intervention scenarios. The findings contribute to establishing national ZeB standards, emphasising the importance of the national building renovation plan in compliance with the EPBD recast requirements. Full article

This study evaluates the seismic fragility and code compliance of reinforced concrete buildings in Turkey following the 6 February 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquake. Sixty representative buildings were modeled in SAP2000, consisting of thirty structures designed according to TEC-1975 and thirty according to TEC-1998. These models were subjected to three-dimensional nonlinear time history analyses using ground motions scaled to match the seismic characteristics of the earthquake. Structural performance was assessed by comparing calculated displacement demands with capacity thresholds defined by modern code provisions. The results show that buildings designed under TEC-1998 generally performed better than those constructed according to TEC-1975, particularly in terms of deformation capacity and collapse resistance. Fragility curves and exceedance probabilities were developed to quantify damage likelihoods across different performance levels. When compared with post-earthquake field observations, the analytical models produced lower collapse rates, which may suggest the presence of widespread code noncompliance in the actual building stock. These findings highlight the critical importance of ensuring adherence to seismic design regulations to improve the resilience of existing structures. Full article

Global climate change, driven by increasing carbon emissions, poses a significant challenge to sustainable development, yet regional studies on carbon stock dynamics in rapidly urbanizing coastal areas remain limited. Utilizing the InVEST model and GIS spatial analysis methods, this research examines the spatiotemporal dynamics of carbon stock in the eastern coastal regions of Zhejiang from 2000 to 2020. The primary findings are outlined as follows: (1) Between 2000 and 2020, various land use categories experienced notable shifts, with the plow land area decreasing by 18.12%, the building site area expanding by 143.52%, the woodland area reducing by 0.08%, and the total land transfer area growing by 10.96% over the 20-year timespan. (2) Carbon stocks for the years 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020 were 55.996 × 10⁶ t, 55.550 × 10⁶ t, 55.223 × 10⁶ t, 55.399 × 10⁶ t, and 55.656 × 10⁶ t, respectively, displaying a pattern of initial decline followed by a recovery, with a net reduction of 0.34 × 10⁶ t. The shifts in carbon stock were mainly driven by conversions between land use types, with woodlands serving as the predominant carbon reservoir. (3) Global spatial correlation analysis reveals that carbon stocks across the five periods exhibit a distinct spatial convergence and clustering pattern; local spatial correlation analysis indicates that high-high agglomeration zones account for 4.48% of the study area, predominantly located in the mountainous regions of western Taizhou City, while low-low agglomeration zones range from 12.91% to 11.54% of the total study area, primarily situated in the urban centers of Jiaxing City and Ningbo City, areas characterized by dense populations and extensive building sites. This study provides a solid empirical basis for implementing China’s dual-carbon strategy, supporting the systematic assessment of existing carbon reserves and sink capacities, and promoting the expedited realization of carbon peaking and neutrality goals. Full article