Existing Buildings’ Energy Upgrade: An Economical and Environmentally Sustainable Opportunity

Anna Laura Pisello () and Franco Cotana ()
Additional contact information
Anna Laura Pisello: University of Perugia
Franco Cotana: University of Perugia

A chapter in Corporate Sustainability, 2013, pp 265-280 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Given the huge amount of energy consumption imputable to existing buildings, and the relatively slow buildings’ substitution in both urban and suburban areas all over the world, building energy upgrade, starting from retrofitting procedures, becomes a significant way for optimizing the global potential of energy conservation. The purpose of this contribution is to describe what building energy integrated upgrade could represent in terms of energetic, economical, financial and environmental impact, especially if it involves integrated optimized strategies. Starting from a global assessment of retrofitting practice and its typical operations, we analyze the specific role of these interventions within the global market. We describe the growing attention to this practice considering both the energy main drivers and the typical barriers. Particular attention has been paid to the operations and management practice for building’s performance upgrade. In fact it represents a low-cost profitable strategy for improving building energy performance and indoor comfort conditions, ant it could be even more interesting in this global crisis scenario. Finally a representative case study is described in terms of economic and energetic impact of the upgrading procedures. The Skanska New York City office at Empire State Building prototype points out how the integrated approach could be the protagonist for achieving health, productivity and economic benefits. This contribution looks at how a global approach concerning building energy upgrade could improve existing buildings’ sustainability.

Keywords: Energy Efficiency; Energy Saving; Energy Performance; Building Energy; Payback Time (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:csrchp:978-3-642-37018-2_13

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783642370182

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-37018-2_13

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().